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Mahjong Master
advanced Yakuman Very Rare Closed Only

Suu Ankou

四暗刻 | Suu Ankou

Complete a hand with four concealed triplets (or quads) that were all formed without calling from other players.

By Kenji Tanaka · Updated

Overview

Suu ankou, four concealed triplets, is a yakuman in which all four of your melds are triplets formed without any calls, completed from your own draws, plus a pair. Because every triplet must be concealed, a triplet finished by ron counts as open and does not qualify, which leads to a famous rule point: a suu ankou waiting on a shanpon must win by tsumo, since a ron there would make the final triplet open and downgrade the hand to toitoi plus san ankou. If instead the hand waits on its pair as a tanki, it can win by ron and still keep all four triplets concealed, and many rule sets reward that tanki version as a double yakuman. Suu ankou is the premium payoff for a concealed, pair-heavy hand played for self-draw, and it overlaps with toitoi and san ankou along the way, making a triplet-rich closed hand worth pushing toward tsumo.

Han Value
Yakuman

Example Hand

111m 333p 777s 999s 5z 5z

Conditions

  • The hand must contain four triplets (or concealed kans), and all four must be concealed (self-drawn, never called via pon)
  • The remaining two tiles form the pair
  • The hand must be closed — calling pon for any triplet disqualifies the hand entirely
  • If you win by ron (claiming a discard), the discard must complete the pair, not a triplet — otherwise the fourth triplet would count as an open meld and suu ankou is invalid
  • Winning by tsumo (self-draw) avoids this issue since all tiles were self-drawn
  • Some rulesets award double yakuman for a tanki (single tile pair) wait

Strategy Tips

  • Suu ankou is essentially toitoi played entirely closed with all four triplets concealed. If you find yourself with three concealed triplets and several pairs, consider whether you can complete the fourth triplet by self-draw rather than opening your hand with pon.
  • The safest path to suu ankou is winning by tsumo, because a ron win only works if the winning tile completes your pair (shanpon wait on the pair side). Plan your hand so that your tenpai wait is ideally a single tile for the pair.
  • Watch your draw carefully when you have three concealed triplets. It can be tempting to call pon to speed things up, but doing so converts a potential yakuman into a much lower-scoring toitoi or san-ankou hand.