Why did Akagi leave the opportunity to have a better hand in his first game? I have watched just the anime, and even if he didn't know about specific hands, he leaves the chance to gather the bonus tiles and improve his hand, as Nangou remarked.

Am I missing something here? Being the genius that he is, should he not have played better?
Because he needs Nangou to cooperate.



The cops are literally knockin at the door, looking for him and Nangou doesn't seem too happy to go as far as lying to the police. I don't know how he knew they were coming, but I'm guessing they were rather hot on his heels as he was running in the rain. He needs Nangou to give him an alibi, so he forces his hands.

You'll notice that after ignoring the calls, he miraculously has not just Daisangen (big three dragons), but Suu Ankou Tanki (four concealed triplets, single wait) as well. Well, it's not so much a miracle as him ruthelssly cheating by stealing the tiles from the pools when the others were distracted by the cops.

There are a number of ways the way he did this makes it a better plan:


He has a better hand to get the point with.
The hand is concealed, so nobody knows to be careful with their discards.
When (no, it's not even an "if") the yakuza notice that he has chated, the police are still there. They do not want to cause a scene in front of the cops, so they will have to let it go.


And most improtantly:


The hand is ruinable. This is important to get Nangou to cooperate. Had he called the tiles, he couldn't threat to discard them. To keep the insanely valuable hand, Nangou has to cover for him by lying to the cops.


All in all, a nice plan.