JPML Rules Mahjong

This document represents a sample chapter as adapted with permission from “Mahjong from A to Zhú” by Scott D. Miller

These rules as listed here in this excerpt assume the reader understands the core rules of mahjong which are covered in earlier chapters of the book, such as what the tiles mean, making and breaking the Wall, dealing, how to make valid sets like chows, pungs, kongs, how to declare a winning hand, and other basic mahjong rules. You can find the full overview of basic mahjong game play in Scott D. Miller’s book “Mahjong from A to Zhú”.

Japanese Riichi Mahjong (JPML Rules B)

Riichi mahjong is also sometimes called dora majan, Japanese modern mahjong, reach mahjong, and riichi majan. Japanese riichi mahjong is arguably the most highly refined set of rules for mahjong, and is the only rule-set with an organized league of professional players. Riichi mahjong’s popularity worldwide is also aided by the fact that it is almost exclusively the rule-set employed by the millions of video arcade mahjong games played around the globe.

The Set

Two dice. 136 tiles: tiles numbered “1” through “9” in suits of characters, bamboo, and dots (four of each), four winds (four of each), and three dragons (four of each).

Unique to the Japanese riichi set are the red dora (aka dora). A single 5-character, a single 5-bamboo, and two 5-dot are colored red.

Tip: if you don’t have a Japanese mahjong set with red dora, take a red crayon and rub it on the tiles over the engraved designs. This will pack red wax into the grooves. Then vigorously rub the face of the tile on a soft cloth to buff clean the excess wax. The final result will look indistinguishable from factory-dyed, red dora tiles. When you want your normal tiles back, the wax should clean right out with a simple toothbrush. I can’t imagine how you could ruin a tile doing this, but for disclaimer’s sake, test the idea on an unimportant tile before you potentially ruin a valuable tile, and take full personal responsibility for any damage you do to your tiles.

Rules authority: Set B of Japanese Professional Mahjong League (JPML-B) rules.

What Is Most Unique

Its dora bonus tiles, furiten rules, and its namesake “riichi” features distinguish Japanese riichi mahjong. This is also the only mahjong to allow a winning condition on a drawn hand (see Nagashi Mangan below).

Unique Terminology

Chii: the Japanese declaration for chow.

Kan: the Japanese declaration for kong.

Mangan: a score limit of 2,000 points.

Noten: a hand that is not tenpai, or ready to win.

Pon: the Japanese declaration for pung.

Riichi: a declared wager that the player will win the hand in exchange for additional scoring benefits. See Declaring Riichi below for details.

Tanyao: contains no major tiles. Every tile in the hand is a suit tile between 2 and 8. If this hand is open, it is called kuitan.

Tenpai: a hand that is one tile short of winning the hand; a ready hand. A hand isn’t counted as tenpai if all of the tiles that could complete that hand are used within that same hand (such as waiting with 6-8 when that same hand has a kan of the 7s).

Yaku: one of several units used to calculate a hand’s value.

Yakuman: special hands that are worth four times the score limit.

Building the Wall

The Wall is assembled in standard fashion, typically thirty-four tiles to a pier.

There is a Dead Wall (King’s Tiles). This Dead Wall also requires that itsthird tile counting counterclockwise again be turned over, to reveal a dora indicator (see below). Supplemental tiles (the first of which is labeled “S” in the illustration below) are drawn from the two stacks (four tiles) of the Dead Wall clockwise from the dora indicator. The four stacks (eight tiles) counterclockwise from the dora indicator (the first is labeled with a “1” in the illustration below) serve as possible new kan dora indicators, should a player make a kan (see kan rules below). The tiles below the dora indicator and kan dora indicators are potential ura dora indicator tiles.

Game Play

Tonpuusen game: only the East round is played.

Hanchan game: only the East and South rounds are played, which is most common.

Iichan game: all four rounds are played; East, South, West, and North.

Players begin with 30,000 points each (or which ever starting point is agreed upon), usually accounted for with riichi sticks (see “Riichi Sticks” section below).

Claiming Tiles

In riichi rules, players are forbidden from winning with a claimed tile (ron) if one of the tiles in their discard pool can also complete their hand for declaring “mahjong” (see furiten below). For this reason, each player maintains his own discard pool separate from the other players; also for this reason it is important to keep track of where claimed discards came from. Claimed tiles are therefore turned to indicate which player discarded it.

