Simple Variants of Riichi Mahjong

Sometimes it's just not possible to get four players together for a game of mahjong, or perhaps you have six or seven people, and it's inevitable that some will be left out of a game. Fortunately, there are some simple (yet deep in strategy) variants of Japanese Riichi style mahjong to consider at those times.

Aside from sanma, all of these variants were invented by the great mahjong manga author Nobuyuki Fukumoto

SANMA (3 PLAYERS)

Sanma, read 三麻 and meaning 'three mah(jong)', is the traditional 3-player variant of Japanese Riichi style mahjong. The rules for it are fairly straightforward, and have already been covered on this blog.

MINEFIELD MAHJONG: 17 STEPS (2 PLAYERS)

Minefield Mahjong was invented for the third series of Fukumoto's gambling manga Kaiji. This two-player variant is designed to test your luck and instinct, allowing you to experiment with different waits and to avoid dealing in to an opponent's riichi. The game gets its name from the premise that the players are both walking across a minefield that is 17 paces long (from the maximum of 17 discards in each round), and that discarding an opponent's winning tile represents stepping on a landmine and suffering the consequences.

The full rules for Minefield Mahjong can be found here on this blog.

TENPAI RACE (2 PLAYERS)

Tenpai Race appeared in the manga Ten: Nice Guy on the Path of Tenhou. Quite possibly the definitive test for reading your opponent's waits and the progress of his hand, this style of mahjong is based around making tough choices between building a fast hand, building a valuable hand, and building a hand with a subtle wait. In addition, it tests a player's logic to use the opponent's discards, open sets, and worthless draws in addition with your own tiles and previous guesses to try and uncover their winning tile before they draw it.

The full rules for Tenpai Race can be found here on this blog.

MANGAN MAHJONG (4 OR 8 PLAYERS)

Also appearing in Ten: Nice Guy on the Path of Tenhou, this style of mahjong is much more simple to understand than the others, though requires four players. It is identical to regular Japanese Riichi style mahjong except for four main differences:

• No repeat counters are ever added to the table (though the dealer can keep his position as in usual Japanese Riichi style mahjong), and players do not have to bet 1000 points to declare riichi.
• If you win with a hand that scores below a mangan (i.e., less than five han, or less than 4 han and 40 fu, or less than 3 han and 70 fu), no points are exchanged. The win is still valid and the winds shift as usual: The only change is the omission of exchanging points.
• If the south round ends, the game enters another east round. The two rounds continue to cycle until a player has 0 points or fewer.
• If you win with a hand that scores mangan or higher, the other player(s) lose points as usual, but you do not gain any of those points: They are simply removed from the game (i.e., it is impossible to ever regain any points that you lose).

By convention, 'Pool of Dreams' and 'Gift of Man' cannot be scored.

Once a player reaches 0 points, the game ends and whichever player still has the most points is the winner.

In Ten: Nice Guy on the Path of Tenhou, the game was played in a tag-team system, where after every ten discards, a player would sub out with his partner. Players could not discuss strategy or their hands with their partner, and of course you were forbidden from looking at other players' hands even when you weren't the one currently at the table. Each individual player had their own score, and only people currently sitting at the table could lose points. In this variant, the game wouldn't end until 5 people have reached 0 points in total.

CLEAR MAHJONG (4 PLAYERS)

Once more, this mahjong variant is from Ten: Nice Guy on the Path of Tenhou (there's a reason it's quite possibly Fukumoto's most famous work!). Designed to be played in two teams of two with one team starting in the east and north seats, and the other starting in the south and west seats, this game is identical to regular Japanese Riichi style mahjong with only the following changes:

• If the south round ends, the game enters another east round. The two rounds continue to cycle until a player has 0 points or fewer, or until the five 'conditions' have been met by either team.
• If a player wins with a hand that scores any of the following five yaku, that 'condition' is considered to have been met by their team:
• Large Straight
• Three Colors, One Chii
• All With Orphans
• Three Concealed Pons
• Seven Pairs
•  A hand that scores All With Terminals or Four Concealed Pons does not count as clearing a 'condition'.

If any player has fewer than 0 points at any time, the other team wins. Alternatively, if either team manages to complete all five 'conditions', their team wins. This makes a dichotomy where a player may forgo aiming for a bigger hand or accepting a win with a smaller hand if it allows them to clear another 'condition'.

