In this easy guide, you’ll learn what the tiles are, how to make a hand, how to call a win, and how to score it.
Official definitions are given as the manual goes on – this is supposed to be a way for someone to learn from zero. Each section has a ‘PRE-ANSWERS’ bit at the end of it that covers questions you probably have. Please read the whole thing, there is a very good chance the question you have is answered.
There are four of each tile in the game.
There are two types of tiles – suits and honors. There are three suits in Mahjong – Man, Pin, and Sou. Each suit has tiles that go from 1 to 9.
Man (rhymes with ‘pawn’) – Man are the ‘characters’ – the chinese characters for the numbers.
|Don’t know your characters? Here’s a guide:|
|1 has 1 line.||4 is a box with 4 sides.||7 is an upside down 7.|
|2 has 2 lines.||5 has a 5 on the right side.||8 is MUSTACHE MOUNTAIN.|
|3 has 3 lines.||6 looks like a person.||9 has its pinky out.|
Pin (rhymes with ‘win’) – Pin are little balls.
Sou (rhymes with ‘crow’) – Sou are bamboo.
Note that the 1 of Bamboo is a peacock, and the 8 has fancy diagonals.
NOTE: The 1s and 9s in suits are called Terminals, because they are on the terminal ends of the suit.
Winds – There are four winds – East, South, West, and North.
|East has a line straight through it.||West has a hat.|
|South is like East, but the line got fat.||North is a fancy N.|
Dragons – There are three dragons, Green, Red, and White.
|Green is a crazy triangle. Also, it is green.|
|Red is a box with a line through it. Also. It is red.|
|White is blank. It is a polar bear in a snowstorm.|
Hey, this isn’t a White Dragon! Some mahjong tiles have a square border – like an empty picture frame – for the White Dragon.
Hands have 13 tiles. You draw a tile (or in some cases take one from someone’s discard), and then discard a tile. Whether that
tile is from your hand, or the one you just drew, is public knowledge.
A completed hand is, with two exceptions, four sets of three tiles each, and one pair. This is 14 tiles, not 13 – this means that
you win in-between taking a tile and discarding it.
A set is either three tiles in the same suit in a row (a sequence or ‘Chi’), or three of the exact same tile (a triplet, or ‘Pon’).
A pair is a pair of the exact same tile. Note that Honors cannot be a sequence – Green/Red/White, for example, is not a set.
Example 1: This hand is waiting on a 5-Pin.
When complete, the sets are 333 Sou, 444 Man, 456 Pin, and 3 Easts. The pair is Red.
Example 2: This hand is waiting on a 4 or 7 Sou.
111 Man, 567 Man, 456 Sou (or 567 Sou), 999 Sou, and a pair of 3 Pin.
Example 3: This hand is waiting on 2 Pin or East.
111 Man, 567 Man, 999 Man, and (222 Pin + a pair of East) or (3 East + a pair of 2 Pin).
Example 4: This hand is waiting on 2,5, or 8 Pin.
111 Man, 567 Man, (234/567 Pin or 345/567 Pin or 345/678 Pin), and a pair of 2 Sou.
Example 11: This hand can be completed by any Pin from 1-9. Figure it out yourself – it’s fun! (this is the ‘Nine Gates’ hand – Chuuren Poto)
Exception 1: Chi Toi Itsu (Seven Pairs). This is seven pairs of tiles, all seven pairs being different from each other (four of a kind is not two pairs). This Seven Pairs is waiting on a single 5 Pin.
Bam. Seven Pairs.
Exception 2: Kokushi Musou (Thirteen Orphans). This is one of each 1 and 9, one of each dragon, one of each wind, and one more of any of those. This hand is waiting on a single West.
Bam. Thirteen Orphans. (and their friend, I guess)
Note: Tenpai (said like “ten pie”) means “I need one more tile and then my hand is completed”. Not being in Tenpai is called Noten (rhymes with “Grow Pen”)
As in, “If I get a 3- or a 6-Man, my hand is complete,” or “If I get a 3-Sou, I’ll have Seven Pairs!” All of the examples above are in Tenpai.
