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Mahjong. Supposedly created by Confucious 2500 years ago but more likely by bored Chinese gamblers in the 19th century. Known in the west as an intimidating game due to the weirdass bone tiles covered in Chinese characters that its played with, mahjong is actually an extremely simple and casual game that should come naturally to anyone that's played poker or rummy. This post will be exclusively about the Japanese variant of mahjong, but if you want to talk about some other kind of mahjong feel free, pretty much every variant agrees on the same basic rules: Each player has a hand of 13 tiles and takes turns drawing and discarding in an attempt to build a winning hand of 4 melds (3 sequential numbers or sets of 3 or 4 of a kind) and a pair. If another player discards a tile that you need to make a meld or to win, you can call it up into your hand. That's it. That's mahjong. Easy. The Tiles and Their Suits: The one through nine of pin:          The one through nine of sou:          The one through nine of man:          The winds:     (east, south, west, north) The dragons:    (white, green, red) A lot of times the white dragon will be a blank white tile instead. Here's an example of the standard winning mahjong hand, 4 melds and a pair: ( )+()+()+()+()Japanese Mahjong, also called Riichi Mahjong, introduces a bunch of complications to this formula that make the game more tactical and stable. Riichi is the Hold'em to Hong Kong Mahjong's 5 Card Draw (and American Mahjong's Mario Party). Most importantly, Riichi Mahjong introduces additional criteria to win called "yaku". There's a whole list of yaku, but essentially they fall into 2 categories: yaku based on certain actions happening in the game, and yaku that work similarly to poker hands, flushes, straights, etc. Here's a few of the yaku you'll see most often (complete list here):
The other major addition in Riichi Mahjong are certain tiles that are worth additional points, "dora tiles". At the beginning of each hand a tile is flipped over on the dead wall indicating which tile will be the dora. Additional indicators get flipped for each quad called, and a player that wins by riichi also gets access to the "ura dora" hidden under the indicators. Suffice to say declaring riichi can be really important in Riichi Mahjong when up to 10 tiles can be in play as doras. Other miscellaneous things to be aware of:
Links:
homeless snail fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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Apr 2, 2014 22:21
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| # ? Apr 30, 2024 17:21 |
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How to play on Tenhou.net Pretty straightforward, put your name in the field, it asks if you're male (男) or female (女) for some reason, click OK to continue. Alternatively you could click on the button on the far left to create a new account, for chatting, stat tracking, and replay recording purposes.  A bunch of buttons and Japanese text, for now just ignore everything but the bottom left. Each button represents a different kind of mahjong table you can sit at. Most people tend to play with open tanyao and red doras. You can queue for multiple game types at the same time. The test play menu at the bottom will put you into a game with (really stupid) CPUs, probably not a bad idea to get used to the interface.  Here's what a game of mahjong looks like, with a few relevent areas labeled. Your hand is at the bottom, when its your turn click on the tile you want to cut. Occasionally other options will pop up either right above your hand or on top of the relevent tiles. Here's the shortlist of words you need to be able to recognize:
 Here's what potential calls look like. The tiles you can meld are highlighted and the type of meld is written above them. In this case someone discarded a 5 pin and its asking if I want to pon （ポン）. Click on the meld in your hand to make the call. Click here to go to the private lobby we usually play in.
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Apr 2, 2014 22:21
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please piss on me posted:Riichi is the Hold'em to Hong Kong Mahjong's 5 Card Draw (and American Mahjong's Mario Party). I enjoy Mario Party and am curious to learn more of this so-called "American" mahjong.
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Apr 2, 2014 22:24
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Anyone want to play with me?
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Apr 2, 2014 22:25
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lesbian baphomet posted:I enjoy Mario Party and am curious to learn more of this so-called "American" mahjong.
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Apr 2, 2014 22:27
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 I am peerless among this forum.
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Apr 2, 2014 22:29
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please piss on me posted:Its really loving dumb. There's no standard hand and you have to spell out words or numbers with your tiles, something?? There's a reason why its only played by old women. Haha what the gently caress? Scrabble-rear end gaijin mahjong. e: ^ jesus christ, a real yakuman! Holy poo poo!
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Apr 2, 2014 22:29
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I'm ready for some Mahjong
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Apr 2, 2014 22:30
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I'm just clicking buttons, probably should have actually read the rules
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Apr 2, 2014 22:34
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Dirigibleful posted:I'm just clicking buttons, probably should have actually read the rules The flash game in the OP (http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/mahjong/mahjong_e.html) is actually super useful to learn the basics.
