Japanese Culture
Japanese riichi mahjong from zero: the 136 tiles, how a hand is built, draw and discard, calling riichi, the yaku you need to win, furiten and scoring basics.
Mahjong arrived in Japan from China in the early twentieth century and, within a few decades, had become its own game. The Japanese form, riichi mahjong, standardised the rules, added the dramatic riichi declaration, and built a scoring system around named patterns called yaku. After the war it fuelled a nightlife of mahjong parlours; today it has a second life as a televised esport and as one of the most popular online games in Japan. This guide gives you the rules for a first table, without inventing point tables you do not need yet.
A riichi set has 136 tiles:
Many sets include red fives (one red 5 in each suit) as dora, bonus tiles that add value to a winning hand. The 1 and 9 tiles of each suit are "terminals"; terminals and honours together are the "yaochu" tiles, and several yaku are built around them.
A standard complete hand is 14 tiles: four sets plus one pair. A set is either a sequence (three consecutive tiles of one suit, such as 4-5-6 of circles), a triplet (three identical tiles) or a quad (four identical tiles, declared as a kan). The pair is two identical tiles. Two special hands break the pattern: seven pairs (chiitoitsu) and thirteen orphans (kokushi musou, one of every terminal and honour plus one duplicate).
A hand that is one tile away from complete is tenpai. Reaching tenpai is the goal of the middle of every hand; winning is the goal of the end.
Four players sit at the table; each is assigned a seat wind, with East dealing. The tiles are shuffled face down and built into four walls. Each player draws 13 tiles; the dealer draws a 14th to begin.
Play proceeds counter-clockwise. On your turn you draw one tile from the wall, then discard one tile face up in front of you, keeping your hand at 13. You win by completing a 14-tile hand either on your own draw (tsumo) or by claiming another player's discard (ron).
You may also claim a discard to complete a set, which "opens" your hand:
Called sets are placed face up at the side of your hand and can no longer change. An open hand is faster to complete but loses access to riichi and to several closed-hand yaku, and it tells the table what you are building. Beginners should keep their hands closed until they understand what they are giving up.
When your closed hand is tenpai, you may declare riichi: you say "riichi", turn your discard sideways, and place a 1,000-point stick on the table as a bet. From that moment your hand is locked; you draw and discard the tile you drew unless it completes your hand. In exchange, riichi is itself a yaku (so you are allowed to win), and it opens the door to bonuses: ippatsu (winning within one turn of declaring) and extra ura dora indicators revealed only for riichi hands.
Riichi is a bet on yourself. You give up flexibility and one thousand points; you gain the right to win and the chance at a much bigger hand.
This is the rule that surprises everyone coming from other mahjong variants. A complete hand is not enough: it must contain at least one yaku, a recognised pattern, or it cannot be declared. The yaku beginners rely on:
Dora tiles add han but are not yaku: a hand with three dora and no yaku still cannot win. The full table, including the rare hands, is the Yaku Quick Reference in The Mind Games of Japan.
If any tile that would complete your hand is already in your own discard pile, you are in furiten: you may not win by ron on any tile, only by tsumo. This applies to every winning tile of your wait, not just the one you discarded. The practical lesson is to decide early what you are waiting on, and to check your own discards before you declare riichi.
Mahjong rewards fast pattern recognition and memory for what has been discarded. MyRin's Hanafuda speed-sort and Memory games train exactly that, and ten games are free in your browser.
Play free in the browserWinning hands are valued in han (from yaku and dora) and fu (from the composition of the hand: closed or open, kinds of sets, the wait, the pair). Those two numbers map to a point value; the loser pays it in ron, or the three others share it in tsumo, with the dealer paying and receiving more. Beginners do not need the table in their head. Play with a scoring sheet or an app, and learn the three thresholds that matter: mangan (5 han, the first capped value), haneman (6 to 7 han) and baiman (8 to 10 han). A 13-han hand is a yakuman, the maximum.
A full game is usually a hanchan: an east round and a south round, each of four hands, with the dealership rotating after each hand the dealer does not win. Players start with 25,000 points; the game ends after the south round (or when someone drops below zero), and the player with the most points wins. A shorter tonpuusen is the east round only.
Play your first tables with the yaku list beside you and declare riichi whenever you can; that single habit teaches most of what a beginner needs. Then read the Mahjong chapter and the yaku reference in The Mind Games of Japan, the free ebook inside MyRin. The other card game of Japanese nights, with a completely different feel, is covered in Hanafuda Koi-Koi: rules, yaku and strategy.
A yaku is a scoring pattern your hand must contain before you are allowed to win. A complete hand with no yaku cannot be declared. Riichi itself is a yaku, which is why beginners are taught to declare riichi whenever they reach tenpai with a closed hand.
Riichi is a declaration you make when your closed hand is one tile from complete (tenpai). You place a 1,000-point stick on the table, turn your discard sideways, and from then on you may not change your hand. In exchange you gain a yaku and become eligible for extra bonuses.
Furiten means you cannot win by taking a discard (ron) if any tile that would complete your hand is already in your own discard pile. You may still win by drawing the tile yourself (tsumo). It is the rule that punishes changing your mind late.
136: three suits (characters, circles, bamboo) numbered 1 to 9 with four copies of each, plus four copies each of the four winds and three dragons. Some sets add red fives as bonus tiles.