You’ll need to know that for later. (In case you care, “Ii-shan-ten” means “one tile away from Tenpai.” “Yan” (yawn) is two, “San” is three, “Yon” (yohn) is four)
My hand is only ten tiles! Calling tiles takes them out of your hand, which means your hand gets smaller. Your hand can be one tile big.
HOW THE GAME FLOWS
– Randomly determine seats and who is starting dealer. A common way is to pull one of each of the four winds out of the deck, everyone picks one. East sits wherever they want, then everyone else sits down, counterclockwise – South, West, then North. East is the first dealer.
– Flip all the tiles down and shuffle. Think Hungry Hungry Hippos but in reverse – Barfy Barfy Hippos. Take your hands and push the tiles in front of you into the center, one hand, then the other. Everyone else does the same, a bunch, for a while. Tiles flipped up get turned back down. This shuffles the deck. Now, build walls.
– The deck is 136 tiles – four walls, one in front of each player, that are 17 tiles long and 2 tiles high.
– Everyone starts with 30,000 points. This is done with 1 10,000 point stick, 2 5,000s, 9 1000s, and 10 100s. (Starting points varies greatly between games – most people start at 25K, and someone needs to be at 30K or higher at the end of the game or it keeps going until someone is)
– Whoever is Dealer rolls two six-sided dice. That’s the ‘number’. They, starting with themselves, count counterclockwise that number. The player counted to then counts clockwise the number on the deck wall in front of them(two total tiles per number). They break (make a space in) the wall after that number, then count counterclockwise seven, making a ‘dead wall’ of 14 tiles. (if the number rolled is less than seven, that means you’ll have to get tile from the wall to the right).
– Then they count clockwise five tiles on the dead wall, and flip the top one (the flipped tile is a Dora Indicator, more on that later), and then
– The Dealer starts to draw tiles. They draw the first 4 tiles (a 2×2 square) clockwise from after the dead wall. Then, the player to their right (counterclockwise) takes the next 4 tiles (clockwise), and so on, until all players have 12 tiles. Each player (starting with East) then takes 1 tile, and then East draws 1 tile to start the game. East often saves time on the last two steps by just drawing the first and fifth tile instead of drawing one, waiting for everyone, and drawing again.
– The Dealer is East – this is Their Wind. South, West, and North are each player’s Wind around the table. Winds will come up later.
Wow, that was a lot of blah blah. here, a picture:
People draw (East already has, in the first turn), then discard. Repeat, counterclockwise. You discard in a row in front of you (make a new row every 6, 3 rows max), so people know what you discarded.
The game goes until someone wins, or there is a draw (Rocket science, I know).
Win is when someone Rons or Tsumos (more on that later).
Draws are when:
A: The same wind is discarded in the first four discards (one per player),
B: A player has nine or more different terminals and/or honors before their first discard (and they want to show it), or
C: Four players are in Reach at the same time, or
D: Three players Ron at once, or
E: If there are five Kans, or if there are four Kans and two or more different players have called one this game. The game is a tie at the moment the Kan is declared. (more on Kans later)
F: there are no non-dead-wall tiles left to draw and it is time for someone to draw.
If F happens, then people in Tenpai can show their hands (if they want) and get paid by the people who don’t or can’t show:
Everyone who is Noten pools a total of 3000 points amongst them (1500 each if there are 2, 1000 each for 3, or 3000 all from 1 person is they are the only one). Those points are split equally among the people who were in Tenpai.
Every time A: someone doesn’t win or B: the current Dealer wins, you put out a 100-point ‘dealer bonus’ stick (“Renzo”, rhymes with “Benz-oh”). These come into play under Scoring. when someone wins, they go back to the person who put them out (they are just counters, no one actually ‘loses them’).
If someone other than the Dealer wins, or if it goes to Tenpai Payments and the Dealer is Noten, then the Deal passes to the right for the next hand. (this means the player’s winds will change).
The Table (where you play) has a Table Wind. It starts at East. (Example: If the game round is ‘East #’, the wind is East)
There are two lengths of game – East only or East and South (‘han-chan’, rhymes with ‘dawn-dawn’).
