Xiao Si Xi 小四喜

Xiao Si Xi, Little Four Winds, is a hand with Pongs or Kongs of three winds and a pair of the fourth. It is worth 4 tai in Singapore Mahjong.

Three winds in Pongs and the fourth as your pair. It’s rare, it’s showy, and at most tables it pays at or near the limit.

Also called: Little Four Winds

What It Is

Pongs of East, South and West, an Eye of North, and one Chi.

Xiao Si Xi (小四喜, “little four joys”) is a hand with Pongs or Kongs of three winds, and the fourth wind as the Eye. The last set can be anything: a Chi, a Pong, honours or a suit.

Turn that wind pair into a fourth Pong and you have Da Si Xi, a limit hand.

What It Pays

What it’s worth at each table
Table	Called	Worth
Singapore	Xiao Si Xi	4 tai
Hong Kong	Siu Sei Hei	the limit, 10 faan
Malaysian 3 Kaki	Little Winds	the limit, 10 fan
Riichi	Shousuushii	yakuman

At a Singapore table Xiao Si Xi is worth 4 tai. It’s counted on its own: the scorer doesn’t add Pong Pong Hu or a half flush on top of it. Your Own Wind and the Round Wind still count, though. If one of the three wind Pongs is either of those, it adds 1 tai and the hand reaches the usual 5 tai.

With three of the four winds in Pongs, that happens most of the time. It misses only when both your Own Wind and the Round Wind are the wind you hold as the Eye.

At the limit, a discard win comes to 128 points, and the shooter alone pays 64 points of it.

How To Build It

You need a hand rich in winds from the deal: pairs of two or three winds at least. Wind pairs are worth keeping anyway, since your Own Wind or the Round Wind in a Pong is a tai by itself.

Pong every wind you can. Winds are often thrown early by players clearing honours, so the first few turns are your best chance.

The fourth wind is the trouble. You need two of it, and once three wind sets are showing, nobody will throw it if they can help it. Expect to draw it yourself.

Don’t wreck a good ordinary hand to chase it, either. If the third wind Pong never comes, the ones you made still pay whenever they’re your Own Wind or the Round Wind, so a near miss is rarely a wasted hand.

What Gives It Away

Two or three wind Pongs face up tells everyone what you’re after. The remaining winds become dangerous tiles to throw.

If you’re reading someone else: a player with three wind sets showing is one wind from a limit hand. Feeding a fourth wind set is Bao at this table, so hold your winds back and throw something else.

At Other Tables

Hong Kong treats Siu Sei Hei as a limit hand: the limit, 10 faan. Malaysian 3 Kaki does the same, with Little Winds at the limit, 10 fan.

In Riichi, Shousuushii is yakuman, the top tier of hands. It’s one of the few big hands every table agrees is special.