How to play Riichi Mahjong: four-player and three-player rules and controls

Riichi Mahjong modes

• Play vs CPU (CPU対戦): practice on your own. Choose four-player (四人麻雀) or three-player (三人麻雀), and an East-only game (東風戦) or a half game (半荘戦).
• Online Match (オンライン対戦): a Random Match (ランダムマッチ). The CPU takes any seats that are not filled.
• Room Match (ルーム対戦): sit at a table with friends using a room ID.

Basic rules of Riichi Mahjong

• You draw one tile and discard one tile, over and over, shaping your hand into four sets (mentsu) and one pair (jantou) to win.
• In four-player mahjong everyone starts with 25,000 points, and in three-player with 35,000. The game ends when someone drops below 0 points (tobi).
• With a closed hand, you can declare riichi once you are tenpai (one tile from winning). After riichi, you keep your hand as it is and wait for your winning tile.
• You can take another player's discard with pon, chi or kan (three-player mahjong has no chi).
• Besides dora, ura-dora and kan dora, there is one red five in each suit (three in total). The rules are the common ones, with open tanyao (kuitan) and atozuke allowed.
• Three-player mahjong uses 108 tiles, with the 2–8 of characters (manzu, 28 tiles) removed, and has north extraction (kita-nuki): each North you set aside counts as a dora (nuki-dora). When you win by self-draw, you do not receive the share of the missing seat (tsumo-son).

How to play on Asobi Lounge

• Tap a tile in your hand to lift it, and tap it again to discard it.
• Tiles that make you tenpai when discarded are marked, and your waiting tiles are shown with how many of each are left.
• Buttons for calls, riichi, ron and tsumo appear whenever you can use them. The Auto Win (自動和了), No Calls (鳴きなし) and Auto Discard (ツモ切り) toggles at the top right automate part of your play.
• Online, you have 5 seconds per move plus a 20-second time bank that refills every hand.

Detailed rules on this site

• Double riichi, ippatsu and kan ura-dora are used, and so is nagashi mangan.
• The dealer keeps the deal when tenpai. Hands can end early in an abortive draw, such as nine different terminals and honors (kyuushu kyuuhai) or four of the same wind discarded in a row (suufon renda).
• When two or more players can ron on the same tile, only the one closest to the discarder in turn order wins (atamahane).
• The common yaku are supported, from 1-han yaku such as riichi, all simples (tanyao) and pinfu up to yakuman such as thirteen orphans (kokushi musou), four concealed triplets (suuankou) and big three dragons (daisangen). All triplets (toitoi) is worth 2 han even with calls.

A practice order for beginners

1. Play a short East-only game against the CPU to get used to drawing and discarding and to the tenpai marks.
2. When you are tenpai, check your waiting tiles and how many are left, and try declaring riichi. The more tiles are left for your wait, the easier it is to win.
3. Once you are comfortable, practice winning quickly with all simples (tanyao, only number tiles 2–8) or by calling value tiles (yakuhai), such as the white, green and red dragons.
4. In half games and online matches, also think about defense: discard tiles that are safe against another player's riichi.

Tips

• At first, aim for all simples (tanyao), an easy yaku to build, or for riichi and pinfu. These make it easier to win.
• When another player declares riichi, defend by discarding tiles that player has already discarded (genbutsu).
• When your starting hand is scattered, the basic move is to discard isolated honor tiles and 1s and 9s first, and keep connected runs of number tiles.
• When you are tenpai, check how many of your waiting tiles are left. If only a few are left, you can hold off on riichi and wait for the hand to change into a better wait.
• A win as dealer scores 1.5 times what a non-dealer gets, and you stay dealer if you win or are tenpai when the hand ends in a draw (renchan). Your turn as dealer is the time to attack.

Frequently asked questions

I don't know the rules of mahjong.

Our articles (in Japanese) introduce the basic flow and the yaku. We recommend starting with games against the CPU to get used to drawing and discarding. Tiles that make you tenpai when discarded are marked, which helps you learn the shapes of winning hands.

What is the difference between four-player and three-player mahjong?

Three-player mahjong does not use the 2–8 of characters, has no chi, and has north extraction. Players also start with more points: 35,000.

What is the difference between an East-only game and a half game?

An East-only game (tonpuusen) is a short match played only in the East round. A half game (hanchan) is a longer match with an East round and a South round.

Is Riichi Mahjong free to play?

Yes, it costs nothing. Games against the CPU and solo modes work right away without signing in. Online play (random matches and private rooms) and saving stats or leaderboard scores require signing in with a Google account. To play with a friend, your friend also needs to create an account and register as your friend.

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