Beta League Pool D Summary

As the Beta League passed the midway point with Round 3, Lucas LaPointe continued to extend his lead, scoring another positive round overall - though not as much as his first two rounds. Though, facing two heavyweights in Tian Yunchen and Aldwin Gordula would do that to you, even if you’re running well. And as most don’t really start noticing a no-hitter in baseball until the middle to late innings, one couldn’t help but notice now that there was still a “0” next to his 4th place finishes…

Back to Aldwin, he maintained his relative position by treading water, rough as it was with two top and bottom placements during the session. In fact, everyone at the top maintained their positions there, though shuffling some chairs. The big gainer in that upper group was Seattle Riichi’s Anthony Hsieh thanks to two huge 1st place finishes in games 2 & 3 of the session netting him 100 points. An early dealer tsumo haneman set the tone of Game 3:

Riichi, tsumo, pinfu, ittsu (full straight), dora 1

As the league entered its final stages, there was an increased sense of urgency to bank any points they could, even if it ended up resulting in 4th place finishes instead.

What wasn’t in question though was Lucas LaPointe’s position at the top of the pool. Scoring another +55.7 in Round 4, he essentially had a victory lap in the 5th and final round - barring what would be a historic collapse. That seemed unlikely though as the murmurs continued to grow as that “0” from before was still there…

At his table was Aaron Liao, the other member of the top group looking to secure a place in the A1 League. Despite being at the table with the Pool leader, he managed to post a positive score of his own, thanks in part to the first yakuman in American Riichi Mahjong League history. Not only that, but it came in all-last when almost nothing but a yakuman would do for a daigyakuten (huge comeback) victory over… Lucas LaPointe.

From 32900 down to a 8300 point victory!

The big mover on the round though was Seattle Riichi's Luce Cao, gaining 71.8 points on the session. This despite the fact that she was at a table with heavyweights such as the aforementioned (and clubmate) Anthony, SE Michigan’s Steve Augustin, and Pacific Mahjong League’s Rachel Halperin.

Entering the final round, despite round-robin pairings producing random matchups, the stars seemed to align creating enticing matchups with all to play for.

Well, unless your name was Lucas LaPointe. Not needing any more points, he still put in a 50+ point effort in the final round securing his place the Winter Season championship as the winner of Pool D. Not only that, but his final score of 305.4 was miles ahead of anyone else in any pool and he finished off the perfecto ending with 0 4th-place finishes.

The fight for the other A1 spots to quote the British, really “hotted up”. Going back to Steve, after a flat first couple of rounds, his point graph almost had an exponential turn as in Round 5 he scores 133.8 points thanks to a 3-1-0-0 record kicked off by his opening game where he tsumo’d 5 hands in the hanchan.

As a result, he all but secured the second guaranteed spot in the A1 League leaving one guaranteed spot left.

I personally managed to post 2 large plus scores in the final 2 rounds, including a 45.2 in the final round to tentatively take the 3rd position. I felt especially fortunate as I managed to deal in just twice in the 4 games while securing fairly large hands of my own.

However, I had to sweat it out as the pairing of Anthony, Aaron, Tian and NYC Riichi Nomi head Claire Pozniak had something on the line for everyone. After both Steve’s and my performances, Anthony and Aaron both found themselves fighting for a spot in the A1/A2 playoffs - but if either put in good enough performances they could also have bumped me off of 3rd place. Similarly, clubmates Claire and Tian were competing to stay in the A2/B1 playoffs as for them barring a 100+ point effort, there was only potential downside in falling into the B1 League, or worse.

After 3 games, there was still everything to play for. Anthony and Aaron had put themselves within points of my score which meant that almost any finish in the positives would push them over the top - but that also meant that they were fighting each other in addition to me. Claire had treaded water for the most part but had fallen out of playoff positioning. She too with almost any positive finish would jump back into the playoffs and a potential spot in the A2 League. The only one with a lot of work to do was Tian, but there was still a reasonable chance of making it back with a strong first place finish.

But Claire put everyone behind the proverbial 8-ball, completing a dealer tsumo sanankou honitsu baiman. She did so by rejecting suuankou tenpai - which was actually the right move since pushing for the yakuman meant she would have dealt in. She would be paid off on her very next draw.

Nobody was able to recover from that hand. Tian finished positive, but with Claire’s victory could not make up enough ground to re-enter playoff position. With Claire and Tian finishing 1-2, that meant that Anthony and Aaron finished in the negatives. They still kept their A1/A2 playoff position, but I could finally breathe a sigh of relief as my A1 League position was finally safe.

Claire joined 2021 Team USA IORMC participant Nathaniel Kozinski in the A1/A2 playoffs after putting in a huge positive score in the final round after what was an up-and-down season. She actually bumped (back) off Jake Schnieders (better known online as Crow), who with Nathaniel in the same pairing also posted a huge positive score putting them in contention for that playoff spot.

Elsewhere, PML’s Rachel, after what had to be a frustrating season, put together one final last push in her 20th and final game jumping her into the final guaranteed B1 League spot and avoiding potential free-for-all’s that could result from being relegated to the B2 league.

Finally, Blane Singletary, landed a sankantsu in his 3rd game of the final round - clearing the achievement for the league of obtaining all the non-yakuman yaku in the inaugural season. Despite his disappointing finish overall, he had one of the more notable quotes in the league’s Discord:

I still felt I had more to learn, more mountains to climb. These past couple months have shown me how much more I have to do to summit this one.

Pool D Final Standings