Discarder is to the right

Discarder sits across

Discarder is to the left

For kongs, the claimed tile is similarly turned, as in this example where the discarder sits across:

Adding a self-drawn tile to a pung that had its original claimed-tile from the person to the left looks like this:

Nashi Kuikai

A player may not claim a discarded tile to complete a set, and then immediately discard another tile that could have completed the same set. For example, claiming a 4 to complete 2-3-4, and then discarding a 1, which itself could have made the set 1-2-3. While a player can’t immediately discard the 1, he may of course, at any later turn, discard that tile.

Dora tiles

Unique to the Japanese riichi rules are the dora tiles. These are tiles that, if they are in a winning hand, increase that hand’s fan count. Don’t forget, each fan doubles a hand’s score, so in effect, a hand’s score will double for every dora tile it has. Such a powerful tile dramatically changes the strategy of the game.

Dora Indicator Tiles

These are the exposed tiles on the Dead Wall that indicate which tiles are the dora tiles. Indicator tiles are tiles that literally indicate which other tiles are worth something special. An indicator tile itself isn’t worth anything special at all, but its successor (the tile being indicated) is. For example, if the indicator tile is a 7-bamboo, then all four 8-bamboo tiles are dora tiles. If the indicator tile is a “9,” then its successor would be the “1.” Since the dragon tiles are ordered white, green, then red, if the indicator tile is a red dragon, then its successor is the white. Likewise, winds being East, South, West, then North, the successor to the North wind is the East wind. Beginners often ask, “Why not just have the indicator tile be the dora tile?” If that were the case, then the number of possible dora tiles in play would only be three, not four, since one of the tiles is used up to be the indicator.

Declaring a Kan, and the Kan Dora Indicator Tiles

Anytime a player declares a kan, something unique happens in Japanese riichi mahjong. In addition to the player drawing his supplemental tile from the Dead End of the Wall (as indicated by the “S” in the illustration below) and before he discards, he must also turn over one new dora indicator, called a kan dora indicator, counterclockwise from the original dora indicator. The first potential kan dora indicator is indicated below by the “1.”

Should the situation arise where there are multiple identical dora indicators, then each dora tile in the winning hand would be counted multiple times in scoring the hand. For example, if there are two 7-dot dora indicators, a hand with three 8-dots would count each of these dora twice for a total of six fan!

Please note that there are only four tiles clockwise to the dora indicator, which means there can only be four kan supplemental tiles. For this reason the hand is always declared a draw before there can be five kans in play (see “Drawn Hands” below).

Ura Dora Indicators

In the event a player wins via “riichi,” the tiles underneath the exposed dora and kan dora indicator tiles are also revealed. These newly exposed tiles themselves become additional dora indicator tiles called the ura dora indicator tiles.

Red Dora: Unique to the Japanese riichi set is the red doras. A single 5-character, a single 5-bamboo, and two 5-dot tiles are colored red. Each red dora in the hand is worth an additional dora-point when scoring the winning hand. Red dora usually do not apply in JPML tournament play.

Riichi Sticks / Betting Sticks / Tenbō

Riichi sticks are basically money chips used in Japanese versions of mahjong. The value of each stick is indicated by the dot pattern on the stick:

	100 points
	1,000 points
	5,000 points
	10,000 points

Declaring Riichi

A tenpai (ready) player whose entire hand is also concealed is eligible to declare “riichi”.

A riichi declaration is made according to the following steps:

1. Say “riichi.”

2. The player lays out 1,000 points (a “1,000-point riichi stick”) on the table. He may have a negative score at this point.

3. The player discards, turning the tile sideways.

If the turned-tile used to indicate riichi is claimed by another player, the riichi-player must turn their next discard sideways.

A declaration of “riichi” is a promise that any tile drawn by the player is immediately discarded unless it constitutes a win. The player is now betting 1,000 more points that he will win the hand.

A player who declares “riichi” and wins will receive two bonuses:

1. It counts as “1 yaku” when calculating their score.

2. The player may reveal the ura dora indicator tiles.

However, a player who declares “riichi” and loses is penalized the 1,000-point wager to the winner.

In the event of a draw for whatever reason, riichi sticks do not disappear but carry on into the next round until someone has the opportunity to take them by winning.

