Senba Kurono Wins One of Four Games as Mahjong Soul Team Takes Third at Kafusen Finals

INDEPENDENT — Senba Kurono won one of the four games she played in the Kafusen finals on Sunday, taking a top finish worth roughly 50,000 points, as the Mahjong Soul players’ selection team ended the tournament in third place. The event was run by the Japan Pro Mahjong Association and Mahjong Soul, and the association’s A team took the title.

Senba qualified from a field of more than 900 entrants and sat out the first game of the five-game finals, joining for games two through five. The rules had no red fives, so wins at the top of the table counted for far more than anything else. She finished third in game two, second in game three, first in game four and second in game five.

“I got to enjoy plenty of the hand-building mahjong you only get without red fives today.” — Senba Kurono, closing the stream

Her win came in game four. After a riichi that finished with three dora, she closed the game with a self-drawn win and took the top spot, calling a 50,000-point top “big” for the team. In the last game she built a hand with a terminal-and-honor sequence, a three-color run and dora, which she described as her kind of mahjong, but the top spot went to another player and she finished second.

Chat answered the game-four win with “Nice top!” and cheered the hand-building play of the final game. Senba thanked the teammates who came through the qualifier, said she was grateful for the chance to play against professionals, and said she enjoyed the hand-building that red-five-free rules allow. She is back on stream the next evening at 8 p.m. for a Mahjong Soul collab with a guest from a viewer tournament she ran.