Oh, and if you’re playing with friends, always check at the start of each hand to see if you can try all consecutively discarding the same wind. This immediately ends the hand. It is very funny so you have to do it even if your hand is really good
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I run a mahjong game night I do this regularly
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(Ignoring Setup)
At the start of the game you draw 13 tiles to comprise your ‘Starting Hand.’ You win the game when you can achieve a ‘valid hand’ of 14 tiles. Every turn you draw a 14th tile, and then discard a tile.
Your 14th tile can be one that you naturally draw, or one discarded by another player, given your hand is still ‘closed.’ You call ‘Tsumo’ if you naturally draw the tile that finishes your hand, and you call ‘Ron’ if the tile that finishes your hand is discarded by an opponent.
You then show your ‘valid hand’ for the rest of the game to see, and are awarded points based on the contents of your hand. If you called ‘Tsumo’, you evenly suck points from all of the other players to gain your score. If you called ‘Ron’ on someone else’s tile, you suck your entire score exclusively from them.
You then start a new round, keeping the points from the end of the previous. If the winning player was the ‘Dealer’, you continue with them being the dealer. If a non-dealer is the winner, the dealer continues rotating around the table to start a ‘new wind’ round.
The game typically starts in the first East Wind, or East Wind 1, and ends either when a player reaches 0 points, or when someone achieves over a set number of points (i think 40,000?). The game also can end at the end of East Wind 4, or West Wind 4. So 4 rounds, typically, plus any extra rounds the dealer won on. Each time the dealer wins a wind, extra ‘honba’ points are added.
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“Evenly suck points”… not sure how I feel about this phrasing, not gonna lie.
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Sometimes I just dont tell new people about yaku I just let them keep calling tiles and then when theyre like Why wont the site let me win I should be able to win I post this at them
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What makes a valid hand? You have to achieve a minimum of one Yaku. Most Yaku can only be completed if your hand is closed. All hands by default are closed. You can opt to open your hand under certain conditions.
If you have two of a tile and someone discards the third, you can call “Pon!” and take the tile from them. You then reveal face up the other two copies of that tile, and put them in front of the rest of your hand. To “Open” a hand limits the amount of points you can gain to certain Yaku, but usually lets you win faster.
If you have two tiles in ascending or descending order and the player who is to the left of you at the table discords the third (so if you have the two and the three of wheels, and the left player discards the 1 or the 4 of wheels) you can call “Chi!” and do the same thing as the pon, revealing the tiles.
This may help you finish the hand faster but is more often than not a rookie mistake.
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This is an exaggeration of what actually happened but I did something close
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I make spaghetti slurping sounds every time I win a hand. Gonna zucc their points
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I see.
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all i know about mahjong is that time the ghost of mao zedong got his ass beat back to the afterlife
Now you might be asking, “but Marl, what the fuck is a Yaku?”
This is where the 3 hour tutorial begins
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Marl this is a really effective way to get the cookie as soon as possible
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The two most simple Yaku are “closed hand” and “all simples”
MOST (not every, there are some very infamous notable exceptions) hands need to have A pair, and 4 sets of “runs”. A run can be any three tiles of the same suit in ascending or descending order, or it can be a triple of three of the same tile.
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So the most simple “Yaku” to achieve is to just get that without opening your hand. Don’t call Pon or Chi on anyone else’s tiles and draw into your finished hand from the wall yourself.
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(“The wall” is the draw pile. Except it’s not in the shape of a pile, it’s in the shape of a wall)
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The wall is basically the deck yes
You’d make a terrible architect. Those are completely different things.
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so
all of these hands are valid assuming you have not opened your hand
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four sets of straights or triplets, and a single pair
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that bottom hand is actually valid even if you opened your hand, you wont get the ‘closed hand’ yaku, but you’ll get the 4 Triplets Yaku. Just having 4 sets of triplets and a pair.
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