>>535981274
Pon locks you into merely kuitan dora early on, and you have to drop a dora. But any win as the dealer matters, because you're already considering placement from East 1 (south sanma is similar to east yonma in this regard). It's common for at least one player to reach tenpai before the first row is over, so there's much less reason to skip calls in sanma just for a chance to riichi.
I would have called 2p unquestionably in the past, but this video by a sanma celestial made me question a lot of my calling decisions (https://youtu.be/T4PABw1eXs0?si=binP0J7mhMEFuRhN). It's already been discussed on /mjg/ that speed is most important, but there's a bit of flexibility to holding back when it comes to cheap/slow hands.
SANMAKA agrees, the weightage is also extremely close.