All Last decisions: by place, not points

In All Last, a 1,000-point win can be worth a whole place and a 7,700 can be worth nothing. Points that don't change your place count for nothing on Tenhou and for little on Mahjong Soul. All Last: know your number showed how to find the win you need. Here you put that number to work on the four decisions the last hand brings: riichi or dama (silent tenpai), push or fold, which wait, and which hand to build.

Price every result in places

For you, the hand ends one of three ways: you win, you deal in, or it ends without you, through someone else's win or a draw. Before each decision, ask where each of those leaves you. Not how many points. Which place.

Riichi adds points, so it helps only when the extra points change your place. Folding gives up your win to rule out your deal-in, and leaves the hand to end without you. So a fold pays only when your deal-in costs you a place and the hand ending without you mostly doesn't. And your own win as a non-dealer ends the game, as long as someone finishes with 30,000 or more. The prospect theory post explains why your gut misprices these: from 4th it reaches for the big hand, and from 1st it folds against players who can't pass you.

From 1st: end the game

Any win ends the game with you on top, so the price of your hand stops mattering. Speed is what counts, as it was for a South-round leader: take the call that gives you a yaku and tenpai, and stay dama when the hand already has a yaku.

Don't hand 2nd your riichi stick

Riichi out of habit is the classic leak from 1st. The declaration costs you 1,000, and the stick goes to whoever wins next. Take this board: All Last, no honba, no sticks. You're South with 33,200. West has 30,000, North 21,800, and East, the dealer, 15,000. You're tenpai with a yaku.

West's win	You stay dama	You declare riichi
Ron off you	2,000	Any win
Ron off North or East	3,900	1,300
Tsumo	700/1,300	Any win

Your riichi buys nothing and turns West's three numbers into almost any win. It also costs you wins, since opponents fold against a riichi, and it takes away your fold. Stay dama: it's the placement exception from When to riichi. With no yaku, dama still wins by tsumo (menzen tsumo) but never off a discard, so weigh that against the right-hand column before you declare.

What does your fold protect?

When someone declares, folding protects you from your own deal-in and nothing else. So ask what that deal-in would do, and what their other wins would do.

• No likely deal-in costs you 1st: push. Their win off you ends the game too, with you still on top. A dealer's riichi is the exception: their win costs more and plays on, so count the next hand too.
• Only the deal-in costs you 1st: fold. You remove the one way you lose.
• Their tsumo, or a ron off someone else, passes you as well: folding leaves most of their wins in play, so push a good tenpai.

A deal-in to anyone counts, not only to 2nd: a 5,000 lead over 2nd disappears if you pay 4th a mangan.

Below Mahjong Soul's Master rank, the shuhari post has you fold every riichi, and saves narrow pushes like the first drill below for Saint. Treat the Push answers here as the play you're growing into.

From 4th: play only the hands that pass someone

As a non-dealer in 4th, a win that passes nobody ends the game with you still in 4th. In places, it's worth exactly what a deal-in is worth. So start from the number you worked out before your first discard: the smallest win that passes someone, which the All Last calculator prints.

Any win passes. Take the fastest one. Call for tenpai, stay dama when dama does the job, and don't fold: a deal-in usually leaves you where you are. Riichi there only warns the others. In the All Last post, from Tenhou's top room (Houou), a non-dealer in 4th under 1,000 behind climbs out 42.2% of the time, and 57.7% when 3rd is the dealer, because a cheap tsumo bills the dealer double.

You need a mangan. Build the mangan and nothing smaller. Before you declare, price the riichi by ron and by tsumo, with and without one ura dora. A riichi one han short is worth declaring: the same post has it getting there about four times in ten, through ura, ippatsu, or a direct hit. A riichi that passes nobody even with ura is a mistake. It locks a hand that still has to grow: stay quiet and build toward the dora, a red five, or another yaku.

A narrower wait can be the better one. Choosing your wait put tile count first. In All Last, count only the tiles that pass someone. A wait with eight tiles that need luck to pass anyone loses to a wait with four that don't.

From 2nd and 3rd: look up and down

In the middle you watch two players: the one you can pass and the one who can pass you. Your own win as a non-dealer is the safest result: it leaves you at least where you started.

A thin lead over 4th isn't safe.

Gap to 4th	Neither of you deals	You're the dealer
Under 1,000	35.5%	50.8%
2,000 to 2,900	27.7%	33.8%
4,000 to 4,900	18.0%	20.3%
8,000 to 8,900	9.5%	10.9%

With under 1,000 of cushion you finish 4th about one time in three. As the dealer it's about half, most likely because your win or a tenpai draw keeps you dealing and gives 4th another hand. The All Last 4th-place odds cover every gap and seat.

So when a riichi comes from above, look below before you fold: folding leaves the player below you free. My rule of thumb: if an ordinary win by them passes you, push a two-sided tenpai, which wins about three times as often as it deals in. If they need a big hand to pass you and only your deal-in can drop you, fold, the way 1st does.

From 2nd, the check also runs upward. My rule of thumb: when dama passes 1st on only some of your wins and riichi passes on all of them, declare, because the extra points are a place. Hold back when the stick and the lost fold would put the player below within an ordinary win of you.

Takeaways