Riichi Mahjong Glossary

Agari is completing a winning hand and declaring it, which ends the hand on the spot. It arrives one of two ways: tsumo (self-draw, paid by all three opponents) or ron (an opponent's discard, paid by the discarder alone). In riichi the hand also needs at least one yaku to count. Declare, reveal, and scoring starts from han and fu.

An ankan is a concealed kan: all four copies drawn yourself, declared without claiming anything. Uniquely among kans it does not open your hand, so riichi and menzen tsumo stay available. Declaring one flips a new dora indicator, grants a replacement draw from the dead wall, and adds hefty fu, especially for terminals or honors. The catch is the same as any kan: the fresh dora can supercharge an opponent, and locking four tiles into a quad can cost you shape.

Ari-ari is the modern default rule set, named for the two things it allows (ari means yes): kuitan, the open tanyao, and atozuke, confirming your yaku on the winning tile itself. Most online clients run it. The strict opposite, nashi-nashi, forbids both and pushes the game toward slower closed hands. Which one is live changes what cheap open hands are even legal, so check before you call.

Atozuke is winning with a yaku that only becomes valid on the winning tile itself, most often in an open hand shaped so that whichever tile completes the wait also supplies the yaku. Allowed under ari-ari rules, forbidden under nashi-nashi, where the yaku must be locked in before the final tile. The distinction decides whether certain borderline open waits are legal hands or dead ends.

Baiman is the tier worth double a mangan: 8 to 10 han, paying a fixed 16,000 (24,000 from the dealer). Fu stops mattering here. It is usually the product of a big flush or a riichi hand stacked with dora, and for everyone else at the table, a clear signal to fold.

Betaori means folding completely: abandoning your own hand and spending every remaining turn discarding the safest tile you can find. It is the standard answer to a riichi or a threatening open hand when your own hand is cheap or far from tenpai. The toolkit runs genbutsu first (tiles in the threatening player's own discards, which furiten makes unconditionally safe), then suji and kabe reasoning once genbutsu runs out. What separates strong players from beginners is not fancier attacks but folding earlier and more often. Over a long session, the points you never pay out count just as much as the ones you win.

Robbing a kan: a 1-han yaku for calling ron on the tile an opponent adds to their pon to form a shouminkan. Concealed kans are safe from it, with one classic exception: kokushi musou may rob an ankan under common rules.

The outside hand: every meld and the pair must contain at least one terminal or honor tile. Worth 2 han closed, 1 han open. Its stricter sibling junchan drops the honors and earns an extra han for the trouble.

Chii claims the discard of the player on your left to complete a sequence, the only call that is position-restricted. It opens your hand, forfeiting riichi, menzen tsumo, and closed fu, so the standing advice is: no chii without a yaku plan, usually tanyao. Because only one seat can feed you, chii chances are scarcer than pon, and every one telegraphs part of your hand.

Seven pairs: a special closed hand worth 2 han at a fixed 25 fu, ignoring the usual four-melds-plus-a-pair structure. All seven pairs must be different tiles, and the final wait is always a tanki. The standard rescue plan for a pair-heavy hand that refuses to form sequences.

A pure flush: one suit and nothing else, not even honors. At 6 han closed (5 open), chinitsu is the most valuable standard yaku, and its one-suited shapes are notorious for hiding complex, multi-sided waits that even strong players misread.

All terminals: every tile in the hand is a 1 or a 9. A yakuman built entirely from terminal triplets, since terminals cannot form sequences. Its honor-allowing relative honroutou is worth only 2 han, which shows how much that restriction costs.

Chun is the red dragon, its face showing the red character for center. A chun triplet scores 1 han of yakuhai from any seat in any round, and it rounds out the dragon trio with haku and hatsu.

Nine gates: 1112345678999 in a single suit plus one more tile of that suit, fully concealed. A yakuman famed for its pure form, which is tenpai on all nine tiles of the suit at once and often scores double.

A daiminkan is the large open kan: three identical tiles in hand, completed by calling an opponent's discard of the fourth. Like every kan it flips a fresh dora indicator, grants a dead-wall replacement draw, and adds fu. It is also widely considered the least attractive kan in the game, because it opens your hand for a single quad, and that trade rarely pays without a clear plan behind it.

