Blog

R Mahjong has powerful mahjong artificial intelligence based on neural networks trained using machine learning. What are the benefits of powerful Mahjong AI? Powerful artificial intelligence allows players to practice mahjong against strong opponents.

When playing mahjong online, the strength of your opponents' game is determined by the strength of your game.But to improve your mahjong game, you need strong opponents. Why is this so? The fact is that in order to play mahjong well, it is not enough to know the rules. It is necessary not only to study the theory of tile efficiency, but also to apply it in practice. It is also necessary to learn the principles of defense, i.e. betaori.

It is not so easy. Mahjong is a difficult game. It can be said that mahjong is a kind of fusion of science and art (theory and practice). Mahjong has a foundation in the form of a strict theory of tile efficiency, but some skills of the game are difficult to formalize and can only be developed through practice. If you play mahjong against weaker opponents, you won’t know how well you have mastered these skills.

Most of the available mahjong apps have frankly weak AI. Such mahjong apps are only suitable for learning the mechanics and rules of mahjong. As a matter of fact, the creators of these mahjong apps do not hide it. The proof of this is that the guides embedded in these apps are actually the rules of a mahjong game. It is probably assumed that after learning the rules, players are ready to play mahjong on online servers. However, players who “master” mahjong in this way will be bitterly disappointed when they try to play against other players on online servers. [1]

Another advantage of the R Mahjong app for beginners is unlimited time to think about moves.¹ On many mahjong servers, too little time is allocated per move. This does not allow novice players to analyze moves directly during the game. Therefore, the opportunity to analyze a move is provided only after the game, by analyzing its recording.

An important advantage of R Mahjong is that the AI always plays consistently. If your ranking while playing mahjong against the AI increases over time, there is good reason to believe that you have become a stronger player.²

R Mahjong has a training mode. Why is this mode needed and what is special about it? In this mode, the player is provided with hints from the Mahjong AI - which tile to discard and whether or not to make announcements (Chi, Pon, Kan, Riichi). Also in this mode you can see your opponents' tiles. Training mode is a powerful way to improve your mahjong skills. In fact, in training mode, you can watch strong AIs play mahjong against each other. At the same time, you can see the tiles of all players. When you watch a match between strong opponents, you begin to see the pattern of the game and understand the meaning of a particular move. It is very interesting to watch how strong opponents play mahjong with each other.

But “training mode” can give you so much more. The training mode allows you to quickly show and hide hints during the game, so you can literally mimic the AI by guessing what moves it will make in certain situations (see the animation below).

In training mode, press the HIDE button to turn off tooltips as you can see in the animation. Then, when it’s your turn, decide which tile you think should be discarded. Now press the SHOW button and the AI will show you which tile to discard in a given situation. Then press the HIDE button again. After that, you can adjust your choices. After discarding the tile, when it is your turn again, you will not see the prompt because you pressed the HIDE button before discarding. Another way to use Training Mode is to always play with hints turned on (with the SHOW button pressed). This approach is suitable for studying the play of your opponents, as well as your “own” AI. By experimenting, you will eventually find the option of using a “training mode” that works best for you.

References

• [1](Tenhou frustration)

¹ Unfortunately, modern mahjong has developed an approach in which one move must be completed in just a few seconds. This makes it impossible to deeply analyze moves during the game. The reason for this situation is probably that mahjong is a game that is largely influenced by chance. So, in one particular game an amateur can beat a professional. This leads to the fact that in order to determine the relative strength of the players, they need to play many games against each other. Therefore, if players think about each move for a long time, such a competition consisting of many games will take too long.

² This statement does not take into account the random nature of mahjong itself as a game. You may just be lucky at this time. However, playing against an opponent of a fixed strength at least eliminates the influence of fluctuations in the opponent’s strength on the outcome of the game.