It's not that complicated ... think asian poker.
Everybody draws 13 tiles and is trying to complete his hand with the 14th.
On his turn, a player draws a tile and - if he doesn't have that complete hand - discards one.
To win your hand (with two exceptions) will consist of 4 sets and one pair.
A set can be either
- a sequence of three consecutive numbers in the same suit
- a triplet of the same tile
- a quartet of the same tile
In addition, your hand must have at least one
yaku. (Let me stress that: one
yaku not one multiplier [han], because bonus tiles reward han but do not count as yaku and therefore aren't enough to make your hand valid.)
Note, that when that reference says "concealed" or "closed" hand, it means you cannot have stolen any tiles (other than the last).
There are three ways of stealing tiles other players discard:
- Chii: you steal a tile to complete a sequence, you can only do that from the player to your left
- Pon: you steal a tile to complete a triplet, you can do that from any player
- Kan: you steal a tile to complete a quartet, you can do that from any player
You can also declare "Kan" when you have drawn all four tiles yourself. In that case, the outer two tiles are turned around to indicate that your hand is still considered closed.
After declaring Kan, draw a tile from the dead wall (the 14 tiles you don't normally draw from), and flip another bonus tile (dora) indicator.
The dora indicators are on top of the dead wall and the tile
following it wil become a bonus tile (e.g. if an indicator is 5 of bamboo, 6 of bamboo is a dora).
And there are two ways you can win:
- Tsumo: you draw the last tile you need yourself, all players pay part of your hand's score
- Ron: you steal the last tile you need when another player discards it, that player alone pays the full score
Note that you cannot Ron on a tile you have previously discarded.
In fact, when there are multiple tiles that can complete your hand, you cannot Ron if a tile you have previously discarded is one of them. This is called furiten.
(Side note: this means that when you know a player just needs the last tile for his hand [e.g. after he's declared Riichi, see below], these are the safest tiles to discard. For that player, anyway, the other two may be waiting on the same tile.)
Now let's briefly cover what gave the Japanese
Riichi Mahjong its name: Riichi
When your hand is still closed (you haven't stolen any discards) and you only need one last tile to complete your hand, you can declare that.
You wager a 1000 points ("Riichi stick") and turn your next discard sideways. From this point on, you are not allowed to change your hand.
If you win after declaring riichi, you get to look at the tiles below the dora indicators (the mahjong wall is two tiles high). These will become bonus tile indicators as well (or "below bonus tile bonus tile indicators", with the "below bonus tile bonus tiles" being referred to as "ura dora") which can boost your hand if you're lucky.
Riichi is a yaku and therefore it is sometimes worth to not steal a discard to keep your hand closed, especially when your hand is garbage.
(There are other reasons you may want to keep your hand closed, but this is the most obvious.)
Oh, and - depending on the game - one of the 5es of each suit may be red. They just count as additional "red bonus tiles" (aka dora).
And I think that's all you need to know to play.
Don't bother learning how to score your hand until you feel you really need to be able to do the calculation yourself. When playing on the computer, the computer wiill score your hand anyway.
More han, more points. At least one yaku, often more worth closed than open. That's all you need to know to get started. :P
Now go try it out:
http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/mahjong/mahjong_e.html
And when you feel comfortable, go play against real players. Tenhou is both free and popular:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...rowser20161220
http://arcturus.su/tenhou/ contains all you need (and more) to get started with Tenhou.
There are a few non-essential things I've left out, so when you feel like tackling the many big pictures in Zero's Guide:
http://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread...ral-discussion
(Didn't read much of the guide because I didn't like how the big pictures fractured the text. Which is a shame, because I think the pictures do help. He really should make a Google Slides presentation out of his huge post.)
Originally Posted by Nobody
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