Grudge Against the White Dragon

I love mahjong.
I can’t quite say, but I’ve been hooked for… six years?
No matter how much I play, I don’t get better…
That person decides on a key tile—using honor tiles.
Every hand they either stack it or squeeze it.
Doesn’t that happen often? If I could just call this honor tile, things would move along so fast…
But holding onto an honor tile you can’t play for ten turns is rough, right?
I forget which hand in the south round it was… with nine pin as the bonus tile.
By the fifth turn, I had a hand ready for all simples and honors. I was waiting on either the center or the white dragon as a single tile, and I chose the white dragon.
Because I’d decided it was my key tile.
After eleven turns I drew an eight pin, giving me all simples and one terminal with a red five—a double hand. I discarded the white dragon.
The dealer called it. I could tell nine times out of ten they had a ready hand.
I bent my hand into a straight instead…
I don’t like straights. It’s because I’m using at least two or three tiles myself at minimum.
My hand at that point was 111 222 566778 8.
I didn’t want to bend it if I could help it, but one tile away I could see four triplets, and I could even see three triplets and a pair. A hand like that…
At minimum a double hand.
Three times or even more—I still remember it: 4,700 points and fourth place, last. (3,700 because I bent it.)
Even if I’d won 8,000 points here, it wouldn’t have mattered… I needed a double win or a double self-draw to have a shot.
A few turns later the dealer drew an eight pin and won 4,000 from everyone.
Of course someone called “Last!” What was so pathetic was that I wasn’t even in the race for second or third before I went bust.
Fourth place went bust—that’s what happened.
It was the worst… I finished in last place feeling deeply sorry.
I should have kept my hand concealed with a point count that could survive 4,000 from everyone.
And then the flip bonus was a one pin—at least a double hand…
It was such a nauseating sequence of events—a total Dempsey roll.