Menzen Tsumo
門前清自摸和 | menzen tsumo
Win by self-drawing your winning tile while your hand is completely closed.
By Kenji Tanaka · Updated
Overview
Menzen tsumo is a 1-han yaku awarded for winning by self-draw while your hand is fully closed, and it is usually just called tsumo when stating a hand's yaku. It requires that you have made no calls, since any chii, pon, or open kan would open the hand and remove this yaku; a concealed ankan still counts as closed. Because it is one of the few yaku a closed hand can claim simply by drawing its winning tile, menzen tsumo is a key reason staying closed has value: even a plain closed tenpai hand can win on a self-draw with this yaku alone. It stacks with riichi, pinfu, tanyao, and the rest, and on a closed tsumo the payment is split among all three opponents. The pinfu-plus-tsumo combination is a special case scored at a fixed 20 fu, a common and efficient cheap closed hand.
Example Hand
1m 2m 3m 6m 7m 8m 4p 5p 6p 3s 3s 7s 8s 9s
Conditions
- Your hand must be completely closed (no open calls — no chi, pon, or open kan)
- You must win by self-draw (tsumo) — drawing your winning tile from the wall yourself
- Winning by claiming another player’s discard (ron) does not count
Strategy Tips
- Menzen tsumo is one of the easiest yaku to score. Any time you keep your hand closed and draw your winning tile, you get it automatically. This makes it a reliable fallback yaku even when your hand doesn’t have other scoring elements.
- If your hand is closed and tenpai but has no other yaku, you can still win by tsumo since menzen tsumo will give you the 1 han you need. However, you could not win by ron in the same situation (you’d have no yaku), so declaring riichi is often better since it lets you win either way.
- Menzen tsumo stacks nicely with riichi and pinfu. A closed tsumo with riichi and pinfu is a very common combination worth 3 han before dora.