List Of Mahjong Hands

[Elia Khensamphanh]

Thewinning player adds up the value of his hand, then the other players may check and verify. The other players need not assist the winner in calculating the value of his hand if it is underscored. To visually show the value of the hand, the winning player uses (from his discards) a single face up tile to represent 1 point and a face down tile to represent 10.

The winner of the hand receives the score from the player who discard the winning tile, plus 8 basic points from each player; in the case of self drawn win, he receives the value of this round plus 8 points from all players. There is no scoring maximum.

Win by Self-drawn: Each player pays the extra and basic points to the winning player.

Win by Discard: Each player pays basic points to the winner. The player who discarded the winning tile pays the basic points in addition to the extra points.

The hand must contain 14 tiles and be composed of four sets and a pair (with the exception of special limit hands). If two players call mahjong for the same discard, the player sitting closest to East in turn order is given the tile. The hand must also have a minimum of 8 points (not including points for Flowers).

Remember the Non-Repeat Principle: When a fan is implied by or included by another fan, it is not scored. For example, if you have a Middle Tiles hand, you can't add points for All Simples or No Honor Tiles.

Breaking down the hand, we earned 6 points for Half Flush. From the melded kong of Wests, we earn 2 additional points: one for having melded kong and one for having a pung of terminals/honors. Remember kongs are also counted as a pung. One point is earned for having a pure double chow (678 twice). We can combine the 345 chow with a 678 chow to make a short straight for one more point. Due to the non-identical principle we cannot do this twice with the other 678 chow.

Although the hand is waiting on 3 or 6, only a 6 can complete the hand to earn enough points to go out on. Eight points is earned for Reversible Tiles. With Reversible Tiles, One Voided Suit is implied and therefore not counted. One point is earned for No Honors. The melded kong of 8D counts as one point and so does the melded pung of 9D. Add one more point for Self Draw. Since this is a self-drawn win each player will pay out the value of the hand plus 8 basic points.

This hand contains a Knitted Straight which earns 12 points. These sets have to be concealed. Knitted Sequences for all intents and purposes also count as chows and therefore score two more point for All Chows (No Honors is implied). The tile was self-drawn which earns one more point. Each player will pay the full value plus eight basic points.

Yaku are somewhat similar to poker hands. They fit certain patterns based on the numbers or types of tiles included, as well as the relative value of the tiles. Unlike poker, however, multiple yaku may be combined to produce hands of greater value.

All hands start closed. A hand becomes open as soon as the player "calls" a tile discarded by an opponent, in order to complete a group from their own hand. This is called "melding." For example, if a player has in their hand, and an opponent discards a , the first player may call the discard, and thus create a melded triplet. This process can also create melded sequences (e.g. 2-3-4 of the same suit), and open quads. The calling player must display the completed group by placing the tiles face-up on the table. This makes the hand "open".

The following is a list of all the yaku, their names in English and Japanese, their han values, and any special conditions related to them. They are listed here in groups according to the underlying patterns that define the yaku. Example hands are given, but often, many other arrangements are possible for each yaku. All yaku can be divided into seven basic categories, depending on the dominant feature. The features are as follows: patterns based on sequences, patterns based on triplets/quads, patterns based on terminals/honors, patterns based on suits, maximum-value hands (yakuman), lucky circumstances, and special criteria.

When a player's hand needs only one tile to win (tenpai) and the hand is closed (i.e. the player has not called any opponent's discards to make melds), then the player can opt to declare riichi. This yaku is often called "reach" because its Japanese name is phonetically similar to the English word.

In some rulesets, a player can declare riichi only when there are four or more tiles remaining in the wall. That is, if they cannot draw another tile, they cannot declare riichi. The player is not penalized if drawing another tile is prevented due to opponents making open melds or closed quads after the riichi declaration.[1]

The winner of a hand receives all 1,000-point riichi sticks that are present. In the case of multiple winners, the player closest to the discarding player (moving forward) receives all riichi deposits. If a hand ends in a draw, any riichi deposits carry over to the next game and are placed near the counters. The next winner receives those riichi deposits. In most cases, if a draw results in ending the game (such as exhaustive draws in the final round with the last dealer not ready to win, or exhaustive draws causing one or more players to reach a negative score), all riichi deposits are forfeited and the game is simply over.

