Situational analysis
When performing situational analysis, a player accounts for important game conditions, namely the game round and the current scores.
In riichi mahjong, your final placement (1st/2nd/etc.) is often important. Due to the oka and uma systems, you can gain huge bonuses or penalties when changing place. In competitive environments, your placement can be important for gaining rating points. Therefore, players should act differently the conditions change. For example, a player with a huge lead may not want to riichi, but a player far behind may be desperate to riichi.
Hand values
Players should know the potential hand values in order to accurately access a point difference. Knowing the score table is important when determining when to riichi and when to open the hand. For instance, if it is the last round, there is no need to riichi if you are 2000 points behind 1st place with a 2 han hand.
Relative goals
Especially in the last hand, players may need to address the different goals of the other players. Players in last generally have a win-at-all-cost mentality. Players in either second or third may seek to improvement their placement. Point leaders may simply want the game to end and/or protect their position. The point differences between players indicate any sort of possibility for these scenarios.
Fourth Place Avoidance
In the online clients tenhou.net and Majsoul, there is a huge penalty for 4th place for players at a high rank.
- Tenhou.net: If a 6-dan player plays, they get 75/30/0/-120 points for placing 1st through 4th, respectively.
- Majsoul: If a Saint 1 player plays in Jade Room, they get 125/60/-5/-255 rank points for placing 1st through 4th, respectively (counting uma).
Say you are playing at Majsoul. If you currently 3rd and doing something has a 50% chance to be 2nd, but a 50% chance to be 4th, don't do it. If it succeeds, you'd only get 65 points, but if it fails you lose a significant -255 points. Even if you had a 50% for 2nd / 25% to be 4th, it is an unwise decision.
It is important to restate that an extreme level of 4th place avoidance only applies when you are at a high rank. At lower levels, it is best to improve on average placement (including fundamentals like tile efficiency and defense) rather than focus on avoiding 4th specifically. At these high ranks, do what you can to avoid being last - try not to take risks late in the game, even if there is no immediate threat of being 4th.
These online clients have big penalties to encourage players in 4th to not leave the game. In most real life areas of play, the point distribution is more even (they tend to favor 1st place, due to the oka system). Of course, no matter where you play: if you are currently in 4th place, you should obviously do what you can to escape.
Also, note that once you reach Celestial in Majsoul, there is no more special 4th place penalty. At Celestial, the point rating becomes 0.5/0.2/-0.2/-0.5, so there is no special need to avoid fourth.