Riichi Mahjong Scoring Chart

[Raguel Charrette]

JapaneseMahjong scoring rules are used for Japanese Mahjong, a game for four players common in Japan. The rules were organized in the Taishō to Shōwa period as the game became popular. [citation needed]

The scoring system uses structural criteria as well as bonuses. Player start scores may be set to any value. Usually, it is set to 20,000 to 30,000 points. Scores are counted using sticks of 10,000 points, 5,000 points, 1,000 points and 100 points. A game often ends when all the points of a player are lost, which is a situation called hakoten,[nb 1] dobon,[nb 2] buttobi,[nb 3] etc. However, some settings allow the game to continue, even if a player's score dropped below zero.

In the case of a draw, points are transferred according to the nō-ten bappu rule. In the event of a penalty, such as claiming a win with an illegal hand, then points are transferred via the chombo rule.

The actual points given are rounded up to the nearest 100. Even if the values of han and fu are the same, the points received for self-draw wins often slightly deviate from those received for discard wins because of rounding.

The method of calculating a winning hand's score in mahjong is quite tedious. Instead, hand values are fixed into a scoring table. Expert and professional players have this table memorized and can thus tell the value of a hand at a glance. Each of the table's point values is derived from the scoring equation and procedure with each corresponding han and fu values.

To use the table, simply look up the values that correspond to the han and fu counts of the hand. The top numbers in each cell indicate the payout from a player who discards a winning tile. The numbers in brackets indicate the payout for each player in the event the winning tile is self-drawn. If the winner is the dealer, each player pays the same amount. If the winner is a non-dealer, then the other two non-dealers pay the smaller number, while the dealer pays the larger number.

On plenty of occasions, a hand ends with all tiles drawn and the 14 tiles in the dead wall remain. Yet, no player wins the hand. This is the exhaustive draw. In this case, points may be exchanged barring any tenpai hands vs nōten hands. After each exhaustive draw, the counter increases by one.

In most rules when a dealer's hand is nōten, the dealer changes and the game wind may change. But if it's the last hand of the last round, in some rules, a game does not end if the dealer declares nōten.[2]

The dealer keeps count of the number of continuous dealer wins and draws by placing point sticks on the table. While point sticks are usually used for scoring, here they are used merely as counters, a visual aid. The initial count is zero. The number of counters increases by one when:

In the case of (1) or (3), the dealer remains the same. In the case of (2), when the dealer cannot declare tenpai, the dealer changes, but the number of counters increases regardless of whether the dealer declares tenpai. In all other cases, namely when only a non-dealer wins, the count is reset to zero.

Other settings for chombo apply point penalties after the game's conclusion. This is especially the case under tournament settings. Under this method, players do not benefit with any point gains. Instead, the infracted player solely takes a point deduction. The deduction may be set to any specified number.

At the end of the game, the final scores may be calculated. Under casual game settings, this calculation is not necessary. However, under more formal settings, it may be required. This calculation takes the game's scores and adjusts them according the setting of oka and uma, which were predetermined before the game. The calculation for each player is as follows:

In the optional rule wareme (割れ目, ワレメ; fissure, split), the player in front of whom the wall was split to indicate the end of the dead wall, acquires and pays double the normal points. They are doubled after the points for counters are added.[6] It is often especially called oya-ware (親割れ; parent's wareme) when the player is the dealer.

Japanese mahjong features a complex scoring system. Nearly every mahjong hand has a value in terms of han and fu, which determine its point value. The han and fu are then plugged into an equation to determine the score. Alternatively, a scoring table can be used to find the point value directly.

Players are encouraged to know yaku, their han values, and how much points a given hand is worth. This knowledge may help with various game decisions, particularly when calling riichi or abandoning the hand.

As a general rule, for every +1 han, the hand roughly doubles in value until reaching 4 han. There is a "cap" at 2000 base points (5 han; 4 han 40+ fu) - a hand that scores this much is called a mangan hand. Once reaching mangan, fu no longer matters for points, and han is reduced in value.

Every hand begins with a default of 20 fu. Any extra sources of fu are added, and then rounded up to the next multiple of 10. The exception is with chiitoitsu yaku, which is fixed to 25 fu (and not rounded).