The big three dragons: triplets of haku, hatsu, and chun in one hand. A yakuman, and one of the more achievable ones because dragon pons assemble it quickly. Whenever two dragon triplets hit the table, everyone starts watching for the third.

The big four winds: triplets or quads of East, South, West, and North in a single hand. A yakuman, double in many rule sets, and one of the rarest hands most players will ever see completed.

Dama is the quiet route: sitting in tenpai with a closed hand and declining to declare riichi. No sideways tile, no point stick, no warning. Opponents keep discarding freely, which makes your winning tile easier to catch. The price is steep, though. You give up the riichi han, ippatsu, and ura dora, so a dama win is usually far cheaper than the same hand with riichi. It earns its keep when your hand already has a yaku, when you want the freedom to reshape your wait, or when hiding your strength matters more than maximizing it.

Damaten is the full term for dama: staying silent in tenpai with a closed hand instead of declaring riichi. The hand must already contain a yaku to win, since riichi is not there to supply one; tanyao, pinfu, and yakuhai are the usual enablers.

The dead wall is the block of 14 tiles set aside at the start of every hand, never drawn in normal play. It has two jobs: it holds the dora indicators (including the hidden ura dora and any kan dora), and it supplies the replacement tile drawn after each kan. It stays at 14 all hand, topping itself up from the live wall after each kan replacement, which is why every declared kan shortens the hand by one draw. When the live wall empties, whatever the dead wall still hides stays face down and the hand ends in a draw.

The dealer (oya) sits East for the hand and plays for raised stakes: dealer wins score 50 percent more, but the dealer also pays more when opponents tsumo. Win, or reach tenpai at a draw, and the dealer keeps the seat while a honba counter sweetens the next pot. Lose it and the deal rotates counter-clockwise. A dealer on a streak is the single biggest score threat in a game.

Dora are bonus tiles worth one han each in a winning hand, without ever counting as a yaku. One indicator flips at the start of each hand; the dora is the next tile up from it, wrapping 9 to 1 and cycling within winds and within dragons. Red fives count in most modern rules, kans flip extra indicators, and riichi wins reveal the hidden ura dora underneath. Dora cannot make a hand legal on their own, but they routinely turn a cheap hand into a mangan, which is why counting the live dora is part of reading any table.

An exhaustive draw (ryuukyoku) ends a hand when the live wall empties with no winner. Hands are revealed, tenpai players collect from noten players out of a 3,000-point pool, and the dealer keeps or loses the seat by the same tenpai test. Many rule sets also recognize abortive draws: four riichi declarations, four kans across different players, or all four players discarding the same wind on the first go-around.

The East round (tonba) opens every game, with East as the prevailing wind: East triplets score yakuhai for everyone, and the deal passes once through all four seats. A tonpuu game ends when it does; a hanchan continues into the South round. It is where positions get established and where hot dealers do their early damage.

Fu are the minipoints that fine-tune scores below mangan. Hands start at a base of 20, then add fu for concealed triplets, terminal and honor sets, closed-wait shapes, value-tile pairs, and the win method (a closed ron adds 10, a tsumo adds 2), with the total rounded up to the nearest 10. Two fixed cases to memorize: pinfu with tsumo is always 20 fu, chiitoitsu always 25. From 5 han up, the named tiers take over and fu stops mattering entirely.

You are tenpai, an opponent drops your winning tile, and you cannot call ron: that is furiten. If any tile of your wait sits in your own discard pile, ron is blocked on your entire wait, not just the tile you threw. Three forms exist. Permanent furiten lasts while a waited tile remains in your discards. Temporary furiten comes from passing on a winning discard and clears on your next draw. Riichi furiten is the harsh one: pass a winning tile after declaring riichi and ron is gone for the rest of the hand. Tsumo stays legal in every case, so a furiten hand can still win by self-draw. The rule is also the engine of defense, since it is exactly why an opponent's own discards (genbutsu) are safe to feed back to them.

Genbutsu are the only truly safe tiles in riichi: tiles a threatening opponent has already discarded, which furiten guarantees they cannot ron. Tiles anyone discards after a riichi declaration also become genbutsu against the riichi player, since the locked hand passed on them. Defense starts here. Experienced players bank genbutsu mentally all hand long, so a safe out exists the moment things turn dangerous.

