

I have watched just the anime, and even if he didn't know about specific
hands, he leaves the chance to gather the bonus tiles and improve his hand, as
Nangou remarked.

Am I missing something here? Being the genius that he is, should he not have
played better?


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akagi
Why did Akagi leave the opportunity to have a better hand in his first game?


No he was just bored by the lack of competition. Sometimes you need to
understand that true genius needs to be really challenged. Akagi was probably
not even considering the clear implications that this was going to have on his
future as he was likely more concerned with how Nangou's remarks from before
right?


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It is never really mentioned as to why, so this is mostly speculation. It is
very possible Akagi knew or had a gut feeling that the police were closing in,
and took the opportunity to use the police to cheat. He might also still have
been in a "wait and see" mode, sacrificing a victory in return for the
opportunity analyzing the playstyles/patterns of the other players.

As for his genius part, he is the type of genius that cannot be comprehended.
He does not play "calculated" or "digital" mahjong, but knows how to play his
opponents, read the flow of the game, and take hold of pure chance, as you
will see later in the series. Also, the narration mentioned how "normal" his
initial play was, compared to his genius plays in the future, so you can think
of it as him only starting to warm up.

That being said, let me explain mahjong a little more. Those tiles aren't
"bonus" tiles, just plain dragon tiles. While it is an easy way to get a yaku,
stealing a tile also has its demerits, such as the inability to call Reach,
reducing the worth of your hand, exposing part of your hand and being marked
by the other players. Nangou's tendency to go with the easiest hand
illustrates that he is a run-of-the-mill mahjong player, in contrast to Akagi,
who has some sort of game plan going in his mind that normal people could
never imagine. Perhaps Akagi had a feeling that stealing a tile would not lead
to victory. I do think that most normal players would've stolen that first
chun (including me), which means we could never be Akagi.


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**Because he needs Nangou to cooperate.**

[![Nangou ready to abandon
Akagi](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RIJv4.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RIJv4.png)

The cops are literally knockin at the door, looking for him and Nangou doesn't
seem too happy to go as far as lying to the police. I don't know how he knew
they were coming, but I'm guessing they were rather hot on his heels as he was
running in the rain. He needs Nangou to give him an alibi, so he forces his
hands.

You'll notice that after ignoring the calls, he miraculously has not just
_Daisangen (big three dragons)_ , but _Suu Ankou Tanki (four concealed
triplets, single wait)_ as well. Well, it's not so much a miracle as him
ruthelssly cheating by stealing the tiles from the pools when the others were
distracted by the cops.

There are a number of ways the way he did this makes it a better plan:

  * He has a better hand to get the point with.
  * The hand is concealed, so nobody knows to be careful with their discards.
  * When (no, it's not even an "if") the yakuza notice that he has chated, the police are still there. They do not want to cause a scene in front of the cops, so they will _have_ to let it go.

And most improtantly:

  * The hand is _ruinable_. This is important to get Nangou to cooperate. Had he called the tiles, he couldn't threat to discard them. To keep the insanely valuable hand, Nangou has to cover for him by lying to the cops.

All in all, a nice plan.


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