Play for placement, not points

The same two-sided 3,900 can be a riichi in South 1 and a dama (silent tenpai) in South 3. A live tile can be a push from 4th and a fold from 1st. The scoreboard changes correct play long before All Last, and two numbers decide how: the gap above you and the gap below.

Ranked play pays for places

How a game works showed the two ladders this course aims at. Tenhou counts your place and nothing else. Mahjong Soul counts your place, then adds or takes 1 rank point for every 1,000 points you finish above or below 25,000. Its place points add a room bonus for 1st and 2nd, an uma (placement bonus) of +15, +5, −5, and −15, and a 4th-place penalty that grows with your rank.

Step	Tenhou, 4 dan, Tokujou	Mahjong Soul, Expert 1, Gold
4th to 3rd	90	90
3rd to 2nd	30	50
2nd to 1st	45	50

Getting out of 4th is the biggest step on both ladders. On Tenhou, turning one 4th into a 3rd (90) is worth more than turning a 3rd into a 1st (75). On Mahjong Soul the two are close, 90 against 100. Points count a little on Mahjong Soul: even a 32,000 yakuman adds only 32 rank points, about a third of the step out of 4th.

The Tenhou rank calculator and the Mahjong Soul rank calculator run your own placement rates through each ladder. Leagues and tournaments that pay mostly for 1st change the right play, as Winning riichi mahjong shows.

Count the gap, not your score

Points move between players, so one hand moves several gaps at once. Pick the rival that matters, usually the player right above or below you, and count how far the gap between you moves. Here it is for two common hands, with you and the rival both non-dealers unless the row says otherwise.

How you win	The gap moves by	3 han 30 fu	Mangan
Ron off another player	The hand	3,900	8,000
Tsumo	The hand plus the rival's share	5,000	10,000
Tsumo, and the rival deals	The hand plus the dealer's share	6,000	12,000
Ron off the rival	Twice the hand	7,800	16,000

A ron off the rival is a direct hit (chokugeki). They lose what you gain, so the gap moves twice. A tsumo adds the rival's share to what you collect: a quarter of the total from a non-dealer, half from the dealer. Every riichi stick on the table goes to the winner, 1,000 each. And someone else's tsumo moves your gap only when one of you deals: another player's mangan tsumo costs the dealer 4,000 and you 2,000.

Every row runs the other way too: when your rival wins, the gap moves against you by the same amounts.

The later the hand, the more the score decides

A lead is worth little early, with so much scoring still to come. The All Last post measures how far a typical score still moves from each hand to the end of the game, in Tenhou's top room (Houou).

Hand	Score still moves by	A 5,000 lead is
East 1	14,650	34% of that
South 1	10,123	49%
South 3	7,078	71%
South 4	4,831	103%

In East 1 a 5,000 lead is a third of what's still to move, near noise. In South 3 it's most of it. So play the East round for points: there the best play for points is almost always the best play for your place. The exception is a player near zero: one deal-in can end the game, so any hand can be the last. From South 1, let the score tip tight decisions. By South 3 it decides most of them, and it can overturn a play that would be clear earlier. Here's one kind of hand under two scoreboards.

Let your place set the hand

Ahead: end hands and guard the gap behind you

Every hand that ends without a big swing is one hand fewer for anyone to catch you. A cheap, fast win is a good result, so the faster option wins the close calls: the call that gives you a yaku and tenpai now, or the dama that already does the job. When the player chasing you deals, ending their deal is worth more than its points, because each of their wins pays 1.5 times as much and gives them another hand.

Your defense tightens around the one player who can pass you. A deal-in to them is a direct hit and moves the gap twice. A deal-in to anyone else moves it once.

The mangan column of the gap table gives a lead to aim for. A tsumo is the biggest swing folding can't stop: fold, and 2nd can't hit you directly, and their ron off anyone else moves the gap only by the hand. So start All Last more than one mangan tsumo clear of 2nd: over 10,000 between two non-dealers, over 12,000 if you deal it, and over 16,000 if 2nd deals it, since a dealer's mangan tsumo is 4,000 all.

Far behind: build hands that close the gap

A 1,000-point win from 15,000 back closes a fifteenth of the gap and spends one of the hands you have left. Behind, value takes the close calls. Keep the hand closed for riichi, keep the dora and red fives, and skip cheap calls. Value here means the routes from Speed or value and Playing the dora: a riichi with two dora gets there more often than a long-shot yaku.

You don't need the whole gap in one hand. Start All Last within one mangan tsumo of the place above: under 10,000 behind a non-dealer, 12,000 if that player deals, and 16,000 if you deal. A cheap win that brings the gap under that line is worth taking. A ragged hand still folds to a riichi.

Close to a place: weigh each result in places

When the next place up or down is a few thousand away, ask what each outcome does to your place. A win that lifts you a place, or protects one, is worth more than its points, and a deal-in that drops you one costs more. When no place is at stake, play it as you would in the East round.

Write your target before South 4

All Last gets two lessons of its own, but the work starts before it's dealt. Write one line: the player you're racing, the gap, and the smallest hand that closes it by ron and by tsumo. All Last: know your number shows the method, and the All Last calculator does the arithmetic. The prospect theory post explains why a target set before the hand beats one felt out during it.