The highest-scoring combinations are the yakuman patterns. A hand completing a yakuman is not scored for han and fu, but depending on the rules, it may be possible to combine multiple yakuman for an even larger hand.

The numbers for a ron payment are obtained by having the ronned player pay every other players points. Because rounding is done after this reassignment of points, it is sometimes the case that a win by tsumo is worth a few hundred more points than a win by ron.

Since the han and fu equation is always the same, it is possible to use a scoring table to score the hand. Simply calculate the hand's han and fu, then find the values on the table. See scoring table for the actual table.

In 1924, a soldier named Saburo Hirayama brought the game to Japan.[1] In Tokyo, he started a mahjong club, parlor, and school.[1] In the years after, the game dramatically increased in popularity. In this process, the game itself was simplified from the Chinese version. Then later, additional rules were adopted to increase the complexity.[2]Mahjong, as of 2010, is the most popular table game in Japan.[3] As of 2008, there were approximately 7.6 million mahjong players and about 8,900 mahjong parlors in the country. The parlors did 300 billion yen in sales in 2008.[4] There are several manga and anime devoted to dramatic and comic situations involving mahjong (see Media).[5] Japanese video arcades have introduced mahjong arcade machines that can be connected to others over the Internet. There are also video game versions of strip mahjong.

In Japan, there are what are known as professional players, usually members of organizations that compete in internal leagues and external events with other professionals and the general public. There are over 1,700 professionals spread across a half-dozen organizations. There is no universal authority for riichi mahjong in Japan: professionals cannot dictate how mahjong parlors or amateur organizations and players operate, nor can they regulate each other since everything is left to the free market. Likewise, there is no global authority regulating riichi mahjong. Since 2018, there exists a league of select professionals (coming from the other professional mahjong organizations) named M.League which takes the game and presents it as a professional sport. Teams of professionals receive salary as players, compete in ranking and playoffs as teams, and wear team jerseys to enhance the image of mahjong as a sport.[6]

Japanese mahjong is usually played with 136 tiles.[7] The tiles are mixed and then arranged into four walls that are each two stacked tiles high and 17 tiles wide. 26 of the stacks are used to build the players' starting hands, 7 stacks are used to form a dead wall, and the remaining 35 stacks form the playing wall.

There are 34 different kinds of tiles, with four of each kind. Just like standard mahjong, there are three suits of tiles, pin (circles), sō (bamboo) and wan (characters), and unranked honor tiles (字牌 jihai). Honor tiles are further divided between wind tiles and dragon tiles. Some rules may have red number five tiles which work as dora that earn more han value. The flower and season tiles are omitted. Names for suit tiles follow the pattern of [number] + [suit], the numbers being Japanese pronunciations of the corresponding Chinese words.

Players can make a meld (open group) by calling for another player's discard. They reveal the meld on the table and then make their own discard. Calling for another player's discard makes the group and the hand open. When a winning tile of a closed hand is a discard, the group including that discard is also considered open, while the hand is still regarded as closed. The calls operate exactly the same as any variation of mahjong, except Japanese terminology is used.

Players can make an open sequential group, a sequence (3 consecutive tiles in the same suit), by calling out "chii" (吃 or チー) using a tile discarded by the left player, who is prior in order. Players place the meld face up on the table, usually on the right side of their hands, with the discard placed sideways at the leftmost position of the meld to indicate which tile was taken from the left's discard pile.

Players can make an open identical group, a triplet (3 identical tiles in the same suit, or 3 identical honor tiles) by calling out "pon" (碰 or ポン) using a tile discarded by any other player. Players place the meld face up on the table with one of those tiles placed sideways to indicate from whom the discard was taken.

Players can make a meld from 4 identical tiles in the same suit or 4 identical honor tiles. After calling a quad, the next adjacent dora indicator tile is flipped, and players need to draw a supplemental tile from the end of the dead wall. Depending on the rules, the number of tiles in the dead wall is kept at 14 by reserving the last available tile from the wall, or the number decreases at that time. There are three types of quads. Players call out "kan" (槓 or カン) for all of them.

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