And if one team completes all five 'conditions' but causes their teammate to lose all of his points in the process, precedent is to decide the winner through a nice game of Tenpai Race.

April MSMC 2016 Tournament

It's that time of year again: The McGill Students' Mahjong Club is holding our annual mahjong tournament! Registration is 100% free, and you could win small prizes if you make it to the top, so why not spend a day having fun and playing mahjong with us! Whether you're a beginner or an expert, please stop by to have some fun!

The tournament is scheduled for 2:00 PM in the SSMU Blue Room (room 403). We have the room booked until 9:00 PM, but the tournament may end sooner depending on how many entrants we get.

RULES

• The tournament is free to enter for any interested people.
• The amount of rounds we play will depend on how many people attend.
• We will use the standard Japanese Riichi rules of the MSMC. (Check the links in the sidebar for a list of riichi rules if needed)
• Please clearly vocalize all calls. The terms you use should be clear and consistent (Chow/Chi, Pung/Pon, Gong/Kan, Win/Mahjong/Ron/Tsumo)
• Do not stall for longer than necessary. Excessively slowing down the game may be penalized.
• Do not take any tiles from the wall before the previous player has finished discarding. Drawing out of turn may be penalized, even if you do not look at the tile's face.
• Give other players enough time to call on discards. Do not play excessively fast for the purpose of making other players miss their opportunities to call on discards.
• You may take back any call until you have discarded a tile or revealed any tiles from your hand to accept the called tile.
• If you accidentally make an invalid call (e.g., a player discards a 2 dots and you reveal a 3-5 dots and declare 'chii'), you may correct that call if possible before you discard (e.g., putting the 5 dots back into your hand and revealing a 4 dots instead). If you discard a tile first, or do not have the tiles in your hand to correct that call, your hand is dead.
• Once a discard hits the table, you may not take it back and discard a different tile instead. Your turn ends as soon as the tile is discarded.
• The responsibility rule is enabled for the following yakuman: Big Three Dragons, Big Four Winds, All Honors, All Terminals, Perfect Green, and Four Kans.
• No red fives will be used.
• You may not make an open pon and discard the fourth copy of that tile in the same turn, nor can you make an open chii and discard a copy of that called tile in the same turn, nor can you discard any other tile that would complete that chii in the same turn (e.g., if a player discards a 2-dots, you cannot take it to make a 2-3-4 dots and then discard either a 2-dots or a 5-dots in the same turn). This is called kuikae, and is disallowed.
• If two players declare a win off of the same tile, turn order takes priority.
• If the game ends in an exhaustive draw, any riichi bets still on the table go to whoever is in first place.
• A player's wall is inviolable. Aside from when drawing a tile (or flipping over the under dora if you won after declaring riichi), there is no reason to ever touch another player's wall without his or her permission.
• Except when declaring tsumo, ron, or tenpai at the end of the round, do not reveal your hand or give information about it at any time. Your score can be penalized if you reveal your hand after another player declares ron or tsumo, or if you tell people what tiles you were waiting on, how close you were to a yakuman, etc.
• Do not look through the wall or dead wall after a hand, and do not check the under dora unless you won after declaring riichi.

TOURNAMENT PLACEMENT

(The following plans are subject to change as needed)

If we have four entrants, we will skip directly to the finals.

If we have five or six entrants, we will host two consecutive games tabled by random draws. Whoever comes in first (or second, with six entrants) in the first game advances to the finals. Whoever comes in first or second (or third, with five entrants) in the second game also advances to the finals.

If we have seven or eight players, each table will play two consecutive games. Whichever two players from each table have the highest combined final score from their games will enter the finals. A table of three players will be joined by the tournament organizer (who cannot enter the finals, and is only playing to fill in the numbers).

If we have more than eight players, we will determine finalists in another way, to be discussed.

The finals will consist of two (or three, if we had five or fewer total entrants) consecutive games among the four finalists. Placement of the finalists will entirely be determined by their final score after the two (or three) final games.


FINAL SCORING

At the end of each hand, all players subtract 30,000 from their total score. The player in first place adds 20,000 to his score. All players then divide their score by 1000 (rounding up to the nearest thousand if their score is negative, and rounding down if their score is positive).
A placement bonus then happens: Whoever's score is the highest adds 20 to his score. Whoever's score is second adds 10. Third subtracts 10, and fourth subtracts 20. (If there are any ties, the original dealer's score is considered to be higher than anyone he ties with, then the original South, then West, and the original North player loses all ties).
If the scores do not perfectly add up to 0, adjust the first place's score so that they do.