Haipai is the 13-tile starting hand dealt to each player (the dealer effectively starts with 14). The first skill of riichi is reading it honestly: counting blocks, estimating shanten, and spotting which yaku the hand can realistically reach. A haipai full of middle tiles suggests tanyao or pinfu; one heavy with honors hints at yakuhai, honitsu, or on a rare day kokushi. A bad haipai is information too: it tells you to stay flexible and think about defense early.

Winning by tsumo on the very last drawable tile of the live wall, worth 1 han. The full name, haitei raoyue, means sweeping the moon from the sea bottom. Pure timing luck; its mirror on the final discard is houtei.

Haku is the white dragon, traditionally a completely blank tile face (or a simple blue border), which is why casual sets often press it into service as a spare. A haku triplet is worth 1 han of yakuhai regardless of seat or round, and it joins hatsu and chun in the dragon trio that builds shousangen and the yakuman daisangen.

Han are the doubling units that set a hand's value. Every yaku carries a fixed han count, each dora adds one, and they stack: riichi plus tsumo plus tanyao plus two dora makes 5. Each han roughly doubles the base score until the named tiers cap it (mangan at 5, haneman at 6-7, baiman at 8-10, sanbaiman at 11-12, yakuman at 13 or a limit pattern). Below mangan, han pairs with fu for the exact payout.

A hanchan is the standard game length: an East round plus a South round, the deal passing through all four seats in each, for a minimum of eight hands. It is the format serious play assumes; tonpuusen, the East-only game, is the quick alternative. Early hands reward building value, and the late South round turns into a placement battle where the score gaps dictate who pushes and who protects.

Haneman is the 6-7 han tier: a fixed 12,000 points, 18,000 from the dealer. It usually takes a solid yaku core plus several dora to reach, and once a hand is clearly there, locking in the win beats chasing more value.

Hatsu is the green dragon, printed entirely in green ink, and the only dragon whose color gives it a second job: it is the anchor tile of the all-green yakuman ryuuiisou. As a value tile, a hatsu triplet scores 1 han of yakuhai from any seat in any round. With haku and chun it completes the sangenpai trio behind shousangen and daisangen.

Honba are the repeat counters shown as 100-point sticks in front of the dealer, added each time the dealer keeps the seat and, in many rules, after any exhaustive draw. Each one adds 300 points to the next winning hand: paid entirely by the loser on a ron, or 100 from each opponent on a tsumo. They are separate from riichi sticks, which pool up for the next winner instead of surcharging the hand.

A half flush: one suit plus honor tiles, worth 3 han closed and 2 han open. The classic intermediate hand: flexible enough to finish, big enough to matter, and famously easy for opponents to read once your discards show two suits being thrown away.

Honor tiles are the seven tile types outside the numbered suits: four winds (East, South, West, North) and three dragons (haku, hatsu, chun). They never form sequences, only pairs, triplets, and quads. Their value is situational: dragon triplets always score yakuhai, wind triplets only when the wind matches your seat or the round. They anchor honitsu, chanta, and a whole family of yakuman, and a lone unpaired honor is among the safest early discards.

Winning by ron on the final discard of the hand, worth 1 han. The last-draw counterpart is haitei. Neither can be planned; both simply reward finishing at the wire of an otherwise drawn hand.

Iishanten is one-shanten: a single useful draw or call from tenpai. It is the pivot point of most hands, and the quality of your iishanten decides the quality of your wait. Good shapes accept many tiles and resolve into ryanmen; bad ones accept a handful and land on a kanchan. Much of riichi skill is simply choosing discards at iishanten that keep both the acceptance and the eventual wait wide.

Win within one uninterrupted go-around of declaring riichi and you add ippatsu, a 1-han bonus. Any pon, chii, or kan between your riichi and your win cancels it. The name means one shot, and together with ura dora it is a big part of why riichi hands spike in value.

The pure straight: 1-2-3, 4-5-6, and 7-8-9 all in one suit. Worth 2 han closed, 1 han open. Also called ikkitsuukan, and a natural partner for honitsu and chinitsu hands that are already living in a single suit.

