Oops! I've actually made quite a bit of un-progress, in just about every area. The last few months have not been kind to me. I continued playing anyways, because I figured that eventually things would average out and I'd start winning hands again. Unfortunately, that never happened. Recently I've realized that just about every time I play a ranked game on Tenhou, I end up feeling shitty afterwards. I spend about 30-50 minutes attempting to form any kind of hand; open or closed, wide or narrow waits, riichi or damaten, keeping as many paths open as I can, but I can't pull it together. After all the effort and brainpower I put into the game, I end up with nothing but a lot of frustration and no payoff. I'm good at seeing all the potential places my hand can go, but mostly I end up seeing another player win, or a drawn round while I'm still noten.
I don't want to make an endlessly long whiny post about how nothing ever goes my way, so I won't. Instead, I'm just going to say that I've played every game to the end, without giving in to despair, always keeping in mind that every hand I play can potentially raise my rank or bring me to the winner's seat. I've tried to play as efficiently and as cleanly as I can, but I simply can't win hands anymore. I'm not going to blame luck or Tenhou rigging or whatever for this. Nothing like that exists in this game. There's just something important that I'm lacking as a player, something that I can't seem to grasp no matter how many games I play or how much time I spend reviewing my matches.
I've spent the last few months failing to win and asking myself afterwards "what is it that I'm doing wrong? What could I have possibly done here that would have changed the outcome of this game? How can I see these seemingly unknowable results from my actions?" Unfortunately, I have no answer. The only thing I've come up with is that playing this game for keeps isn't fun anymore. It simply makes me unhappy, every time I play. I'm not going to spend my time doing things that make me unhappy. That's just silly! Mahjong is still a fascinating game to me and I have fun playing with people I know on the internet, but I'm done attaching records and ranks to my moniker. I'm just VgameT from now on. Anything more than that isn't worth the stress.
This'll probably be the last entry I make for this blog. Sorry about suggesting that I'd actually make something of it. I really did have a few ideas for articles last time I posted (stuff like "stop making open kans on bonus tiles when your hand is closed you complete idiots" and "your hand is a fountain of endless possibility, unless you pon the fucking 9p on the first discard of the game") but I'm just not productive enough to do anything like that. I think I said something about videos when I first started the blog, though. Nothing fancy here, but I did do a couple livestreams when I was pushing hard to hit 3dan (in the first video, I actually hit 790/800 points for a little while! What a pity.) When I was streaming these I had dudes (or more often than not, a single dude) saying things to me on IRC, so I spend a fair amount of time responding to them. This probably makes the things I'm saying seem confusing, but them's the breaks! If you want to listen to me cuss a whole lot, get pretty tired, and lose a lot of games, feel free to watch these, I guess.
3dan Quest: Session 1
3dan Quest: Session 2
3dan Quest: Session 3
Unfortunately that's the end of 3dan quest. Of course, that's the end of 4dan R1800+ quest as well, not that I was ever within reach of that to begin with. In fact, this post marks the end of 辞世テンプレート altogether. I deleted the textfile with my Tenhou IDs and logged in as a guest, so that account will never see another game. Pretty disappointing end for this thing I started, but that's the way it goes. If you've read anything I've posted here, thank you, and I'm sorry! Maybe we can play a game sometime. I'll still be around, but I'll just be VgameT, some guy who ended up not being nearly as good as he thought he was. And honestly, I'm pretty okay with that.
