Flush Trap

Move over unwieldy and imprecise Suji Trap. I want to popularise the Flush Trap!

A glance at this discard pool and you would have to be thinking this is a flush hand.

Take a look at my open calls and you would be feeling pretty confident I was going for a flush… A 6pin call followed by a green dragon call would suggest I was pushing for a flush hand.

However…

I don’t want to get into the ins and outs of atozuke (that’s where I’ve called before having a clear yaku), but as we have the rule, it allows for beautiful situations like this.

I didn’t have nice wait shapes at the start but I did have shapes that would good to call into. When I drew a second green, rather than waste time for the final green dragon to come around, I decided to open my hand up before I’d managed to lock in that yaku.

It’s a risk, of course. However, a calculated one. if I don’t manage to draw or call that final green dragon, I can use the two greens to start folding out if things look a but yucky.

What was a bonus factor in my taking this risk was that my discard pool looked increasingly like a flush hand in a suit that was not my wait. I’m not suggesting that this was a primary consideration at the start, but as my hand started taking shape, I took note of my discard pool and decided that a player would be more likely to discard into it so it was worth pushing forward with my risky dream on the final green.

At no point would I suggest you could design this trap from the start. What I am saying is that you can observe the table situation and use that to inform your strategy. Good luck gave me these draws (and discards) and I made the most out of that.