Jantou is the pair every standard hand needs beside its four melds, also called the atama or head. A value-tile pair adds 2 fu and can grow into a yakuhai triplet; pinfu demands the opposite, a pair worth nothing at all. Late in a hand your pair choice often becomes your wait: two pairs set up a shanpon, a lone leftover tile becomes a tanki.

Jihai is the Japanese term for the honor tiles, the winds and dragons. See honor tiles for how they score, which ones count as value tiles, and when to keep or cut them.

The terminal-only version of the outside hand: every meld and the pair must contain a 1 or a 9, with no honor tiles anywhere. Junchan is worth 3 han closed and 2 han open. Compare chanta, which also allows honors and scores one han less.

Kabe (wall) is defense by counting. When all four copies of a number sit visible across discards, melds, and your own hand, the ryanmen shapes that need that number are dead, making nearby tiles safer to discard. It is probability, not proof: shanpon and tanki waits ignore walls entirely. Alongside genbutsu and suji, kabe is the third standard tool for threading discards through a dangerous board.

A kan is a quad, the only four-tile meld, and it comes in three kinds: ankan (concealed, from your own draws, keeps the hand closed), daiminkan (calling a discard while holding three), and shouminkan (adding the drawn fourth tile to an existing pon). Every kan flips a new dora indicator, grants a replacement draw from the dead wall, and adds fu, with closed kans of terminals or honors adding the most. Every kan is also a small gamble: the fresh dora helps whoever can use it, and a shouminkan can be robbed for chankan.

Kanchan is the closed wait: holding the two outer tiles of a run and needing the middle, like 3-5 waiting on 4. Four winning tiles, tied with penchan for weakest ordinary wait, and usually worth reshaping into a ryanmen when the hand allows it. Its consolation prize is 2 fu.

Kandora are the extra dora indicators flipped whenever anyone declares a kan, working exactly like the original: the next tile up counts one han each. They reveal for the whole table, which is what makes kan timing a gamble: the indicator you flip may boost an opponent's hand more than yours. On a riichi win, the matching ura-kandora underneath are counted too.

Kazehai are the four wind tiles: East, South, West, North. A wind triplet scores yakuhai only when it matches the round or your seat, and a wind matching both at once (the dealer's East in the East round) is worth two han. The rest are guest winds, valueless and usually safe early discards. All four together feed the yakuman shousuushii and daisuushii.

A kazoe (counted) yakuman reaches yakuman payout by sheer accumulation: 13 or more han from ordinary yaku plus dora, rather than one of the classic patterns. Some tables honor it in full; others cap counted hands at sanbaiman. Confirm the rule before you count on it.

The thirteen orphans yakuman: one of each terminal and honor tile (the 1s and 9s of all three suits, four winds, three dragons) plus a duplicate of any of them as the pair. No melds at all, and the hand must stay closed. The thirteen-sided wait version counts as a double yakuman in many rule sets.

Kuitan is the rule that lets tanyao (all simples) score even after you open your hand with pon or chii. Where kuitan is allowed, calling tiles toward a cheap all-simples hand is a legitimate, fast route to a win. Where it is banned, tanyao must stay closed, and an opened simples hand can strand itself with no yaku at all. The rule splits table cultures: ari-ari rules, the default on the major online clients, allow kuitan, while stricter nashi-nashi rules forbid it and push the game toward slower closed hands. Check which rule is live before you call, because the entire logic of opening changes with it. With kuitan on, an early pon toward tanyao trades fair value for real speed; with it off, the same call can be a dead end.

Mangan is the first capped tier, where fu stops mattering: 8,000 points, 12,000 from the dealer. A hand gets there at 5 han, at 4 han with 40 or more fu, or at 3 han with 70. It marks the practical boundary between an ordinary hand and a game-swinging one, and every larger tier (haneman, baiman, sanbaiman, yakuman) is defined as a multiple of it.

Manzu is the character suit, each tile showing a Chinese numeral over the kanji 萬 (ten thousand). Nine ranks, four copies each, written with an m in notation (123m). Because the values are written rather than counted, manzu is usually the last suit beginners learn to read at a glance. Beyond that it plays identically to circles and bamboo, joining every suited yaku from tanyao to chinitsu.

