Mukoubuchi Chapter 9

Chapter 9 of Mukoubuchi is now up! In this chapter, the first part of a 2-chapter battle between the man with nerves of ice and the man called a demon in human form!!

Thanks to Tambur for the typesetting and to penchan for the cleans!

Chapter Link

"How's it feel to be preyed upon for once, Kai?"

Now this is what I think Mukoubuchi is all about; two capable mahjong players going head-to-head for massive sums of money using strategies honed to the other player's style. I honestly think the games in this manga are as good as the ones in Ten or Akagi, only at a much swifter pace and usually compressed down to a few chapters. It also tends to involve lots of strategies that are very applicable to real life; Hikage's tactics are really good to know and are good examples of what to do to better your game.

I really like Hikage. He's calm, calculating, and knows exactly what he's doing. We also see just how incredible he is; he's able to read other players' hands very well and extrapolate from there what tiles are in the wall. The thing he's doing with reading other players' hands based on when they play certain tiles is very accurate. An early 6-pin discard usually means that it was isolated in someone's hand, whereas a late one means it was connected to something and they got rid of it to progress their hand. I use these kinds of reads in my own game and it works for me rather well.

As for Kai, he played pretty low-key for most of the game. The only time that Hikage opened his hand is also the only time Kai won, perhaps because it was easier to read Hikage's hand because of it. Him keeping around the hatsu even after discarding a pair of 9-sou shows that he was wary of Hikage calling on it; if he'd played it sooner then Hikage would have gotten to tenpai and maybe won. It could have easily backfired though; if Hikage was in tenpai waiting on the Hatsu when Kai played it, he would have dealt in with it. Kai must have had a lot of faith in his read of Hikage's hand when he played the Hatsu.

So next chapter, will Kai be able to stage a comeback, and will we hear those famous words, Terribly Sorry? Can Hikage's tight play style be turned against him? And what of the fire??