Hey there! Hope you had a good weekend. Here I am, one week out from a long holiday to celebrate my 3rd anniversary with my lovely wife. I love you honey : )

I spent most of the morning watching youtube videos and chilling with her. A mahjong fanatic, of course, always strays toward mahjong. So while we were engaged in conversation over what we were watching, i won my 12th tournament in Riichi City. It was just a coin tournament so of course, the spoils are pretty cheap, 60% ROI on the miniscule coin entry fee and 2 TP, the redemption currency for the game mode.

After our days kind of started, she started working on her miniature set (check the bsky for pics when she debuts this weekend!), and I came to really kinda type out how i feel like the tournament feature in Riichi City is really unfortunately named. Like, I don't know if I would change it, but I think the word "Tournaments" connotates a level of required seriousness that just simply ain't needed. So I wanted to talk about what I, a guy that is a mahjong fanatic and really enjoys the game, thinks about a mode that I don't know a lot of the mainstream english mahjong audience have dabbled a ton in.

Now, a caveat, when I'm talking about the Riichi City tournament feature, I am NOT talking about the "Grand Prix" scheduled events. These fire in an eastern hemisphere time schedule. I certainly hope that in the future, that Grand Prix (and other timed events in all mahjong games) will add timezones that allow the western hemisphere to participate. With proper explanation and promotion, I think there are plenty of us in the West that would respond really positively with a conscious effort to cultivate "appointment style" play that is very popular in Japan like in Mahjong Fight Club or Marujan.

The Casual Match Paradox

Mahjong of course, is a game that has a reputation for being a difficult game to learn. And I guess, deservedly so. I still think there's further codes to crack regarding simplifying or streamlining the way we teach the game, but we also do pretty good with the resources that we have (please lets figure out the way to make translating mahjong books a profitable enough endeavor that someone takes it up). But when people play mahjong, especially here in the west, I think we're kinda locked into playing 100% mahjong. I think many of us here actually don't have access to tiles, so we can't really play solitare, or think about the game actually "on the table". We are locked into playing the game fullbore. When you think about a casual match in these apps, it still requires about the same amount of attention. You may be playing free from the pressure of losing ranking, but you still have to play essentially the same game. In order to win your casual game, you still have to be aware of opponents discards, decide to push or fold, etc. If you don't play with awareness of that, you'll be picked off just like in a ranked match. The stakes of a casual match are minimal, but the amount of effort required is pretty similar to a ranked match. Can we get more casual than that? In my opinion, the Riichi City app can take it even more casual! 

How Do Riichi City Daily Tournaments Work

Look for that green button on the home screen, then pick the Daily tab.

Riichi City daily tournaments function as a sort of asynchronus efficiency focused multiplayer mode, with a special single hand format. If you win the hand you move on, simple as that. In 4P mode, a second person also advances, mostly based on how close you are to East. 
This sounds weird! That doesn't sound casual! That doesn't sound easy!

Well, let me condense it down real easy for ya.

In Riichi City daily tournaments, the ABSOLUTE, ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS SPEED. 

You don't have to worry about push or fold: if you fold, you've lost.
You don't have to worry about defense, if you don't win, you lose.
You don't have to worry about dora, your winning hand with no dora is the same value as one with 14 dora. 

The only things you have to worry about is tile efficiency, furiten, and making at least 1 yaku. In tournament mode, you win if you call a tanyao nomi hand the EXACT same as if you hit your Tenhou Suuankou Tsuuisou Daisangen (so try not to burn off that kind of flow in these modes if you can help it, lol). The time commitment is as low as it gets, and you can take a break in between advancements. If you need to stop playing, even in the middle of your session, the amount that you will disrupt your fellow jongers is minimalized. Therefore, once you have an idea of how you play mahjong your way, absent of what-would-you-cut style forks in your hand's development, playing this game mode requires a bare minimum of attention investment. Many times, I want to play mahjong but i don't want sweat too hard over my decisions. Playing mahjong in this way turns the game almost into a fidget spinner or rubix cube. It's something you can kind of do with auxiliary attention, while you're focused on something or someone else, or focused on your interior thoughts. It's almost meditative! I think it may be a space for newer players to develop their tile efficiency with low stakes. Many new players are not gonna be thinking about folding, or defense, or doras. They're gonna be thinking about how to make the game say they win, which is the goal of Daily Tournaments. It is great when I want to think about mahjong but i don't necessarily have the time or mental energy that I want to devote to playing a full game where I have to think about what my opponents are doing.

But Adam, who has time to do this? I don't want to waste my time playing for no advancement! Well, if you want, you can also follow the path of the Hardcore Casual and play for more lucrative stakes.

Selecting Event Difficulty via Entry Fee

In Riichi City, all the apps' non ranked play modes have 2 types of entry fee, though I imagine they queue in the same line. You can play for coins (the standard currency of Riichi City, earned in game by completing daily missions and from winning Ranked matches; used to buy things from the coin store and pay for Ranked matches) OR you can pay Vouchers (the premium currency of Riichi City, paid for in real money to spin the gacha). Paying with vouchers lets you win Lucky Tokens (free spins) instead of just a negligible amount of ingame currency. This is essentially the opposite of your 'casual match' where instead of moderate attention required for no stakes, you need minimal attention and you essentially are playing with premium currency. This may sound dangerous to you, and if you think it does PLEASE DO NOT DO IT. Riichi City is incredibly generous with their free spins. You can get 2 every week if you log in 5 different days and play 7 ranked matches, and can get an extra every month. that amount is outside any special events that may be running at the time. If you end up fully customized with the character, tile back, win animation, and tablecloth you want, you may find that it's actually easy to stockpile Lucky Tokens while you wait for the next thing that you evaluate as worthwhile to get. In addition, I pay for the "monthly mascot" which works similarly to Mahjong Soul and Sega MJ in which i pay a small amount to get a large amount of premium currency over time. In Riichi City, the Monthly Mascot makes collecting your daily mission rewards easier, as well as gives you an extra edge in the new M League Season length event based on Riichi City's Furinkazan sponsorship. 

In this manner, i've really found that it's easier to evaluate your premium currency as worth spending on event entry fees instead of paying to spin the roulette wheel. What is the more fruitless gamble, spending pennies to try and win dimes, or spending 10s or 20s of dollars to try and court a 2d date that might just stand you up even when you pay the money? If I'm ever truly desperate for a beautiful woman to look my way, I'll just steal a glance from my loving wife, who will always return my smile if I haven't upset her in the last hour. Just smitten with you Alexis <3. 

I hope that I've at least motivated you to try out Riichi City's tournaments and pay the coin entry fee if nothing else. It's a unique way to enjoy mahjong without thinking about it too much. Riichi City is my current favorite app to play on, and I think many who may have dismissed it out of pocket should give it a second look, or play it as their primary client if they have not already invested a lot of time or money into their current favorite. To me, a nice metaphor is that if Mahjong Soul is the Super Nintendo, then Riichi City is the Sega Genesis. One may have the mainstream shine and success, but there's an esoterically cooler aspect to the other, one that feels much more focused and with a flavor and style that just cannot be replicated. Hope yall will join me there 😎

And like both of those consoles, they were both successful for their respective developers, growing stronger and more popular than ever, expanding in farther and new ways. More mahjong means everyone wins!