The current total is added to each player's 'final score'. In this way, a player who doesn't get a lot of points but is able to frequently take second place may have a higher final score than a player who wins an incredible amount of points one round but busts out early in another round.

When the finals begin, each finalists 'final score' is reset to 0. At the end of the final rounds, whoever has the highest final score is the tournament winner!


SCORING

Please check our standard riichi scoring list for an explanation of how scoring is done. The following changes to scoring are in effect for the tournament:

• The Eight Dealer Keeps limit hand cannot be scored.
• The Gift of Man low-limit hand cannot be scored.
• The Chariot limit hand cannot be scored.

PENALTIES

CHOMBO

The following penalties happen whenever the game is forced into an state from which it cannot be recovered. If the dealer is penalized, she must pay 4000 points to all other players.
If a non-dealer is penalized, she must pay 4000 points to the dealer and 2000 points to the other two players.
If a chombo and win happen at the same time (including a Pool of Dreams), the win takes priority and the chombo is ignored.
When a chombo occurs, the seat winds do not change, but no repeat counter is added to the table. Any riichi bets that were placed on the table during that hand are returned to their owners, but any riichi bets that were already on the table from previous hands remain there.

• Revealing enough tiles from the wall that the game cannot fairly continue, or that the wall cannot surely be restored (up to the discretion of the tournament organizer).
• Revealing any amount of tiles from another player's hand.
• Declaring a win when you have no yaku, or when you do not have a legal hand. If you do not reveal your hand, this is not considered a chombo, but is instead considered a dead hand.
• Declaring a ron while you are in furiten. If you do not reveal your hand, this is not considered a chombo, but is instead considered a dead hand.
• Declaring riichi when you are not in tenpai. This chombo only happens if the hand ends in a draw.
• Making an invalid kan after declaring riichi. This chombo only happens if the hand ends in a draw.

DEAD HAND
The following penalty happens when one player makes a small error that makes it impossible for her to have a winning hand. A player with a dead hand may not declare riichi, pon, chii, kan, ron, or tsumo. She must simply draw and discard every turn, hoping not to feed another player. If the hand ends in an exhaustive draw, a player with a dead hand is never considered tenpai and cannot earn a Pool of Dreams.

• Having the wrong amount of tiles in your hand.
• Making an open meld, and not taking the tile from your opponent's pond within two discards.
• Making an invalid call. For example, revealing a pair of 3-dots and declaring 'pon' when an opponent discards a 5-dots. If you correct this error before discarding a tile, your hand is not dead.
• Declaring ron or tsumo in error, but neglecting to reveal your tiles. If you do reveal your hand, this becomes a chombo instead of a dead hand.

SCORE PENALTIES
The following penalties do not affect your in-game score, but instead deduct points from your final score (a total of points earned from all games in the tournament). Unlike chombos, no one else at the tournament gains points when you are penalized in this way. All score penalties are ultimately up to the sole discretion of the tournament organizer.

• If you accidentally drop a tile onto the floor, there is a penalty of 2 points to your score for every tile you drop.
• If you arrive late or must leave before the end of the tournament, there may or may not be a penalty to your score, depending on the amount of players we have.
• If you discuss the state of the game, there is a penalty of up to 10 points to your score depending on the severity and context. This is because your words may disadvantage another player by drawing attention to them or to their hand.
• Examples of allowed discussion:
• "You're supposed to draw from this point here" (as a player draws the wrong tile from the wall)
• "Don't forget to take that tile" (as a player makes an open meld but doesn't take the appropriate tile from his opponent's pond)
• "Hey, that's the wrong tile" (as a player reveals an invalid meld)
• "You have too many tiles in your hand"
• Examples of penalized discussion:
• "Don't discard anymore honors!" (as a player has three open melds of honor tiles)
• "He's close to a Pool of Dreams!"
• "Orphans aren't dead, be careful"
• "Do you have All with Terminals or Three Colors, One Chii?" (thinking aloud about another player's yaku)
• If you reveal your hand except when required to (declaring ron, tsumo, or tenpai during an exhaustive draw), or tell people about your hand or its waits, there may be a penalty of up to 5 points to your score (up to the discretion of the tournament organizer).
• If you look at tiles from the wall at the end of a hand (whether you're checking the wall, dead wall, or under dora), there will be a penalty of 2 points to your score for every tile you reveal.