If the deal passes around to the person who started the game as Dealer, and it is and East-Only game, the game is over. If it is an East-South game, the Table Wind is now South. (the dealer is still East. Nothing changes other than the Table Wind). When the deal goes around again, the game is over.
Game also ends if someone goes negative, or if on the ‘last hand’ (East 4 / South 4 – called ‘All Last’), the Dealer wins and is in the lead (so they don’t have to repeat).
What are the rounds called? They start at East 1, then it changes as deal passes – East 2, East 3, East 4, South 1, etc. If there are bonus sticks out, those are part of the round name: ‘East 2 Bonus Round 2’.
Words are hard. I don’t get how the deal passes. Think of a game of Mahjong as a game of Super Mario, where the dealer is Bowser. It starts at East 1 (1-1), and if Bowser wins, it stays 1-1. When Bowser loses (because someone else won), it becomes 1-2. East-only games go from 1-1 to 1-4, and E/S go 1-1 to 1-4, then 2-1 to 2-4.
It was ‘All Last’ last hand, but we are still playing! All Last doesn’t mean ‘this is the last hand for sure’, it means ‘if the deal passes and someone is 30K or higher or if the hand ends and the dealer is first place with 30K or higher, the game is over’.
When someone discards a tile, it can be called by another player. Only the most recent discarded tile can be called, and it must be called before the next tile is drawn (if you play with fast players, it is okay to say ‘hey wait’ while you decide to call or not). Doing so opens their hand. The tile called must either complete their hand and/or complete a set in their hand (usually both). Sets completed in this way are open.
When you call a tile, you flip the tiles that go with it open, add their tile to it, put it aside, and then (unless you just won) discard a tile. You cannot discard a tile that would have gone with the set you opened. Those are illegal discards. That means if you have a 56 in your hand, and you call a 4, you can’t pitch a 7, since that would have been 567. Them’s the rules. You can discard that ‘illegal’ tile next turn, but not as the discard that goes with the call.
The calls all have names. Here we go.
TSUMO – “The tile I just drew completes my hand, and I win”. Show your hand. Gloat. Hooray.
RON – “The discarded tile completes my hand, and I win”. Any player can call this. You say this, show your hand, and do a little dance if you wish. Note that if multiple people call Ron, and you are playing with the Head Bump rule (which BvS uses), the player who would have taken their next turn first wins. So, if South discards, and East and North can both win, North actually wins.
PON – “The discarded tile completes a set of three, two of which are in my hand”. Any player can call this. You say this, flip down the two other tiles that go with it, set all three tiles to your side, and then discard. The player after you then goes – yes, someone can have their turn skipped by this. You turn the tile that you took sideways, and ‘point’ it at the player you took it from – this means you place it first if you took it from the player to your left, in the middle if you took it from the player across from you, or to the right if you took it from the player to your right.
KAN – “The discarded tile completes a set of four, at least three of which are concealed in my hand”. Any player can call this. You say this, flip down the three other tiles that go with it, set all four tiles to the side (like a Pon), draw a bonus tile from the four that are on the clockwise side of the first dora indicator (since otherwise you’ll be down a tile – you just lost four tiles to make one set), flip a new dora clockwise from the most recetly-flipped dora indicator (stay tuned, I’ll get to that in a second), and then discard. The player after you then goes. Note that Kans count as Pons(sets) for all purposes – they are like “bonus Pons”).
Special Kan types:
|OPEN SELF-KAN – You can also draw a tile that turns one of your completed Pon into a Kan – you place it sideways above the sideways tile in the Pon, then draw the bonus tile etc. Note that another player, at the moment you place that tile, another player may Ron off of your tile. This is called ‘Robbing the Kan’, and it either sucks or is awesome, depending on if you are the person who Kanned or the person who Ronned.
CONCEALED SELF-KAN – If you draw the tile that completes your own Kan (you have all four of that tile concealed), you call ‘Kan’ and handle it like normal – but you flip the outside tiles of it back closed to show that it still count as ‘closed’. This type of Kan cannot be robbed, except to complete the Thirteen Orphans special hand. That really, really sucks if you deal into it – or rocks, if it is dealt into you. Whichever.