A meld is a completed set of three tiles: a sequence (shuntsu) of consecutive numbers in one suit, or a triplet (koutsu) of identical tiles. A kan of four also counts as a meld for hand structure. The standard winning shape is four melds plus a pair. Concealed melds, formed from your own draws, score more fu and keep closed-only yaku alive; called melds trade that value for speed.

The 1-han yaku for winning by self-draw with a fully closed hand (a concealed ankan still counts as closed). It is the reason even a bare closed tenpai can legally win: draw the tile yourself and the yaku arrives with it. Payment is split among all three opponents.

Menzenchin (usually just menzen) means fully closed: no melds claimed from discards, though a concealed ankan is fine. Closed status is a currency. It buys riichi, menzen tsumo, pinfu, chiitoitsu, and 10 extra fu on a ron, and its price is speed, since you cannot call your way to tenpai. Whether to spend it by opening the hand for a faster, cheaper win is the core judgment call of riichi.

Minkan is the umbrella term for open kans: the daiminkan (calling the fourth tile from a discard) and the shouminkan (adding the drawn fourth to an existing pon). Both open the hand, flip kan-dora, and grant a replacement draw. The shouminkan alone carries the chankan robbery risk.

An optional rule that pays mangan at an exhaustive draw if every tile in your discard pile is a terminal or honor and no opponent ever called one of your discards. No completed hand is required. A single call against you, or one middle tile thrown, ends the attempt.

Naki means calling: chii, pon, or kan on another player's discard. Calls buy speed and pay in value, since anything but a concealed kan opens the hand, forfeiting riichi, menzen tsumo, and closed fu. Chii comes only from your left; pon and kan from anywhere, jumping the turn order. The discipline is calling with a yaku and a plan, not just because a meld is available.

Noten is failing to reach tenpai by the time a hand ends in an exhaustive draw. It costs real points: the noten players pay the tenpai players out of a fixed 3,000-point pool, and a noten dealer also surrenders the deal. This is why players chase formal tenpai in the last few turns even on a hopeless wait. Being ready at the buzzer pays; being caught noten costs twice over.

An open hand has called at least one meld from a discard, laying it face up for the table. The trade is speed for value: no riichi, no menzen tsumo, no closed fu, and several yaku shrink or vanish. It still needs a yaku to win, which is why sound opens are built on tanyao (where kuitan applies) or a yakuhai triplet. The exposed melds are also free information for everyone else.

Oya is the Japanese word for the dealer, the East-seat player whose hands pay half again more and who keeps the seat by winning or staying tenpai through a draw. See dealer for the full mechanics of rotation, honba, and dealer streaks.

A pair is two identical tiles, the head (jantou) that completes the standard four-melds-plus-a-pair shape. Value-tile pairs add fu and threaten to become yakuhai triplets; pinfu requires a valueless one. Seven distinct pairs at once is its own hand entirely: chiitoitsu.

Penchan is the edge wait: 1-2 needing 3, or 8-9 needing 7. Four winning tiles, one direction, the same weakness as kanchan, plus the same 2 fu consolation. It is a standard candidate to break when improving shape at iishanten, since a ryanmen accepts twice as many tiles.

The all-sequences yaku, worth 1 han on a closed hand. Four conditions must hold: sequences only, a pair that is not a value tile, a two-sided ryanmen final wait, and no calls. Scored at a flat 20 fu when won by tsumo. Usually the first yaku beginners learn to build on purpose.

Pinzu is the circle suit, its tiles showing counted dots said to descend from old coin designs. It runs 1 through 9 with four copies of each, written with a p in notation (567p). It is usually the first suit beginners read confidently, since the pips are simply counted. Beyond that it behaves like any numbered suit: a full member of tanyao, pinfu, sanshoku, honitsu, and chinitsu.

Pon claims any player's discard to turn your pair into an open triplet, interrupting the turn order to do it. It is the fastest tool in the game and the easiest to misuse, since it opens your hand and kills riichi. Sound pon calls come with a purpose attached: a yakuhai tile, a toitoi plan, or a tanyao hand racing for a cheap finish.

