Japanese Riichi

Same Rhythm, Different Game

A Riichi set has 136 tiles: the three suits, four winds and three dragons, four of each. No flowers, seasons or animals. One five in each suit is red, and each red five adds a han to a winning hand.

A Chi is a chi (only from the player on your left), a Pong a pon and a Kong a kan. Winning on your own draw is tsumo, and everyone pays. Winning on a discard is ron, and the discarder pays it all. A game, the hanchan, runs through an East round and a South round, and everyone starts with the same pile of points.

The last fourteen tiles are the dead wall. It holds the kan replacements and the dora indicators: the dora is the tile after the one shown, and each dora in a winning hand adds a han. Every kan turns another indicator.

A Hand Needs A Yaku

Four sets and a pair is only a shape. To call ron or tsumo you also need a yaku, a named pattern worth at least one han. Dora don’t count as one. No yaku, no win.

The ones you’ll use most:

• Riichi: declare your closed hand ready, 1 han, closed only.
• Tanyao: only 2s to 8s, 1 han.
• Yakuhai: a triplet of a dragon, your seat wind or the round wind, 1 han each.
• Pinfu: four runs, a plain pair and a two-sided wait, 1 han, closed only.
• Menzen tsumo: nothing called and a self-drawn win, 1 han, closed only.

Seven different pairs (chiitoitsu) is a winning shape of its own, worth 2 han, closed only.

Declaring Riichi

When your closed hand is one tile from winning (tenpai), you may declare riichi with your discard: turn it sideways and put a riichi stick on the table. You need enough points for the stick and at least four tiles left in the wall.

From then on your hand is locked: you throw every tile you draw unless it wins. In return you have a yaku, and a win within one go-round adds ippatsu (1 han, closed only) if nobody calls in between. A riichi winner also turns the ura dora, the hidden indicators under the dora. Declaring with your very first discard is double riichi, 2 han, closed only.

If your ready hand already has a yaku, staying quiet (dama) is a real choice: it keeps your hand hidden and flexible.

Closed And Open Hands

Calling chi, pon or an open kan opens your hand. An open hand can’t declare riichi, and it loses pinfu, menzen tsumo and the other closed-only yaku. A kan made from four tiles in your own hand keeps it closed.

Some yaku survive opening but lose a han. Honitsu, one suit with honours, is 3 han (2 open); chinitsu, one suit alone, is 6 han (5 open). Tanyao, yakuhai and toitoi keep their full value, and tanyao counts open at this table.

Straight after a chi or pon you may not throw the tile you called, nor, after a chi, the tile at the other end of the run.

Furiten

If any tile your hand is waiting on is in your own discards, you’re furiten: no ron on any tile, not even the other side of your wait. Change your wait so none of it is in your discards and you’re free again.

Let a winning tile pass and you’re furiten until your own next discard, even if that tile gave you no yaku. In riichi it lasts the rest of the hand. Tsumo still wins every time.

Han, Fu And The Points

A hand’s value has two parts. Han come from yaku and dora. Fu come from how the hand was built and won: concealed triplets, honour pairs, awkward waits and a closed ron all add some, and the total is rounded up to the next ten. For smaller hands both matter; bigger ones reach named limits, mangan, haneman, baiman and sanbaiman, where fu stop counting.

At the very top are the yakuman, such as kokushi musou, the thirteen orphans (yakuman), and big four winds (double yakuman). A stack of ordinary han can count as a yakuman too.

The dealer is paid half as much again for a win and keeps the deal; when someone else wins by tsumo, the dealer pays double the others’ share.