Once a player has declared “riichi,” the declaration cannot be taken back. From this point on, the player may not change the contents of their hand. He must discard any tile that does not allow him to declare “mahjong,” with one exception: he may make a concealed kan after a “riichi” declaration under the following circumstances:

1. The tile adds to a concealed pon already in his hand.

2. Making the kan will not change the formation of the sets in his hand.

3. Making the kan will not change his tenpai pattern.

An example of how a violation can inadvertently occur in declaring a concealed kan after a “riichi” declaration would include a player who has a pon of 1-bamboo, a single 2-bamboo, and a pon of 4-bamboo. This hand is waiting for either a 2- or 3-bamboo. Making a kan out of a 1-bamboo doesn’t change the tiles this hand is waiting on, but it does change the tenpai pattern, since doing so would eliminate the 1-2’s potential edge wait on a 3. Changing the tenpai pattern in this manner would incur a chombo penalty if discovered.

If there are less than four tiles left in the Wall, a player may not declare “riichi.”

Double Riichi

If a player can declare “riichi” within the first round of a hand, this is called daburu rīchi, which makes him eligible for a two yaku bonus instead of just one. All other conditions are the same as declaring a normal “riichi”.

Open Riichi

A player may reveal the waiting portion of his hand for an additional 1 yaku if he wins. Open riichi on a double riichi is essentially a triple riichi! Open riichi rules often don’t apply in tournament play.

Ippatsu (One-Shot) Riichi

If, after declaring riichi, a player declares a win within one turn, this is called ippatsu and counts as yet another additional yaku. An ippatsu on top of an open double riichi is essentially a quadruple riichi!

Furiten

A player is considered furiten, and is therefore forbidden from declaring “mahjong” by ron (claiming any discarded tile for the win), if he can win with any tile in his discard pool. For example, a player with a double-sided wait 6-7 and a 5 in the discard pool is furiten, and cannot win by ron on any tile, not even on an 8, since there is a tile in his discard pool, in this case the 5, that also could have completed his current hand. Avoid the temptation to call a tile furiten, since there is no specific forbidden tile, as illustrated by this example, where the player cannot win with the 8 even though it does not appear in his discard pool. To declare ron while furiten is considered a missed-win, and the player must pay a chombo penalty (see below). A player may still win a hand by tsumo (self-drawn winning tile) while furiten.

Temporary Furiten

A temporary furiten occurs when a player who has not declared “riichi” fails to declare ron on any discard that could have completed their winning hand. That player cannot claim any other discarded tile for ron until after they have self-drawn a new tile on their own next turn, ending their temporary furiten go-around. To declare ron while temporarily furiten is considered a missed-win, and that player must pay a chombo penalty (see below). A player may still win a hand by tsumo (self-drawn winning tile) while temporarily furiten.

Permanent Furiten

A permanent furiten occurs after a player declares “riichi,” and then fails to claim ron on any discarded tile that could have completed their winning hand. Under these circumstances, the player is forbidden from ever claiming ron for the duration of the hand. To declare ron while furiten is considered a missed-win, and the player must pay a chombo penalty (see below). A player may still win a hand by tsumo (self-drawn winning tile) while permanently furiten.

Chombo and Dead Hands

If a player makes an unrecoverable error, the hand is declared dead and void. In this case, the wind and dealer does not rotate, no dealer’s bonus counter sticks (renchan) are added, riichi sticks return to whoever put them out that round, and the offending player pays a penalty (called a chombo) to the other players. The penalty is 2,000 points (mangan, or score-limit). Dealers are paid double (4,000 points), unless it is the dealer who made the error—then he pays double to all the other players.

Unrecoverable errors include:

1. Declaring “mahjong” with an invalid hand.

2. Declaring “mahjong” with a hand that has no yaku value.

3. A dealer declaring “mahjong” with a hand that is worth less than two yaku when he has five or more bonus-hand counters on the table.

4. Declaring “mahjong” by ron (claiming a discard) while furiten.

5. A player, intentionally or through negligence, looks at or exposes tiles in an opponent’s hand or the Wall, or exposes their own hand.

6. Drawing a tile out of turn, or drawing in any other inappropriate way.

7. Making an invalid concealed kan after declaring “riichi” (which will be discovered if the player declares “mahjong,” or if the hand is drawn.

Declaring “riichi” on a hand that is not tenpai (which is discoverable only if the hand is a washout, as described on p. 83).

If a chombo occurs at the same time a different player wins the hand, the chombo is forgiven and voided.

Agari Hoki (Win Renunciation)

For lesser offenses, such as attempting to call for a discard to make an invalid set, attempting to play a set-switching discard (see nashi kuikai above), or having an incorrect number of tiles in one’s hand, the usual penalty is to be required to continue playing but forfeit the rights to claim any future discards, to have their hand recognized as tenpai (ready), and to declare “mahjong.”