Renchan is a dealer repeat: win the hand, or (in most rules) reach tenpai at a draw, and the dealer keeps the seat while a honba counter raises the next pot by 300. Strung together, repeats are how a hot dealer runs away with a game, which makes ending someone else's streak worth real effort and stretching your own worth real risk.

The signature declaration of Japanese mahjong, and the yaku the game is named for. With a closed hand in tenpai you announce riichi, stake a 1,000-point stick, and lock your hand in exchange for 1 han plus access to ippatsu and ura dora. From that moment everyone at the table knows you are one tile from winning, and the whole hand changes around that fact.

Declare a kan, draw the replacement tile from the dead wall, and win on it: that is rinshan kaihou, a 1-han bonus counted as a self-draw. The name means blossom on the ridge. Since the kan also flips a fresh dora indicator, these wins often arrive with extra value attached.

Ron is winning on another player's discard. The discarder pays the entire value of your hand, which is what makes dealing in the most expensive mistake in riichi: a tsumo splits the cost across three players, but a ron lands on one. You declare it the instant your winning tile hits the table, before the next player draws. Furiten is the check on it: if any tile of your wait sits in your own discards, ron is off and only tsumo can finish the hand. Whole schools of defense exist purely to avoid paying someone else's ron.

Ryanmen is the two-sided wait, the best ordinary shape in the game: hold 4-5 and win on 3 or 6, eight live tiles against four for the inside waits. Wait width is win rate, so hand-shaping revolves around making and keeping ryanmen, and pinfu requires finishing on one. Its lone quirk: a ryanmen adds no wait fu, which is exactly why pinfu's flat 20 exists.

Ryanshanten is two-shanten: your hand needs two more effective draws or calls before it reaches tenpai. It is the stage where hands are won or lost quietly. The work here is block-building: settling which five blocks (four melds and a pair) the hand will use, keeping the shapes that lead to ryanmen waits, and cutting the tiles that serve none of them. Acceptance matters more than any single dream tile, since the widest path to iishanten usually beats the prettiest one. It is also the honest checkpoint: still ryanshanten when a riichi lands, and folding is usually right.

The all-green yakuman: only the 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 of bamboo and the green dragon, the tiles printed entirely in green ink. Some rule sets require the dragon to be present; others allow a pure bamboo version.

Three concealed triplets, worth 2 han. The three triplets must be completed from your own draws (one finished by ron counts as open), but the rest of the hand may be open. One step below the yakuman suuankou, and a frequent partner of toitoi.

Sanbaiman is triple mangan: 11 to 12 han, a fixed 24,000 (36,000 from the dealer). It sits just below the yakuman cap and usually means a monster flush or a riichi hand where the ura dora landed hard. One more counted han rolls it into kazoe yakuman under most rules.

Sangenpai are the three dragons: haku (white), hatsu (green), chun (red). Every one is a permanent value tile, worth a han from any seat in any round, which is what separates dragons from winds. Two dragon triplets plus a pair of the third is shousangen; all three as triplets is the yakuman daisangen.

Three kans declared by one player in a single hand, worth 2 han. Rare, fu-heavy, and dora-volatile, since every kan flips a new indicator for the whole table. A fourth kan would upgrade it to the yakuman suukantsu.

The same numbered run in all three suits at once, such as 2-3-4 in characters, circles, and bamboo. Worth 2 han closed, 1 han open. One of the classic value add-ons for sequence hands, and usually just called sanshoku at the table.

The same numbered triplet in all three suits, worth 2 han open or closed. Far rarer than its sequence cousin sanshoku doujun. Usually something you recognize as possible from a triplet-rich start rather than a hand you force.

A sequence (shuntsu) is three consecutive numbers in one suit, like 456 of bamboo. Only the numbered suits form them; honors never do. Sequences are the flexible backbone of most hands and of pinfu, sanshoku, and ittsu, completed from your own draws or by a chii from the left.

Shanpon is the dual-pair wait: two pairs, either of which completes into the winning triplet. Four live tiles, fewer than a ryanmen, but the finish is always a triplet, which adds fu and feeds sanankou and suuankou. The famous catch: a suuankou on a shanpon must win by tsumo, since a ron makes the final triplet open.