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Apr 2, 2014 22:36
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K. Flaps posted:The flash game in the OP (http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/mahjong/mahjong_e.html) is actually super useful to learn the basics. Yeah it's surprisingly easy using that site and can be learned in an hour or two, or probably even less.
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Apr 2, 2014 22:50
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gaping gape gaper posted:
homeless snail fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Apr 2, 2014 |
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Apr 2, 2014 23:17
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I learned to play Mahjong from a Taiwanese friend, so the rules are a little different. I've been told it is similar to Filipino mahjong. Biggest difference is the hand is bigger, requiring 5 sets and a pair.
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Apr 2, 2014 23:23
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Incarnate Dao posted:I learned to play Mahjong from a Taiwanese friend, so the rules are a little different. I've been told it is similar to Filipino mahjong. Biggest difference is the hand is bigger, requiring 5 sets and a pair.
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Apr 2, 2014 23:31
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I refuse to acknowledge any list of common yaku that excludes Pinfu. Of course, it doesn't help that Pinfu is a bastard to define. I'll hang out in the lobby for a bit and see if anyone turns up.
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Apr 2, 2014 23:42
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Lestaki posted:I refuse to acknowledge any list of common yaku that excludes Pinfu. Of course, it doesn't help that Pinfu is a bastard to define.
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Apr 3, 2014 00:19
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Tried playing against real people for the first time today. It went pretty well!
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Apr 4, 2014 15:33
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I posted back a while ago asking about tile sets and which one is good to get. I did get the Yellow Mountain Imports set, and aside from the lack of green color and tacky paint job outside of the titles, I gotta say I'm satisfied with it. Still haven't managed to find people to play with though. Such is life.
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Apr 4, 2014 20:25
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So I've been tooling around with that flash version, and the main thing I've learned is that I am bad at Mahjong. Constructing a good wait is easy enough, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to win once I've made a revealed group. Heck, when is it right to make a revealed group in the first place?
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Apr 4, 2014 21:33
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The Lord of Hats posted:So I've been tooling around with that flash version, and the main thing I've learned is that I am bad at Mahjong. Constructing a good wait is easy enough, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to win once I've made a revealed group. Heck, when is it right to make a revealed group in the first place? If you call tiles, it becomes much harder to legally win. So if you want to call tiles, have a definite plan for what yaku you're working on. Tanyao/endless is a very common option here- just discards all 1s, 9s, winds, and dragons. Three of the same dragon or a scoring wind (yakuhai) is another common choice. Otherwise, you should keep your hand closed, as that at least allows you to call riichi for an easy yaku. vocaloid orgasm posted:Tried playing against real people for the first time today. It went pretty well! Congratulations on your first win. Looks like you won some nice hands.
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Apr 4, 2014 21:46
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Oh, neat, a thread for people to chat about mashing tiles. I haven't played in awhile and I also still don't have any idea about strategies other than "don't try to call everything" and "figure out when is and isn't good for riichi". Is there going to be an IRC or something for pickup games?
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Apr 4, 2014 22:50
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The Lord of Hats posted:So I've been tooling around with that flash version, and the main thing I've learned is that I am bad at Mahjong. Constructing a good wait is easy enough, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to win once I've made a revealed group. Heck, when is it right to make a revealed group in the first place? I'm no mahjong pro or anything but this is pretty much my basic strategy and it works reasonably well for me: Look at the discard ponds and notice how they're organized in rows of 6 tiles, and in a hand drawn to exhaustion there are 3 rows of discards per player. You can break mahjong into essentially a 3 act game using the rows of discards as a kind of clock. I find it really helps to compartmentalize your strategy like that. In the first act players are feeling each other out and putting together the foundation of their hands. People are generally optimistic enough to not open their hands up in the first act. On the flip side, people tend to make some pretty dangerous cuts early on so this is a great time to call honors for a yakuhai if you can. By the start of the second act players usually have a strategy in mind, whether they're going all out for a particular hand, hedging their bets, or playing defensively. This is when the vast majority of hands open up. There is enough information at this point for people to start reading discards though so cuts tend to be made a little more carefully here. If someone hasn't won by the third act and you aren't in tenpai or are close, this is when you want to go crazy and make as many calls and cuts as possible to get yourself to tenpai. If you aren't going to win you might as well not lose.