CHI – “That tile completes a sequence of three”. Only the player whose turn is immediately next can call this (it means you can only get it from Left). Take, open, discard. Note that when you ‘point’ the tile, it might make the sequence out of order – that is okay.
I want to Ron, but it doesn’t make a set, it just completes the pair! It’s cool. Ron means you win – it could be to make your pair, finish your Kokushi Muso, whatever. This means that Seven Pairs and Kokushi are always fully closed until you win – you can’t ‘Pon’ a pair, or just some tile for the lulz.
I have a Pon of something out, and someone discards the fourth. I wants it! Too bad. You have to draw the fourth one yourself – then it counts as ‘having three of them come from your hand’.
I have four tiles left, and want to Chi that, and it won’t let me! That’s because the only tiles you’d have left are illegal discards, like 5677 and they play a 4.
I want to Ron / call Tsumo, and it won’t let me! Here we go. Read the next section.
It said I was out of tiles! Each Kan also makes the deck one less tile big – so if there are three Kans, then the fourth last tile in the deck is the last tile (the last three are out).
ACTUALLY WINNING (YAKU)
(11’s note: READ THIS PART. If you are having a problem, this probably covers it.)
Completing your hand is not enough to Tsumo or Ron. You also need at least one Yaku*.
*two, if there are five or more bonus sticks out. Oh snap!
Yaku are cool things about your hand. Yaku in your hand have a ‘Han’ (sounds like Han Solo) value, and every Han in your hand pretty much doubles the points you get from that hand. This is Hard Part #1 of The Hard Stuff About Mahjong. Your hand needs to fit one or more of the Yaku descriptions,
or you cannot call Ron or Tsumo. If you are playing the Gamedesign Mahjong game linked at the bottom, and you get a ‘no multiplier’ error, THIS IS IT. Now, check it out – these are hard to memorize, and memorizing sucks. So, this is being done in two parts:
The Quick List, which are all the things that give Yaku without going into detail, and The Real Deal, which is Everything, and how much it is worth.
The Quick List
(Remember that these also need to be complete hands – that means four groups and a pair for the most part)
– Closed hand in Reach,
– Pon of Dragons, your Wind, and/or the Table Wind (this is all called ‘Yakuhai’),
– No sequences (all Pon/Kans + a pair),
– Zero tiles from two of the three suits (so one suit or one suit + honors),
– Only tiles from 2-8 (this also means no honors),
– 123-456-789 (all same suit),
– The same group in each suit (like 123M/123P/123S or 555M/555P/555S),
– Seven Pairs,
– Thirteen Orphans,
– Every group and your pair has at least one terminal or honor,
– 3+ Pons concealed (including the one you win on – Tsumo is concealed, Ron is not),
– Closed hand and you Tsumo.
Got one of those? Go for it. The ones in bold make up 95% of hands. Now, they may have more things in them, but when a hand wins, it almost always has at least one of those, particularly Reach.
Reach is the bomb. Any hand can Reach. Reach is the easy Yaku – you can always get it. Reach is short for:
“My hand is completely closed and I am in Tenpai. I’m taking a thousand points and tossing it in the center for whoever wins,
and I’m not touching my hand again until either I draw the tile I win, or one of you fools discards it.”
So, keep building your hand until you only need one tile to win. Take a 1000-point stick, toss it in, and say ‘Reach’ like a boss. You can’t reach if you don’t have at least 1000 points, or if you can’t draw again (there’s only 3 tiles left or something).
Now, when you draw a tile, you have to discard that exact tile unless you win on it*.
*You may make a concealed Kan that uses a tile you just drew, as long as you couldn’t have won on it.
Reach is also extra awesome, because of that sweet, sweet Uradora, the dark side of Dora.
See that flipped-up tile? The tile that is the Dora Indicator. The tile that is one higher than it is Dora. It gives any hand +1 Han for each tile. (Han are Yaku that don’t count towards that ‘you need a Yaku to win’ thing). So if it is, say, 4-Pin, then each 5-Pin is worth 1 Han.