Shanten counts how many effective tile exchanges your hand is from tenpai. Tenpai is 0-shanten, iishanten one away, ryanshanten two. The number is the spine of efficient play: every discard either lowers it, holds it, or (badly) raises it, and strong players know their count without thinking. It also drives the push-or-fold decision, because a hand stuck at 3-shanten late in the hand is usually a hand you should be folding, not building.

The little four winds yakuman: triplets of three wind tiles plus a pair of the fourth, so all four winds appear in the hand. Its larger sibling daisuushii requires all four winds as full triplets.

Simples (chunchanhai) are the 2 through 8 of each suit, the middle tiles. They extend runs in both directions, which makes them the most flexible tiles in the game and the entire basis of tanyao. The same flexibility is why they are the most dangerous discards against a tenpai opponent: middle tiles complete the most waits, terminals and honors the fewest.

The South round (nanba) is the back half of a hanchan, with South triplets now scoring as the round wind. It contains the endgame: placement decides most rule sets, so the score gaps start dictating play, trailing players push, leaders defend, and the final hand (all-last) is the sharpest positioning moment in the game.

Souzu is the bamboo suit: sticks counted 2 through 9, with the 1 drawn as a bird, traditionally a peacock or sparrow. Written with an s in notation (234s). Its special claim is ryuuiisou, the all-green yakuman built from the green-printed bamboo tiles (2, 3, 4, 6, 8) plus the green dragon. Otherwise it is an ordinary suit with the full run of suited yaku.

Suji is defense by ryanmen logic. A player who discarded a 4 cannot ron a ryanmen waiting on that 4 (furiten), so the 1 and 7 that share its shapes get safer; those related tiles are the suji. It is probability with sharp limits: kanchan, penchan, shanpon, and tanki waits ignore it completely, and suji traps exist to punish players who trust it blindly. Strongest against a locked riichi, weakest against open hands. With genbutsu and kabe it rounds out the standard defensive toolkit.

Four concealed triplets, a yakuman. Every triplet must come from your own draws, which creates the famous rule quirk: on a shanpon wait you must win by tsumo, while a tanki wait may ron and, in many rule sets, scores double yakuman.

Four kans by a single player, a yakuman and one of the least frequently completed hands in mahjong. Under many rules, four kans split across two or more players end the hand in an abortive draw instead, so only a solo collector can finish it.

Tanki is the pair wait: four melds done, one lone tile waiting to pair up. Three live tiles makes it the narrowest wait, but also the most mobile, since you can slide it to almost any tile you hold. That mobility makes tanki the shape of choice for dodging danger or camping on a tile opponents consider safe. Chiitoitsu always ends on one, it adds fu, and a tanki on a value tile can add more.

All simples: a hand built entirely from the number tiles 2 through 8, with no terminals and no honors. Worth 1 han. Most modern rule sets keep it valid when the hand is opened (the kuitan rule), which makes tanyao the workhorse yaku of fast open hands.

Tenpai is the ready state: one tile from a complete hand. It is the requirement for declaring riichi, and it is worth points at an exhaustive draw, when tenpai players collect from noten. The tiles that finish the hand are the wait (machi), in shapes running from the wide ryanmen to the narrow tanki. Distance from tenpai is counted in shanten, and the entire efficiency game is reaching 0 faster and wider than the rest of the table.

Terminals are the 1s and 9s, the tiles at the ends of each suit. They extend sequences in only one direction, which makes them less flexible than middle tiles but also safer to discard on defense, since fewer waits catch them. Several hands are built on them: chanta and junchan demand a terminal or honor in every block, and the yakuman chinroutou uses terminals alone. Grouped with the honors they form the yaochuuhai family.

A riichi set holds 136 tiles: 34 types, four copies each. Three suits of nine (manzu characters, pinzu circles, souzu bamboo), four winds, three dragons, and in most modern sets red fives as bonus dora. Suited tiles form sequences and triplets; honors form only triplets and pairs and carry the yakuhai value. Everything in the game starts with knowing the 34 types and tracking how many copies of each are gone. See the complete Tile Reference for each tile's appearance, meaning, and use.