When a player declares riichi and discards a tile (sideways), an opponent may call that tile for a meld. The riichi player, on their next turn, places their next discard sideways. Additionally, if a riichi discard tile is called by another player to win, then the would-be riichi declaration is considered incomplete and therefore no riichi deposit is forfeited.[1]

A player who has declared riichi can still make one kind of call: a closed quad (kan). This can only happen when they have a triplet in their hand and they draw the fourth tile. Even though the hand remains closed, the quad is still displayed on the table. While in riichi, a quad call must not otherwise change the composition of the hand or its waits.[1][2] For example, when a player has , they can declare a closed quad when drawing the fourth . However, when they have waiting for , or , they cannot declare a quad when drawing , because and would no longer be winning tiles.

In general Japanese rules, all seven pairs must be unique, meaning that the same four tiles may not be split into two pairs. Some rules, such as in the Kansai region, may accept four of the same tile, but they are not considered a quad.[3]

Sometimes the pao (包) rule is applied to this yaku. That is, if a player claims a discard to make an open quad and then completes their hand with a tile drawn from the dead wall, the player who discarded the tile is responsible for paying the entire amount for the hand.

In most rulesets, a player cannot rob a closed quad, only an open one (i.e. after their opponent has "upgraded" an open triplet to a quad). Some rulesets have an exception: robbing a closed quad is allowed if it's used to complete Thirteen Orphans. However, the chankan yaku does not apply, since Thirteen Orphans is a yakuman hand and automatically scores the maximum number of points.

Furthermore, the hand must be waiting for multiple winning tiles,[5] such as having and thus waiting for or . All single-tile "waits" earn fu, namely an "inside wait" (e.g. waiting for a ); an "edge wait" (e.g. waiting for a ); or waiting to complete any pair.

When the following hands involve triplets, quads are also acceptable. But if they require quads, triplets do not count. Each yaku is worth 2 han, regardless of whether the hand is closed or open.

Some of yakuman hands may have different names in some regions. The names used here come from the World Riichi Championship ruleset, which is also used by the American Riichi Mahjong League.[8]

If a player already has the pair but is missing a terminal/honor, then this is a single-tile wait, which will score yakuman if won. But if a player has acquired all 13 terminal/honor tiles, and they are simply waiting to create the pair, this is a 13-tile wait. Many rulesets will consider this double yakuman.

The Japanese name of this yaku, kokushi musō, means "a peerless distinguished person in a country."[9] Other names for this yaku are shīsan yaochū (十三么九) which means "thirteen of smallest numbers and 9's [and honors]," or its abbreviation shīsan yao (十三么).

Depending on the ruleset, this hand can be valued at yakuman, baiman, or mangan. In stricter rulesets, this is not considered a yaku at all, and requires other yaku to win. On other hand, some other rules are laxer, and say that a player can achieve Blessing of Man after their first turn, if the tile they are calling was their opponent's first discard. Because of these variations, this yaku is considered optional.[11]

Faan are obtained by matching the winning hand and the cause of winning with a specific set of criteria, with different criteria scoring different values. Some of these criteria may be subsets of other criteria (for example, having a meld of one dragon versus having a meld of all of them), and in these cases, only the criteria with the tighter requirements are scored. The faan obtained may be translated into scores for each player using some (typically exponential) function. When gambling with mahjong, these scores are typically directly translated into sums of money. Some criteria may also be in terms of both points and score.

At the beginning of each game, each player is given a fixed score, usually in the form of scoring chips. In many cases, only the winner scores, with the winner's gain being deducted from the three losers' scores (that is, the losers pay the winner). In many cases, the change in score is modified by how the winner wins. These rules are called modifiers. Some common modifiers are:

3a8082e126