9-suit wraps around to 1-suit (so 9-Man > 1-Man),
Dragons go G>R>W>G and so on (‘Great Robot Wars’), and
Winds go in player order (N>E>S>W>N).
Each flipped up tile counts all by itself, so if there are, say, 3 Easts flipped up, Each South in your hand is worth 3 Han.
(NOTE: The INDICATOR is NOT THE DORA. Dora are ONE HIGHER THAN THE INDICATOR. So the mouseover list you get is NOT a listing of the INDICATORS, it is a listing of the ACTUAL DORA. Please don’t BR saying that the list is wrong. It isn’t a list of the Indicators. It is a list of the DORA that those Indicators POINT TO.)
If you win by Reach, you also flip up each tile under the flipped-up tiles and use those as dora indicators too – those are Uradora.
The Real Deal
(This list is all the Yaku that don’t have more complicated, higher-pointsed versions. For example, if you get Chanta, but without Honors, it is called Junchan Taiyai, and worth an extra yaku. Check the Sheet at the end
REACH. 1 Han. Reach is the easiest Yaku you can get. To get it, you must be in Tenpai, have not called anything that opened your hand, and have just drawn a tile. To do it, you say “Reach”, discard your tile sideways, take a 1000 point stick, and toss it in the center. Should your tile be taken by someone, the next tile you get to discard is sideways instead.
At this point, you may not call tiles unless you Ron, and you may no longer change your hand, other than to do a concealed Kan. Anything you draw, you have to discard, unless you win off of it. NOTE: If you can win off of a tile you draw, you cannot use it to make a concealed Kan. So if you have 111 222 56 777 99, and you draw a 7, you have to win, as Kanning it would remove all the 7s from the game, ‘changing your wait’. That 1000 goes to the winner this round – hopefully it is you. Should the game tie, that 1000 carries to the next round. If a tie ends the game, first place gets the leftover 1000s.
NOTE 1: If you win with Reach, you get to use the Uradora.
NOTE 2: If someone Rons the tile you discarded just when you said Reach, you get back your 1000 points – the 1000 only goes in if your tile doesn’t win it for someone else.
NOTE 3: If you have less than 1000 points, you can’t Reach.
NOTE 4: +1 Han if done on the first turn. +1 Han if you win before the next call and your next discard (Iipatsu, or ‘one-shot’).
MENZEN TSUMO(fully concealed self-draw) – 1 Han. Your hand was closed (no open calls), and you drew the tile you needed to win. You usually don’t get this one by itself, because you probably Reached.
YAKUHAI(Dragons/Winds) – 1 Han each. You have a set of Dragons, or a set of your Wind or the Table Wind.
NOTE 1: If you are, say, Dealer, and the Table is East, you are ‘double East’. A pon of East is 2 yaku.
TAN YAO(all Simples) – 1 Han. All the tiles in your hand and the tiles you called are 2-8 in a suit. No terminals or honors.
II PEI KOU(pure double straight) – 1 Han. The exact same straight twice. For example, 223344Man. NOTE: This hand must be closed. That means no calls, other than the Ron you used to win (if you win that way).
PIN FU(no points) – 1 Han. A hand that has no fu (minipoints). This is confusing since we haven’t talked about fu yet, think of it this way: “All sequences, your pair is not something that would be Yakuhai if you got one more, and the tile you win on was something that completed one of your straights, and there was another tile that would have completed that straight.” NOTE: This hand must be closed. That means no calls, other than the Ron you used to win (if you win that way).
Pin Fu example 1: 123S 234S 567P 78P 55M (drew a 6P – note how a 9P would have worked)
NOT Pin Fu example 1: 123S 234S 567P 55P 55M (you would make a set of one of the 55s)
NOT Pin Fu example 2: 12S 234S 123P 456P 11M (3S wins, but it’s the only tile that works)
NOT Pin Fu example 3: 123S 234S 123P 4567P (4P and 7P win it, but they don’t complete a sequence, they complete a pair)
TOI TOI(all sets) – 2 Han. no sequences, all sets. Remember that Pons are sets, and Kans are Pons, so as long as you don’t have a sequence at all, you are good to go.
