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How a Match Works
East-only and hanchan games, dealer rotation and repeats, abortive draws, and the final placings and points.
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East-only and hanchan
A match is made of several hands. Each hand lasts until someone wins or it ends in a draw.
- East only (tonpuusen): East 1 to East 4, at least 4 hands.
- Hanchan: the four East hands followed by four South hands, at least 8 hands.
The wind of the current half is the round wind. During the East round, a triplet of East is a value tile for everyone.
The dealer and seat winds
Each hand has one dealer, whose seat wind is East; the next player (on the dealer's right) is South, across is West, and on the left is North. Your seat wind is your own wind.
A dealer win is worth 1.5 times as much, and the dealer also pays more when someone else wins by tsumo. Your turn as dealer is your best chance to pull ahead.
Dealer repeats and rotation
- If the dealer wins, or is in tenpai at an exhaustive draw, the same player deals again (a repeat), and the honba count goes up by 1.
- Otherwise the deal passes to the next player. After a draw the honba count still goes up by 1; after a win it resets to 0.
So "East 1" can be played several times; "1 honba" on screen means the second time.
Abortive draws
In these cases the hand is cancelled and replayed (honba +1, same dealer):
| Name | When |
|---|---|
| Nine terminals | On your first draw, before any call, you hold 9 or more kinds of terminals and honors and choose to abort |
| Four winds | All four players discard the same wind on the first go-around |
| Four riichi | All four players have declared riichi |
| Four kans | Four kans have been declared by two or more players in total |
| Triple ron | Three players ron the same tile |
There is also a special draw payout: at an exhaustive draw, if a player's discards are all terminals and honors and none were called, they score nagashi mangan and collect as if they had won a mangan by tsumo.
How the match ends
- The match ends after the last hand (East 4 in East-only, South 4 in hanchan).
- If nobody has reached 30,000 points after the last hand, play extends into the next wind (the West round) and ends as soon as someone reaches 30,000.
- In the last hand, if the dealer wins (or is in tenpai at a draw) while in first place with 30,000 or more, the match ends right there (agari-yame).
- If anyone's score drops below 0, the match ends immediately (busting).
Final points: return, uma and oka
The "Result" on the final screen is not your score itself but a converted result:
- Return: subtract 30,000 from each player's score and divide by 1,000.
- Uma: a bonus by placing, 5-15 by default: 1st +15, 2nd +5, 3rd −5, 4th −15.
- Oka: everyone starts with 25,000 but returns 30,000, and the 20 points left over all go to first place.
The four players' points always add up to 0. On a tie, the player closer to the first dealer ranks higher. Riichi sticks left on the table at the end go to first place.
This site's default rules
The defaults follow the common online rules used by sites such as Tenhou and Mahjong Soul:
- 25,000 starting points, 30,000 return, hanchan, uma 5-15.
- Red fives (one per suit), kuitan, ippatsu, ura dora, kan dora, double ron, busting, counted yakuman.
- Abortive draws and nagashi mangan; pao (liability) for big three dragons and big four winds, where the player who fed the yakuman pays.
- Kuikae is not allowed; a triple ron is a draw.
In the menu's "Rules" you can change the length, red fives, kuitan, double ron, double yakuman, kiriage mangan, uma and busting.
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