China’s Wonderful Dragon Team Leaping to the Second Place at the GMCL AO Preliminary Session4
Before the game in the AO Preliminary kicked off, the commentary team specified the greatest highlight in the session: two Japanese teams which were close in their scores were in the same group. In the first hand at the beginning, Shimizu Yutaka (ID: Nanyegucha) and Oda Koichi (ID: kokoko321) from JMSA won 23 points and 22 points in pure straight and 13 IMPs in the team’s total score in the end, kicking off by showing an edge. JKMA & OMU got -4 IMPs in the first hand. Till the 10th hand, there was a smaller score difference between the two teams. Later, JKMA & OMU made better performance, except for the 14th hand in which it made mistakes. In contrast, JMSA frequently made mistakes and got positive points in only two hands, losing chances for overtaking JKMA & OMU by -34 IMP.
Fangzhuang Club has firmly occupied its top position so far and its IMPs at present are 149. Shuimu Community Team encountered a reversion of China’s Wonderful Dragon Team for the first time after it had ranked in the second place in three consecutive sessions. Though its hu rate was 31.64%–the highest of all and it was the only team of all whose winning rate was over 30%, its shoot rate was too high. It was beaten by China’s Wonderful Dragon Team at 135 IMPs: 139 IMPs in team’s total scores. Fangzhuang Club was almost caught up by Shuimu Community Team in score after the first three sessions concluded. Two teams were in a difference of just 5 IMPs. After the session concluded, tensions were eased and its difference in team’s total scores between Wonderful Dragon Team in the second place was widened to 10 IMPs. However, overall, three teams from Mainland China were in minor score difference, but they were in larger difference with other teams.
Fangzhuang Club and China’s Wonderful Dragon Team raced each other. At the beginning of the session, team leader Qi Lin (ID: 璧寒) won upper four by self-drawn, Ji Yunzhong (ID: mega呆河马) won pure shifted chows, and Xiao Jilin (ID: 我叫叶荣添) won mixed triple chow. China’s Wonderful Dragon Team took a great edge of 15 IMPs in the first hand. However, it lost in the following six consecutive hands, falling behind Fangzhuang Club by 18 IMPs in team’s total scores. In the following six hands, two teams were not in larger score difference. Dramatic change happened to their scores in the 14th hand. Two players from Fangzhuang Club made mistakes in judgment in shoot and China’s Wonderful Dragon Team won seven pairs by self-drawn. Wonderful Dragon Team came back by 22 IMPs in just one hand with Fangzhuang Club. Ultimately, China’s Wonderful Dragon Team got 37 IMPs and Fangzhuang Club got 29 IMPs in team’s total scores in the 4th session.
The AO Semi-final is expected to start following two sessions and only the top 4 teams are allowed to take part in the semi-final. In view of current game development, there will be more chances for three teams from Mainland China to take part in the semi-final if only they do not make gross mistakes and theoretically, there will be chances for those to be ranked top 4-8. Two powerful Japanese teams battled in the same group in the session. Compared with their accumulated scores in the previous sessions, JMSA slightly lagged behind. In terms of defense, though two Japanese teams were rigorous in defense, their shoot rate was 12.89% higher than of China’s Wonderful Dragon Team. They failed to proceed with their previous absolute edge. There was no chance for Chinese Taipei, Singapore and Australia teams to overtake several teams ahead of them unless they outdid themselves.
After the 4th session concluded, there was a great change in players’ personal IMP ranking. Since their personal IMPs were ranked in accumulation, how many sessions they played counted in the rankings. Currently, three players from Fangzhuang Club were ranked in the top ten in personal IMP in accumulation, both China’s Wonderful Dragon Team and Shuimu Community Team had two players on the rankings, Singapore, Chinese Taipei and JKMA & OMU teams had one player on the rankings. At present, Lyu Dong (ID: atubo_beep) from Shuimu Community Team is on top of rankings, followed by Gao Jun (ID: xihumj), leader of Shuimu Community Team awarded with two MVPs and Xiao Jilin (ID: 我叫叶荣添) from China’s Wonderful Dragon Team.
While sharing players’ playing styles and skills, Lin Guoping (ID: 偏二甲肼) from China’s Wonderful Dragon Team mentioned that Japanese players were in a conservative-prone style while playing MCR perhaps because they were influenced by concept of defense in Riichi mahjong. Thus, their performance was not very good. Besides, players from Mainland China they kept not preventing too early chow or pong while playing mahjong with players from Mainland China for this way they might make it easy to disclose information in their tiles to their opponents.
Only two games are left in GMCL AO Preliminary. Will the top four teams be capable of maintaining their edge in sprint? Will teams lagging behind be able to make vigorous efforts to turn the situation and take part in the semi-final? Please keep following our games at zhangyu TV live access: (http://www.zhangyu.tv/1735548) at 19:30 every Wednesday night.