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Apr 4, 2014 23:13
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I thought that if you were in the endgame and especially if other players look like their ducks are all lined up, you desperately are trying to not discard someone else's winning tile in hopes that you will either draw the game or get someone else/everybody to pay for someone else's win. Not that this ever really works for me, once I discarded something I thought would be safe and two people called it so I ate twice the loss. Check this sweet mahjong set. Who makes these, anywa-   
nftyw fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Apr 8, 2014 |
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Apr 8, 2014 02:04
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Good get. I didn't think Nintendo ever put out an English set. Seeing as how flowers are in there, I'm guessing there's no red fives though.
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Apr 8, 2014 07:56
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I've reached the point in Tenhou where losing a game can lose me points and even drop me down a rank, and suddenly I'm getting my rear end kicked in several different directions daily. It's very distressing.nftyw posted:I thought that if you were in the endgame and especially if other players look like their ducks are all lined up, you desperately are trying to not discard someone else's winning tile in hopes that you will either draw the game or get someone else/everybody to pay for someone else's win. Yeah, but trying to get to tenpai while you're doing it is worth it, provided you can get there while discarding mostly safe tiles. If you don't have a read on someone's hand, generally speaking you just want to try to discard the same tiles they do, since furiten will generally stop them from being able to call on it. aldantefax posted:Is there going to be an IRC or something for pickup games? It's dead as hell but there's a #riichigoons on synirc. e: also if you want a slightly more concise table of yaku I really like this guide because it can print out onto a single sheet of paper. Stelas fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Apr 8, 2014 |
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Apr 8, 2014 16:04
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Stelas posted:Yeah, but trying to get to tenpai while you're doing it is worth it, provided you can get there while discarding mostly safe tiles. If you don't have a read on someone's hand, generally speaking you just want to try to discard the same tiles they do, since furiten will generally stop them from being able to call on it. Here's a good article on defensive play that covers that end of the game nicely http://riichiround.blogspot.com/2011/01/riichi-and-defensive-play.html
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Apr 8, 2014 19:55
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 I'm the strongest.
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Apr 9, 2014 01:55
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someone tell why this doesnt count as a straight im dumb and bad edit: k im told that if i have an open hand i need to steal a tile to complete it 
Minesweep fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Apr 9, 2014 |
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Apr 9, 2014 05:53
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please piss on me posted:Stuff about opening your hand drat, this made a world of difference. Being able to play for the small win off of a triplet is way easier than trying to assemble a Tsumo every time. Which leads me to my next question: is Kan a "If you can do it, do it" sort of thing? The Lord of Hats fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Apr 9, 2014 |
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Apr 9, 2014 07:18
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The Lord of Hats posted:drat, this made a world of difference. Being able to play for the small win off of a triplet is way easier than trying to assemble a Tsumo every time. Couple edge cases to be aware of I guess, if you have no hope of winning you probably don't want to play a kan because the newly flipped dora could potentially make your opponents' hand stronger. Also if there are already 3 kans on the table, calling a 4th will immediately abort the hand. Sometimes that's advantageous, other times it might be something you want to avoid.
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Apr 9, 2014 08:00
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The Lord of Hats posted:drat, this made a world of difference. Being able to play for the small win off of a triplet is way easier than trying to assemble a Tsumo every time. My honest opinion is that calling kan is often problematic. You will more normally call kan with open hands (toi-toi and stuff like that) but kan doesn't just add dora, it adds reverse dora which are only accessible to riichi hands that go out. If there's any pressure on the table from any other player it's as likely to hurt you as help you. If you're waiting, sure, you usually call it and try to live the rinshan dream because another draw is another draw. Calling kan by adding to an exposed pon doesn't give up any extra information, but calling kan from a closed pon does and that can be very relevant. If I have a toi-toi read on someone and they're on two calls and seven tiles closed, I won't necessarily treat them as waiting. If they closed kan and go down to four tiles, I treat them as almost certainly waiting and adjust my play accordingly, which can hurt them. Closed kans in closed hands are usually worthwhile because you can aim to riichi for the reverse dora. With all this said, it's only something to worry about when playing against humans who can read the table to some extent. In the meantime, dora are fun and calling tiles is fun, so just calling kan whenever you can and seeing what happens is also fine.
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Apr 9, 2014 11:20
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So, I've been enjoying playing the second link (the English one), but I keep coming up with a Tsumo, or Ron, and then I try to win the hand and it tells me I have no multiplier. Huh?