Nagashi Mangan

Nagashi mangan is a winning condition that occurs when the Wall is exhausted and a player’s entire set of discards contains no simple tiles (suited tiles numbered 2 through 8). That player is considered to have won the hand with a 2,000-point (limit-scoring) hand called nagashi mangan. This event is sometimes only recognized if none of the discards from that player were claimed to make open melds by other players. As for payment, the hand is regarded as a mangan (limit scoring) hand won by tsumo (self-drawn winning tile). The hand is not considered a washout (see ‘Drawn Hands’ below), and so likewise penalties for the other players who don’t have a ready hand (noten bappu) or who have declared an invalid riichi (chombo) do not apply.

Drawn Hands

There are two kinds of drawn hands, a washout, and an abortive draw.

A hand is declared a washout in the event the Wall is exhausted (with only the fourteen tiles of the Dead Wall remaining), and no player has nagashi mangan. In the event of a washout, players must show their hands in the order of East, South, West and North. Any player who does not show a tenpai (ready) hand is subject to the noten penalty. The noten penalty totals 3,000 points, which is divided equally by all players with noten hands, and is received equally by all players with tenpai hands. If all players are noten, there is no penalty. Players who have declared riichi but are not actually ready (tenpai), or who have declared an invalid kan during riichi, additionally have to pay a chombo penalty.

A hand is declared an abortive draw in the event:

1. All four players in the first go-around discard the same wind tile.

2. A player declares in the first go-around that he has been dealt nine different major tiles.

3. No one wins on the discard after the fourth declared kan, no one robs the fourth kan to declare mahjong, and all four declared kans are not in the same player’s hand. If all four declared kans are in the same player’s hand, play continues as usual until a fifth kan is declared, which will always draw the hand.

4. Three players all claim the same discard for declaring “mahjong,” also known as triple ron.

5. All four players declare “Riichi,” and no one wins with the fourth player’s discard laid during his declaration. In this situation all players must reveal their hands. Players who are not actually tenpai (ready) must pay a chombo penalty.

Rotation and Rounds

In riichi mahjong, the dealer gets to deal again (and players’ winds do not rotate) in what is called a bonus hand or renchan hand, if:

The dealer wins the hand.
The hand ends in an abortive draw.
The hand ends in a washout, and the dealer is tenpai (has a ready hand).

Bonus-Hand Counters

The dealer counts his bonus hands by laying out a single 100-point stick to his right every time he wins a hand. These sticks are merely bonus-hand counters (dealer counters, renchan counters, or table sticks), and do not represent any kind of wager on the dealer’s behalf. The winner of the bonus-hand collects a special bonus (called a tsumi bonus) based on how many counters the dealer has laid out (see scoring section).

Once another player has won, the dealer takes these sticks back; they are not lost. However, if it is a washout and the dealer is not tenpai, this count is “passed” on to the new dealer (but not the actual 100-point sticks) as the players’ winds rotate. The previous dealer's counters are returned to him, and the new dealer replaces the counters with the same amount, plus an additional one more of his own.

Ryanhanshibari

If the dealer has five or more bonus-hand counters in play, players’ hands must be worth not just one, but two yaku in order to be considered a valid winning hand. In JPML tournaments, this rule does not apply.

Parenchan

Should a dealer win eight or more consecutive valid hands, his hand will score as a yakuman-scoring hand, regardless of its actual composition. In JPML tournaments, this rule does not apply.

Head Bump

In Japanese riichi mahjong, only one player may claim a discard for ron. If two or more players attempt to claim the same tile for ron, the player who is closest to the dealer counting in a counterclockwise direction (i.e. his turn was closer to being next) takes precedence for the tile in what is known as 頭跳ね atama hane (literally “headbutt”).

Tsumo Pinfu

A player who wins by tsumo (self drawn) with a Pinfu (worthless all chi) hand does not earn 2 points for the tsumo win, thus preserving Pinfu’s requirement that the hand be worthless.

Scoring

Players begin the match with 30,000 points.

As soon as a player has declared “mahjong,” play stops. Losing players are not required to reveal the concealed portions of their hands.

Letting off a Cannon: insurance penalty (sekinin harai) rules apply.

Scoring applies to only to the hand winner.

Scoring the Winning Hand

When a player declares “mahjong,” he wins the hand only if his hand is worth at least one yaku (remembering that dora tiles do not count as yaku). An exception to the “one yaku” rule is when the dealer has five or more bonus-hand counters on the table (he is on hisfifth (or higher) consecutive bonus hand), then players are required to have at least two yakus to declare “mahjong.”

