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.