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Jul 9, 2014 00:36
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That message means you don't have a yaku in your hand - you've either opened your hand (by taking someone else's tile) and blocked off a lot of your options, or you've collected a load of crap and you're going to have to riichi to actually get it to count as a hand. Remembering the hands is the hardest part, closely followed by curbing the instinct to just grab at tiles. Opening your hand by taking someone else's tile locks you out of a lot of different yaku and often strips the score of others, especially if you start opening your hands with 1s or 9s or winds you don't care about. For the sake of a clearer list than the one on gamedesign, here's the most common yaku: Closed only:
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Jul 9, 2014 01:36
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I suck at mahjong, and I have 0 idea what I'm doing half the time or more. I have no idea what yaku are and I get stumped at basic things. At least I got luck. Edit: Further establishing I can't play worth a poo poo but I have luck 
Forer fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Jul 11, 2014 |
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Jul 11, 2014 07:32
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For Android users, search in the playstore for 麻雀 天極牌 by Hangame. Beautiful multiplayer riichi mahjong app, with several different modes of play and even single player modes for practice. It's in Japanese but easy enough to parse.
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Jul 15, 2014 08:36
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For anyone interested, the first Riichi World Championship has started and the first han chans were played today. As you can imagine, Japan sent quite a lot of their pro players and it's highly probable they will win. For competition, I'd wager some French players such as Nicolas Campina may fare well. Denmark has some strong players as well, and there may be some surprises from Eastern Europe, particularly from Russia, since they don't like EMA rules much and prefer the Japanese Pro League rules, so they may be more accustomed to Japanese playstyle. Some other attending players that I'd like to name are Martin Rep, author of numerous books about mahjong, Jenn Barr, the first foreign player ever to get to Japanese Pro leagues and still the only foreign woman there, and Gemma Collinge, a seasoned Mahjong player who runs the Reach Mahjong site together with Barr and Garthe Nelson. It's going to be interesting and exciting! I used to go to some smaller tournaments around Europe and I hoped I could've attended this one, but I haven't played actively enough in years and would've been wrecked instantly. I guess I should start playing in tenhou again.
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Jul 17, 2014 17:43
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Dear lord Japanese Mahjong is complicated. I also first learned from a Taiwanese friend, and then moved to Chinese rules. My group also plays for fun, though, and doesn't really keep score.
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Jul 17, 2014 19:40
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 I'm not sure what it's suggesting I should wait for here if I declare riichi. I don't even know what's best to discard. Is this yakuhai? Is that the only reason this is viable? What serves me best to discard? Sorry, I'm really new to this game and I don't want to post about every situation that comes up, but I really want to know what and WHY I should discard a specific tile in this specific situation. It's probably the most obvious thing in the world to you. Ditch the 7m(seems the smartest move to me, leave the 5m as a generic pair)? The 4p (a 5p wait would complete meld though)?
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Jul 20, 2014 15:36
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Yes, that hand has yakuhai, although since riichi is itself a yaku, you could riichi off any closed hand and win anyway. Having more yaku is of course more points though. When you riichi, I imagine it'll show you what tiles you can discard, right? The 7m should be the only viable choice, with a wait on 5p. I would probably not riichi off that hand though; the wait isn't very good, you're in no hurry to do so, and you could easily aim for a straight or at least a more consistent hand after you discard the 7m. And worst case, you can maintain a hidden wait on the 5p even without riichi.
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Jul 20, 2014 15:46
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Yep, fanpai (or yakuhai) is the only yaku here. I'd say take the riichi. It's quite early on and while it is a single wait, it could well materialise. I don't think you could make this hand better easily. You could try dumping those three man tiles and try to get hon itsuu (or half flush) hand with pin and honors, but that could be tricky, it'll take a while and your wait will be much more obvious. If you want to riichi, discard man (number) 7. It'll leave the man 5s as a pair, and your wait will be pin 5. Your finished hand will be man 5 pair, pin 123 straight, pin 456 straight, pin 678 straight and triplet haku, which serves as your yaku. Not a very flashy hand, but it's the beginning of the han chan and you'll cut off the dealer's winning streak. Edit: forgot the full straight (123456789 of the same suit) That is something you could try to get, especially since that's a computer game with no human opponents. Early riichi can be a good pressure tactic if you just want to get the game go on and not get stuck on one guy winning as a dealer and if you're certain the other players don't know your playing style. It's not something you should be always doing, but it can be a good way to gauge the other players. Laputanmachine fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Jul 20, 2014 |
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Jul 20, 2014 15:51
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