We're between pairs here, either 9s or 4s. There are equally distant chances of either 234 or 789 sanshoku here if four more necessary tiles come in. I'm not exactly expecting this to come in-- the standard pinfu form is much more likely-- but I want to leave the possibility open. I can cut 9s hoping for 789 sanshoku with 4s as pair, or I can cut 4s hoping for 234 sanshoku with 9s as pair. Not knowing the table situation I would throw out 9s here. 4s is too potentially useful to me and to the other players. Throwing it out-- especially if I throw two out-- looks conspicuous to the other players and could be dangerous.

Hoping for a pinfu shape, we don't need two pairs, so let's discard from one of those. It's a distant hope at this point, but this hand could turn into a 234 sanshoku if the right tiles came. Therefore, I'd discard 2s to leave that possibility open while still progressing the hand. Afterwards, if I drew 3p it's time to forget about sanshoku and reach. On the other hand, if I draw 3s or 4s, I'll get rid of the 67m group and aim for sanshoku.

I'm seeing three main possibilities for the outcome of this hand. 1) Throw out 78p hoping to catch a pon on West and rush through the hand with that strong 147s wait. You can pon North after West to set up a 36s wait. If another dora (3s) comes to you, you can make use of it by getting rid of 2s for a wait on 3s and north. With three dora you could have a mangan. After thinking it over, this is my choice. 2) Throw out West, aiming for a pinfu dora 1. Good range, but the hand can't get any bigger and you can't make use of the dora if it comes. 3) Throw out North. The problem is that if you're presumably aiming to draw West (or you'd keep North instead) getting a set of West will make it really hard to settle on a pair for this hand. If you get West, 2356s and 78p can all become pairs here with good waits. If you don't get a set of West you have a pretty bad hand. Pinfu dora1 is usually pretty good, but if we pursue pinfu with this hand we cut off our ability to do anything with the dora if it comes. The situation at the table is tight and we're still hungry for points. In this situation I'd go for 1), the fast approach, particularly because we have 3000 on the table for the taking.