A player’s hand value is based on the traditional formula, where the hand’s basic value, its fu, is doubled once for every fan. Only the winning hand is scored.

Quite honestly, most players don’t calculate their scores and simply look the score up on a table, but it’s helpful to understand how to calculate the score to better understand how to build a good scoring hand.

Download Japanese riichi scoring tables by clicking here.

Before the hand can be scored, however, you must first determine its value.

Player’s hand value = (Fu) x 2^fan

Calculating the Fu

In this section, the term "mini-points" is used to represent fu-points and has no relation to the hand’s final point value. Fu is based on the composition of the hand.

Worth pointing out here that a valued wait in riichi rules is more relaxed than is Chinese Competition rules; riichi merely requires that the winning tile complete either an edge, middle or pair wait. It does not have to be waiting on only one unique tile to qualify as a scoring wait.

Base Score: 20 mini-points.

Closed hand: 10 mini-points.

Tsumo (self-drawn winning tile) bonus: 2 mini-points

Pinfu Hand does not earn this scoring condition.

An edge, middle, or pair wait winning tile: 2 mini-points

Dragon pair: 2 mini-points

Prevailing wind pair: 2 mini-points

Player’s own wind pair: 2 mini-points

Melded simple pon: 2 mini-points

Concealed simple pon: 4 mini-points

Melded honor or terminal pon: 4 mini-points

Concealed honor or terminal pon: 8 mini-points

Melded simple kan: 8 mini-points

Concealed simple kan: 16 mini-points

Melded major kan: 16 mini-points

Concealed major kan: 32 mini-points

Seven Unique Pairs: 5 mini-points.

In scoring this hand, it’s worth 5 mini-points. Besides the 20 base mini-points, no additional fu points are added to this hand’s score, making this hand’s tally always worth 25 fu. Normally the tally is rounded to the nearest 10, but this hand is the exception… it remains worth 25 fu.

Calculating the Fan

The fan is a sum of three numbers: the yaku count, the dora count, and a base number. Note that some scoring systems omit the base number, and their accompanying score-tables take this into account. Tables that omit the base fan count will have their first column starting with “1 fan,” not “3.” Pay attention to how a scoring table was factored, or the scores that players look up could be off by four-fold!

Yaku Count (the sum of all possible han-points):

Pinfu (Peace) Hand (scoreless all-chi hand): 1 han, closed hands only

Mixed Triple Chii (three chii of the same numbers, one in each suit): 2 han closed, 1 han open

Pure Double Chii (two identical chii): 1 han, closed hands only

Twice Pure Double Chii: 3 han total, closed hands only

Pure Straight (same suit tiles from 1 thru 9):

2 han for closed hands, 1 han for open hands

Three Concealed Pons: 2 han

Three Color Pons Hand (three pons of the same number, one in each suit): 2 han

Three Kans: 2 han

All Pon Hand: 2 han

Half-Flush Hand (honor tiles and tiles from only one suit):

3 han for closed hands, 2 han for open hands

Full-Flush Hand (only tiles from one suit):

6 han for closed hands, 5 han for open hands

All Simples (Tanyao, no major tiles) Hand: 1 han open or closed

Mixed Outside Hand (honor tiles and suit sets, each of which must contain at least one terminal, must include at least one chii):

2 han for closed hands, 1 han for open hands

Outside Hand (sets must contain at least one terminal, must include at least one chii):

3 han for closed hands, 2 han for open hands

All Terminals and Honors Hand: 2 han

(additive with All Pons or Seven Pairs for potentially 4 han)

Valued Honor Pon (dragons, prevailing wind, player’s wind): 1 han for each such Pon

Little Three Dragons

2 han (additive with 5.1 Valued Pon for a total of 4 han)

Seven Unique Pairs: 2 han, closed hands only.

Tsumo with Final Draw: 1 han

Ron with Final Discard: 1 han

Win with a Kong Supplemental Tile: 1 han

“Robbing a Kan”: 1 han

Pure Closed Hand (closed hand won by tsumo): 1 han

Riichi: 1 han

Double-Riichi: 1 han (additive with other riichi han)

One-Shot (Ippatsu) Riichi: 1 han (additive with other riichi han)

Open Riichi: 1 han (additive with other riichi han)

An official ruling of the JPML is that Tsumo with Final Draw and Win with a Kong Supplemental Tile may not be combined.

Dora Count

Dora: count one for every dora tile in the player’s hand.

