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Tile Games
4 players
tile, die, point stick
10 essential rules
Riichi is the modern Japanese variant of mahjong, a four-player game played with tiles. The object of play is to complete a winning hand; the ultimate object of the game is to accumulate the most points from winning hands. It does not matter how many hands each player has won — the accumulated sc...
There are 34 basic tile types. A full set contains four identical tiles of each type, giving 136 tiles in play (1, 1.3); Three suits — circles (pinzu), bamboo (sōzu) and characters (manzu) — each numbered one to nine (1.1); The ones and nines of each suit are called terminals (1.1)
Four players, each associated with a seat wind. East is the starting player; South sits at East's right, West across from East, North at East's left (2.1); The counter-clockwise order east-south-west-north does not correspond to compass directions (2.1); Over a full game each player is East at le...
A full game is two rounds — the east round and the south round — each of at least four hands, during which each player is East in turn (3.1); A hand ends when a player declares a win or an exhaustive draw occurs (3.1, 3.4); A turn begins when a player draws from the wall or claims a set, and ends...
All players are responsible for each hand being scored correctly and to the maximum; each player counts their own han and minipoints and others must correct mistakes (4.1); Count han first — the yaku (at least one) plus dora, kan dora, and ura dora. Ura dora count only for a riichi hand, and a ti...
Riichi is one of several mahjong rule families and is clearly distinct from the others, though all share the same core: build four sets and a pair from tiles; Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR) is the other major competitive rule set. Its current text is the World Mahjong Organization's 2014 English...
Tiles are shuffled face-down; each player builds a wall seventeen tiles long and two tiles high, and the four walls are pushed together into a square (2.4); East rolls two dice and counts that number of players counter-clockwise, starting with themselves; that player's wall is broken, counting fr...
Red fives — widely used in Japan, where each red five gives one han. Not used in EMA riichi (1.3); Flower, season and joker tiles are set aside; they belong to other mahjong variants (1.3)
Tsumo — winning on the tile just drawn, by clearly calling "tsumo". A furiten player may still call tsumo (3.3.11); Ron — winning on the most recently discarded tile, by clearly calling "ron", unless furiten (3.3.12); Robbing a quad — the tile added to an extended quad may be claimed for a win wi...
The game ends when the south round ends; the player with the most points wins, regardless of how many hands they won. Ties may occur (3.7); Riichi bets left on the table go to the winner, split on a tie with decimals rounded down (3.7); There is no bankruptcy rule (3.7, 4.1.4)
Seven honour tile types: four winds and three dragons (1.2); The winds are ordered east-south-west-north; the dragons are ordered white-green-red (1.2); The white dragon's design varies between sets — usually blank, or decorated with a blue frame (1.2)
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