All triplets: every meld in the hand is a triplet or quad, no sequences allowed. Worth 2 han whether open or closed. Pon-heavy hands reach it quickly, and when the triplets stay concealed it stacks toward sanankou or the yakuman suuankou.

Tonpuu (tonpuusen) is the East-only game, half the length of a full hanchan: the deal passes once around the table and the game ends. It is the default for quick online matches. The compression changes strategy more than beginners expect. With no South round to repair a bad start, early leads harden fast, aggressive lines get rewarded, and the placement math of the endgame arrives by the fourth hand instead of the eighth.

A triplet (koutsu) is three identical tiles, concealed (ankou) when drawn yourself or open (minkou) when completed by pon. Concealment is worth money: concealed triplets score more fu, and three or four of them make sanankou or the yakuman suuankou. Triplets power toitoi and yakuhai, at the cost of flexibility, since three copies of one tile is a narrower ask than a run.

Tsumo is winning on your own draw. All three opponents split the payment (the dealer paying a double share), which softens the blow compared with a ron landing on one player. A closed hand that tsumos also collects the menzen tsumo yaku. Crucially, furiten never blocks tsumo, so a furiten hand still has a path to victory, just not through anyone's discards.

All honors: nothing but winds and dragons in the hand. A yakuman that is necessarily all triplets plus a pair (or seven honor pairs where allowed), and it can stack with daisangen or daisuushii for multiple yakuman at once.

Uradora are the hidden dora revealed only on a riichi win, flipped from beneath the regular indicators. They are riichi's lottery ticket: pure variance that can turn riichi-plus-nothing into a mangan. Declared kans add matching ura-kandora underneath their indicators too. Only riichi hands ever see them, which is a standing argument for declaring instead of sitting damaten.

Your wait (machi) is the set of tiles that finishes your hand from tenpai. Shapes rank by width: ryanmen takes eight tiles, shanpon and the inside waits four, tanki three. Width is win rate, which is why so much of hand-building is steering toward ryanmen. Narrow waits are not worthless, though: they pay extra fu, enable triplet yaku, and a well-chosen tanki can hide in plain sight.

The wall is the shuffled bank of face-down tiles a hand is drawn from: all 136 tiles built into four sides, two tiles high and seventeen long. Fourteen are split off as the dead wall; the rest are live draws. When the live wall runs dry with no winner, the hand ends in an exhaustive draw. Counting what remains tells you how many chances you have left.

Yakitori is the casual penalty for finishing a whole game without winning a single hand, often tracked with a physical marker removed after your first win. Whoever still holds one at the end pays. Not part of competitive rule sets, but a common home-game spice that pressures pure defenders to actually finish a hand.

Yaku are the scoring patterns that make a hand legal: in riichi you cannot win without at least one, no matter how complete the tiles look. Each is worth fixed han, and they stack. The spread runs from everyday 1-han patterns (riichi, tanyao, yakuhai, pinfu) to the yakuman at the ceiling; some exist only closed, others survive opening at reduced value. Picking an achievable yaku in the first few draws is the foundation of hand planning, because a hand with no route to one cannot win at all.

Yakuhai are the value tiles: the three dragons always, plus a wind when it matches your seat or the round. A triplet of any of them is 1 han, open or closed, which makes yakuhai the fastest legal hand in the game: pair, pon, done. A wind matching both seat and round pays 2 han from a single triplet. It is the yaku that powers most quick open hands.

A yakuman is a limit hand, the ceiling of the scoring ladder: a fixed 32,000 points (48,000 from the dealer), regardless of fu or dora. They come from a short list of extreme patterns (kokushi musou, suuankou, daisangen, the wind and honor hands) rather than accumulation, though 13 counted han reaches kazoe yakuman in most rules, and some patterns score double in their hardest forms. Spotting a live yakuman path early is one of the few good reasons to abandon normal efficiency.

Yaochuuhai is the collective term for terminals and honors: the 1s, 9s, winds, and dragons. The group defines a whole family of hands: chanta and junchan require one in every block, honroutou uses nothing else, kokushi musou collects one of each, and chinroutou and tsuuiisou are the all-terminal and all-honor extremes. Less flexible than simples, safer to discard, and the raw material of some of the biggest hands in the game.