Kan Dora: count one for every kan dora tile in the player’s hand.

Ura Dora: if the player won with riichi, count one for every ura-dora tile in the player’s hand.

Red Dora: count one for every red dora in the player’s hand.

Base Count

The base number is always 2.

Final Score, Limit Checking

Calculation

If the hand earns 8 or more fan, there is no need to calculate the score; instead, consult the scoring tables. Otherwise, start with the fu (tally). If it is even, round it up to the nearest multiple of 10. The only possible case where the fu is not even is when it is 25 from a seven-pairs hand, which is never rounded. Now, multiply the fu by 2 to the fan power (2 raised to the exponential power of fan). This equals the hand’s value. If the hand value is greater than 2,000 points, and the fan value is less than 8, then the hand value is reduced to a limit (mangan 満貫) of 2000 points. Greater points are possible only if the player has a fan of at least 8, in which case the player scores as per the following list:

Limit Nomenclature

mangan-and-a-half (haneman ハネ満): 8 or 9 fan

double mangan (baiman 倍満): 10–12 fan

triple mangan (sanbaiman 三倍満): 13–14 fan

yakuman (役満): 15–27 fan, and yakuman hands

double yakuman: 28–40 fan, and combined yakuman hands

triple yakuman: 41 fan or more, and combined yakuman hands

Hands that earn yakuman because they earn 15 or more fan are called kazoe yakuman (数え役満).

Although usually not applied in tournament play, if the winning hand can be interpreted as multiple yakuman hands, multiple yakuman are awarded. For example, an Earthly Hand (9.7) consisting of four concealed kans won on a pair wait (2.9 and 2.10) of wind tiles (5.8) plus a pair of dragon tiles (5.9) would be worth seven times yakuman, which equals a whopping 224,000 points.

Mangan Hands (always worth mangan: 2000 points)

Hand of Man (Renhou)

Nagashi Mangan (see ‘Nagashi Mangan’ above)

Yakuman Hands

Four Concealed Pungs: yakuman. If won with a pair wait, it is worth double yakuman.

Four Kans: yakuman

Nine Gates: yakuman, closed hands only. If the hand has two pairs left when the hand is ready, then it can only qualify as a yakuman hand if the tile is drawn off the Wall. If won with a pair wait, then it is worth double yakuman.

All Green Hand: yakuman

All Terminals Hand: yakuman

Big Three Dragons: yakuman

Little Four Winds: yakuman

Big Four Winds: double yakuman

All Honors Hand: yakuman

All Honors Pairs: double yakuman (implies 5.9 All Honors already)

Sequential Pairs of Same Suit Simples: yakuman

Thirteen Orphans: yakuman

If won with a thirteen-way wait to complete the pair for this hand, it is worth double yakuman.

Earthly Hand: yakuman

Heavenly Hand: yakuman

Calculating the Payoff to the Hand Winner

The points paid to the hand winner depend upon how he won:

Dealer won by tsumo: the hand’s value multiplied by 2 equals the amount each losing player pays.

Dealer won by ron: the hand’s value multiplied by 6 equals the amount only the discarder pays.

Non-Dealer won by tsumo:

1. The hand’s value is the amount non- dealers pay.

2. The hand’s value multiplied by 2 equals the amount the dealer pays.

Non-Dealer won by ron: the hand’s value multiplied by 4 equals the amount only the discarder pays.

Payoffs are always rounded to the nearest 100.

The hand’s total score is the sum of all the collected payoffs.

Riichi Settlement

The hand winner also collects 1,000 points from all opponents who have declared “riichi.”

Dealer’s Bonus-Hand Counters and the Tsumi Bonus

When a player wins a bonus hand, in addition to the normal payments, he also collects a tsumi bonus.

Won by tsumo: 100 points from each player for each 100-unit bonus-hand counter.

Won by ron: the discarder pays the full bonus due for every losing player, or 300 points for each 100-unit bonus-hand counter.

Winning

After the match’s conclusion, points are converted into “final scores” as follows:

Since everyone started with 30,000 points (or whatever amount players started with), now they must all subtract that amount from their score.
Apply the Oka Bonus by subtracting an additional 3,000 points from every player as an ante, and then award those 12,000 points to the point leader.

The four scores should now add up to zero.

Learn More

To learn more about the many rule variations on Japanese riichi mahjong, or about any of the more than forty other versions of mahjong, read about them in Scott D. Miller’s hot selling book “Mahjong from A to Zhú”.

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