Huw’s Guide to Figuring Out Riichi Mahjong

Hey y’all, it’s Huw’s guide to figuring out Riichi Mahjong. This is aimed for getting started with Doman Mahjong in FFXIV but these rules are applicable to anywhere you might play Riichi Mahjong.

Please bear in mind that this isn’t a guide on how to be good at Mahjong. Because that would require me to be good in the first place. Mahjong is a game about understanding risk, and sometimes it’s just about damage control. You may find yourself in a game where it’s very difficult for you to win, but very easy for you to lose, and a single high-scoring round can completely turn the tide of a game. This guide also won’t be getting into the details of scoring, because the game is complicated enough. Rest assured that the computer will take care of it for you.

Let’s begin.

Riichi Mahjong is a game for four players. There are variant rules for three or two players, but I don’t know them, and I’m afraid of them. There are 136 tiles to worry about, but most of them are fairly simple. There are three suits of 1–9; Dots, Characters and Bamboo. There are also four wind suits, that correspond to the East, North, West and South winds. Finally, there are the three dragons, Red, White and Green. The wind suits and the dragon tiles are known as Honor Tiles, while numbers 1 and 9 are known as Terminals. Every tile has four copies in a set, as opposed to a deck of playing cards which only has one of each card.

The aim of the game is to get a winning hand of Four Melds and One Pair. A meld can be Three identical tiles or An ascending straight of the same suit (2–3–4, or 5–6–7. You cannot go 8–9–1, and 1–2–3–4–5 would only count as one straight. You cannot get a straight of Wind or Dragon tiles, only a triplet). Every game starts with each player drawing 13 tiles. A turn plays out by drawing a 14th tile, and discarding something from your hand that you don’t want until you’re back to 13 again. As soon as the 14th tile that you draw is able to form a winning hand, you can call Tsumo and win the round.

Yes, you’re right. That does sound like it would take forever. Fortunately you can win off a discard. If you have a ready hand, you are in Tenpai. Once in this state, if somebody discards the tile that you need then you can call Ron and win the round. Important to know, multiple people can call Ron on the same discard.

But Wait

There’s nothing to stop everybody else from winning the round off of your discards too. It might be difficult to learn how to play tactically at first, but give it time. There are some tiles that are safer to discard than others, but that is something you’ll have to learn from game to game. Dragons are usually risky to discard, wind tiles are usually safer. A good rule of thumb is to check the tiles that have already been discarded by the other players. If somebody else put it down and nobody picked it up, then chances are it’s safe for you to do it too. This is not always the case but that’s the fun part.

We talked about having a winning hand earlier of Four Melds and One Pair. That is the simplest winning hand, but in order to achieve it you need to have a Closed Hand. If you have two of the three tiles you need to create a Meld you can Call. You can call Pon whenever you have two of the tiles needed to make a triplet and anybody on the board discards the third tile you require. Whenever you call Pon, the turn order jumps to you straight away. This means that you can skip one or two player’s turns, but that’s secretly the best part.

You can call Chi whenever you have two of the tiles needed to make a straight, and the person on your Left discards a tile that you need.

But Wait

Calling Pon or Chi Opens your hand. This means that you need to have a specific winning hand, or Yaku. Collecting four melds and a pair is good enough to win with a closed hand, but if you open your hand then you need to play a bit more tactically. You can’t just keep calling Chi or Pon and be able to win by the end of it, and you can in fact make it a lot harder for yourself to win after calling on somebody’s discard.

Ha ha tiles go brrrrr

Once you have an open hand, you’ll need to play towards a specific yaku. There are a lot, some easier than others, and I’ve included a smattering of the easy ones below.

Tanyao — A hand of four melds and one pair with only Simple Tiles. Only numbers between 2–8 without any Terminal Tiles (1 and 9) or Honor Tiles (Winds and Dragons)

All Pon — A hand of only triplets.

Half Flush— A hand where the suit tiles are from one suit exclusively. You can include Honor tiles.

Full Flush — Like the Half Flush, but without any honor tiles.

Dragon Tiles — Collecting a triplet of these tiles will automatically grant you a Yaku, meaning the dragon tiles are both powerful and valuable.

Wind Tiles — Having a triplet of wind tiles can also be a Yaku, but it is more conditional than the dragons. You either need the Prevailing Wind (East or South, depending on which round the game is on) or your Seat Wind (Dependent on who was the dealer for that round).

Please bear in mind that having a triplet of Dragons or Winds will not be enough for you to win, you still need to collect three more Melds and a pair. However, once you have secured a Prevailing Wind, Seat Wind, or Dragon Tile, the remaining melds can be whatever comes easiest to you.

You can find a full list of Yaku here!!

So why is it called Riichi Mahjong?

Oh God I’m sorry, I forgot to explain what Riichi is.

When you are one tile away from winning and your hand is closed (Tenpai), you can spend 1000 points to call Riichi. At this point, control is effectively taken away from you. Whenever it is your turn, you automatically draw a tile. If it isn’t the one you need, you discard it. You cannot discard any other tiles in your hand, only the one you draw. This proceeds until you draw the tile you need, somebody discards the tile you need, or you run out of tiles to draw from and the round ends.

That sounds bad though, why would I want to do that?

It scores you so many points. Provided you can get to this state early enough, you can play very aggressively and unsettle the rest of the board. The longer the game goes on the riskier a decision it might be, but generally getting to this position is the end goal for most play. They also make you eligible for the Hidden Dora tiles.

Dora?

At the start of each turn, fourteen tiles are set aside for the Dead Wall. These are taken out of play. One of them is revealed, and this tile can grant more points to the player who wins the round. For example, if the Dora tile on the dead wall is a 3 of dots, then if the winning player has a 4 of dots in their hand then they will score more points. If there is a 9, then it loops back to the 1 of the same suit. This also happens with Honor tiles: East benefits South, South benefits West, West benefits North and North benefits East. The White Dragon benefits Green, Green benefits Red, and Red benefits White. If a player ever calls a Kan, then they reveal more Dora tiles, which can result in a higher score at the end of the game.

That sounds confusing. What’s a kan?

Honestly, don’t worry about the dead wall too much while you’re starting. Just remember that if the tile is up there, there’s one less tile that can go in your hand.

Kan is when a player has four of a kind. There are two kinds of Kan. Closed Kan happens when you draw four of the same tile, you can set them aside and turn over a Dora tile without opening your hand, meaning you are still eligible for Riichi. Open Kan happens when you have either already called Pon and draw the fourth tile in the set, or if you have a triplet in your hand and somebody else discards the fourth tile.

Bear in mind that if you do call Kan, you can’t use the fourth tile as part of a straight. I’m making this sound more complicated than it actually is. Learn by playing.

What’s furiten?

It’s a complicated rule. Essentially, if you discard a tile that you would have used to complete a meld, then you cannot call Ron while that tile is still in your discards. For example, if you have 2–3 in your hand and have previously discarded 1, then you cannot win off of a discard. This rule only applies for the very last tile to take victory, so if you have a tile in your discard that would put you in furiten before you reach Tenpai, then by either completing the meld or discarding those tiles, you can get yourself out of furiten.

I think that’s everything. Before I finish, here are the most important things to learn about Riichi Mahjong.

1: You can’t get better at having good tiles.

2: Sometimes somebody else will win within a few turns and there’s nothing you could have done about it.

3: Having a triplet of any dragon is basically always good.

That’s it. Thanks, I love you!!