SAN SHOKU(mixed triple straight) – 1 Han, +1 if closed. the same sequence in all three suits, like 345Man + 345Pin + 345Sou.
SAN SHOKU DOKOU (mixed triple set) – 2 Han. the same set in all three suits, like 777Man + 777Pin + 777Sou.
ITSU(straight through) – 1 Han, +1 if closed. the sequences 123, 456, and 789 all in the same suit.
HON ITSU (half flush) – 2 Han, +1 if closed. Not having two of the three suits. So as not to be confusing, that means having tiles that are only honors and of one of the suits. (Example: 123Man 234Man 666Man SSS EE)
CHANTA(outside hand) – 1 Han, +1 if closed. Each group, and your pair, have at least one terminal or honor in them. Examples are a pair of 1s, a 123, a 789, SSS, and 999.
CHI TOI ITSU(seven pairs) – 2 Han. Seven Pairs, like it said earlier.
SAN AN KOU(three concealed sets) – 2 Han. Having three concealed sets in your hand when you win. Note that if you Ron on a tile that makes a set, that set is open.
KOKUSHI MUSO(thirteen orphans) – 1 yakuman (13 Han o_o). Like it said earlier. This isn’t just a Yaku, this is a Yakuman. More on that under scoring, but long story short, it is at least 13 Han. Dude.
Okay, wake up, I know that sucked. There’s a sheet at the end that lists them all. Read it. Learn it. Live it. Love it. It took me a while before I learned them all, but you’ll get it.
This is Hard Part #2 of The Hard Stuff About Mahjong. There’s a chart at the end so you can skip the hard part, but if you know it, hey, that’s cool too. Just learn how to count Han and Fu.
These are Yaku plus Dora. Dora are based on those flipped-up tiles – the Dora is one tile higher than the flipped-up tile (the ‘Indicator’). If the Indicator is 3M, then 4M is Dora. 8M > 9M. 9P > 1P (it wraps around). Honors go like this: N>E>S>W>N, and G>R>W>G (“Great Robot Wars”). If you won with Reach, look at the Uradora as well (the tiles under any flipped-up tile – this is why kans are a big deal, as it adds both a dora and an uradora.) If, say, there are two 4-Pin indicators, each 5-Pin in your hand is worth 2 han.
NOTE: Dora are worth Han. Dora are not Yaku.
NOTE 2:Yaku are Han. Han are not Yaku.
Fu are minipoints. Math Time.
- – If Winning hand was Seven Pairs: Total Fu = 25 and skip the rest of this, including rounding.)
- – If Winning hand was Pinfu, Total Fu = 20 if Tsumo, 30 if Ron. Skip the rest of the steps.
- – Base Fu = 20.
- – You were fully closed and drew it yourself: +2.
- – You were fully closed and Ronned: +10.
- – Sequence (of any kind): 0.
- – Your pair was something that, if you had one more, would be Yakuhai: +2 per Yakuhai.
- – The tile you won on could only have completed your pair, or was the only tile that could complete a sequence: +2. (Examples: 111 444 555 7_9, SSS EEE NNN 99 12_, 111 333 444 777 9_, 222 444 SSS 3456)
- – Each set: +2. if set is terminal or honor, x2. If set is closed, x2. (Ronning a set makes that set open) If set is kan, x4. (Example: 444 open = +2. 111 open = +4. EEE closed = +8. 6666 open = +8. 9999 closed = +32.)
- – If Fu = 20 and you don’t have Pinfu, Fu = 30.
- – Now, round up to the nearest 10. 20 =20, 58 = 60, 22 = 30.
2A. Look it up on the chart. Want to figure it out by hand? Awesome. Keep going.
3. Determine Base Score.
- – If Han is 5 or less: Base Score = Fu*(2^(2+Han)). Max 2000.
- – In English: “Double the Fu twice, then double it again for each Han. If you go higher than 2000, stop.”
- – If Han is 6 or more: 6-7 Han = 3000. 8-10 Han = 4000. 11-12 Han = 6000. 13+ Han = 8000.
