Sanma: Japanese Riichi 3-Player Variant

Often, it happens that only three people are available to play. Fortunately, there is a variant of Japanese Riichi style designed for three players. Here are how the rules differ from the regular Japanese Riichi rules:

• All of the character tiles are taken out, except for the 1-characters and 9-characters. This means All Terminals and Thirteen Orphans can still be scored.
• All of the yaku from regular Japanese Riichi style rules are still included, except for 'Three Colors, One Chii', which is impossible to score due to the missing characters tiles.
• The three players each build a wall 18 tiles long and 2 tiles high.
• After dealing the opening hands and separating the dead wall, flip over the fifth tile from the left of the dead wall instead of the third: This is your dora indicator tile.
• No player is the North Seat: They simply rotate between East, South, and West.
• Each player starts with 35000 points. The West Round is never played.
• Any turn after drawing, if a player has a north wind in his hand, he make declare 'north' and meld it as if it were a flower, drawing a replacement tile from the dead wall. This is called a 'north dora' and is worth 1 fan, but does not contribute to the 1 yaku minimum needed to win.
• Doing this does not open your hand if you were already concealed.
• You may meld a north wind that you draw after declaring riichi.
• If a player is waiting on a north wind, he may declare a win off of a player melding a north dora. This does not earn you the 'Rob a Gong' yaku.
• If the dora indicator is a west wind, every north dora is worth 2 fan instead of 1.
• If a player melds a north dora while another player has just declared Riichi, that player may no longer earn One-Shot.
• If you draw your winning tile after melding a north dora, you earn the 'Win off of a Replacement Tile' yaku.
• There is no abortive draw for "Four Players Riichi" or for "Same Four Winds", because there are only three players.
• You may not make any open chiis, except to declare a win. You may still make closed chiis, or open pungs and gongs.
• The same score table from regular Japanese Riichi style rules. This means that winning by tsumo is worth fewer points than winning by ron.