- – If Yakuman: 8000 per Yakuman. (Note: Yakuman count as 13 Yaku.)
4.Each Player owes you The Base Score, x2 if one of you is the dealer.
- – So, if you are the dealer, everyone owes you x2. If not, whoever is the dealer owes you x2, everyone else is x1.
4A. +100 per Repeat Deal (Renzo) stick.
- – That’s per person, per stick.
5.If you Ron off of someone, they owe everyone’s points.
- – Ha ha.
6.Whenever someone pays, round up to the next 100.
- – So, if Base Score is 320 and you aren’t the dealer and you Tsumo, non-dealers owe you 400 (320 round up) and the dealer owes you 700 (320×2=640 round up). Total points: 1500.
- – But, if Base Score is 320 and you aren’t the dealer and you Ron, that person owes you 1300 (320+320+640=1280 round up). Total points: 1300.
Non-dealer Tsumo. Player Wind West, Table wind East. Renzo 3.
(Toi Toi, Yakuhai. 20, +2 for the 4M, +16 for the E, +8 for the 9P, +2 for the 8S: 48 = 50. 50 and 3. 50, 100, 200, then 400, 800, 1600. +300 per person. 1900 from the non-dealers, 3500 from the dealer.
Dealer Ron, fully closed, Reached, non-Iipatsu. Dora indicator is 7S, Uradora indicator 9S.
123123M 56P 78999S. Winning tile 4P. Dora indicator is 7S, Uradora indicator 9S.
(Reach, Pinfu, Iipeiko, Dora. 4 and 30. 30,60,120, then 240, 460, 960, 1920. 3840 per person, so loser owes 11,520. 11,600.)
The bane of all Mahjong hands.
There are two types of Furiten – full and partial. Full is the most important, so it comes first.
“If there is a tile in your discard – or have had a tile called off of you – that completes your hand, you cannot Ron.”
That means if you are waiting on a 3M or a 6M, and you have a 3M in your discards (or the player to your right Chi’d your 3M – this is why those tiles are sideways and pointed, so you can tell), you cannot Ron any tile off of anyone. Watch out for weird Furiten tiles: 111 23 55 EEE WWW is waiting on a 1, 4, or 5. You can still Tsumo, but that’s it. You can Reach, too, but you can’t Ron – you are still in Tenpai, but you have to finish the hand yourself. Sucks to be you. Watch out for things like having Tanyao as your only Yaku, and you are on a 1-4 wait, and you draw a 1 – you can’t win on it, and if you ditch it, you are in Furiten. Sorrow.
“If someone discards a tile and it completes your hand and you do not call Ron, you cannot call Ron again until you draw a tile while not in Reach.”
So, if right ditches a 3P – and you need a 3P or a 5M to complete and do not Ron – then Left drops a 3P/5M, you cannot Ron. This can suck – if you are on a 1-4 wait and your only Yaku is tanyao (2-8), and they ditch a 1 (which completes your hand, but you cannot win on it), a 4 before you draw again is untouchable. Sadness. If you are in Reach, it is even worse, because it doesn’t go away when you draw – you can no longer win by Ron for the rest of the hand.
This is where I put the rules that don’t fit anywhere else.
- – If someone gets Dai San Gen (big three dragons) or either of the Suu Shis (big / little four winds, the person who dealt into the 3rd or later set of Dragons / Winds they called pays half of the points if someone else deals in for the Ron. If the winner tsumos, the person who dealt into the last set of dragons they called pays it all.
- – If there are 5 or more Renzo, you need Yaku worth 2 or more han total to win a hand. These need to be Yaku that you’ll get no matter what: Reach + Iipatsu(One-shot) isn’t good enough.
- – If there are 7 or more Renzo, the Dealer automatically has 1 Yakuman just for going out (“Paa Ren Chan”). Should the Dealer win, deal then passes.
- – If you win with 20 Fu and 1 Han (open tanyao, all straights maybe), it counts as 30/1.
- – The tile you win with makes that set count as Open.. That means you don’t get three concealed pons if one of them is completed by a Ron.