Detailed Guide
This is the full reference for four-player riichi as we play it at Charm City Riichi. If you're brand new, start with Getting Started instead — it covers only the essentials you need before sitting down for your first hand.
Overview
The goal
Mahjong is a four-player strategy game built on pattern recognition and timing. Each player draws and discards tiles to build a complete hand before anyone else does.
There are many variants of mahjong, often named after the region that popularized them — for example, Hong Kong Old Style and American Mah Jongg. Our club plays a Japanese variant called riichi, named for a move you can make during the game.
The tiles
A riichi mahjong set has 136 tiles:
Three suits (numbered 1–9)
- manzu — "characters"
- pinzu — "dots" or "circles"
- souzu — "bamboo"
Honors (not numbered)
- kazehai — "winds" (East, South, West, North)
- sangenpai — "dragons" (White, Green, Red)
Each tile type appears exactly four times.
What a winning hand looks like
A standard winning hand has 14 tiles arranged as four sets and one pair. Understanding this shape is the foundation of everything else in the game.
- A sequence is a set of three consecutive numbered tiles of the same suit — for example, 4–5–6 in bamboo or 1–2–3 in characters.
- A triplet is a set of three identical tiles — for example, three 7-bamboo or three East winds.
- A pair is two identical tiles.
Because sequences have to be the same suit, honor tiles (which have no suit) can only form triplets. Also note that sequences cannot wrap around (8-9-1 is not valid).
A complete hand might be: sequence + sequence + sequence + triplet + pair. Or: triplet + triplet + sequence + sequence + pair. Any combination of four sets (sequences or triplets) and one pair is valid. To win, you also need a valid yaku, which is covered in the Winning section below.
Game Flow
Setup & rounds
Each player is assigned an initial seat wind at the start of a game: East, South, West, or North. The East player is always the dealer for that hand. Each player begins with a certain number of points; at our club it's 30,000 points. The goal is to finish the game with more points than you started with, and ideally the most points of anyone at the table.
After a hand ends, the deal usually passes to the next player counter-clockwise and everyone's seat wind shifts with it — the South player becomes East (dealer), the West becomes South, and so on.
Sometimes the deal doesn't rotate. This happens when the dealer wins, or when nobody wins but the dealer is tenpai (see below). In that case, they stay as dealer and the hand repeats.
These repeated hands add honba, which increases the value of the next win by a 300-point bonus. Honba are also added if the deal rotates with no win having been called. The more honba present, the more valuable the eventual win becomes. Honba reset after a non-dealer player wins.
A round is complete once every player has had a turn as dealer. Rounds are named after winds — the East round is first, the South round is second. A full game (hanchan) plays both rounds, meaning each player deals at least twice. Some clubs and casual sessions play East-only games (tonpuusen) when time is short. We usually play full hanchan at club nights.
Your turn
Players hold 13 tiles. On your turn, you draw a 14th tile from the wall — the large stack of face-down tiles arranged in a square in the center of the table — then discard one tile to bring your hand back to 13. Turn order goes counter-clockwise, which is the opposite of most Western card games, so it's worth noting early. You're always working toward that four-sets-plus-one-pair shape described above.
Tenpai and riichi
When your hand is exactly one tile away from complete, you're in tenpai (ready). The specific tile or tiles that would complete your hand are called your wait.
If your hand is still closed at that point — meaning you haven't made any chi, pon, or kan calls — you can declare riichi. Your hand locks in, you gain a yaku (a scoring pattern required to win, covered below), and you get a shot at uradora — hidden bonus tiles that are only revealed and counted if you win.
Declaring riichi — in this order:
- Say "riichi!" out loud.
- Discard your tile placed sideways. That rotated tile acts as a marker in your discard pile — a public record of exactly when you called riichi.
- If no one wins off that discard, place a 1,000-point stick at the center of the table as your bet.
Calling other players' discards
Instead of waiting to draw the tile you need, you can "call" certain tiles that other players discard to complete a set immediately:
- chi — claim a discard to complete a sequence (only from the player to your left — since turns go counter-clockwise, that's the player who just went before you)
- pon — claim a discard to complete a triplet (from anyone)
- kan — declare a quad of four identical tiles. Unlike chi and pon, kan has three forms (see below).
Making a chi or pon opens your hand — meaning your called set is placed face-up in front of you for all to see. An open hand locks out riichi and limits which yaku you can use. A closed hand (one where you've made no calls at all) keeps more options available, most importantly including riichi itself. Kan is more nuanced — see below.
The three types of kan
Open kan (daiminkan) — claim another player's discard to complete a quad. Your hand becomes open, the set is placed face-up, and you draw a bonus tile from the end of the wall.
Upgraded kan (shouminkan) — if you already have an open pon on the table and later draw the fourth matching tile, you can add it to that meld. Your hand stays open. You still draw a bonus tile from the end of the wall, but note that opponents can call ron on the tile you're adding if it completes their hand.
Closed kan (ankan) — if you hold all four copies of a tile in your own hand, you can declare kan without opening your hand. The set is placed face-down with only the outer tiles visible, and you draw a bonus tile. Because the hand stays closed, you can still declare riichi afterward (if you're now in tenpai and your wait hasn't changed).
Every kan — regardless of type — flips an additional dora indicator and costs one tile from the live wall, slightly shrinking the remaining draws for everyone.
When the wall runs out
If the wall is exhausted and nobody has won, the hand ends in a draw. Players then reveal whether they're in tenpai or not, starting with the dealer. Anyone in tenpai receives a payment split from those who aren't — the total is 3,000 points divided among the tenpai players. This is called a noten payment, and it's worth staying in tenpai near the end of the wall even if a win looks unlikely.
Winning
When you reach tenpai and your final tile arrives, you win by calling ron (winning off someone else's discard) or tsumo (drawing the winning tile yourself from the wall).
Yaku — the key requirement
A complete hand alone isn't enough to win. You also need at least one yaku — a recognized scoring pattern that makes the hand valid. Without one, you cannot declare a win even if your hand is complete. See the full yaku list on the Scoring page once you're ready for a complete reference.
Beginner yaku to learn first
- riichi Declaring tenpai with a closed hand.
- tanyao Only tiles numbered 2–8, no 1s, 9s, or honors. A great beginner target: you can mentally discard entire tile types from consideration and still build a complete hand.
- yakuhai A triplet of dragons, your seat wind, or the round wind. Your seat wind is whichever wind tile matches your current seat (East, South, West, or North). The round wind is East during the East round and South during the South round — so during the East round, the East player's wind triplet counts double (it's both their seat wind and the round wind).
- toitoi All triplets, no sequences. Works well with open calls — every pon you make moves you one step closer.
- honitsu One suit plus honor tiles. Limiting yourself to one suit makes it easier to track what you need.
- chiitoitsu Seven unique pairs (a non-standard hand shape: no sets, just pairs).
Furiten — when ron is blocked
There's one important restriction on calling ron: if any of your winning tiles is already in your own discard pond, you're in furiten and cannot win off anyone's discard. You can still win by drawing the tile yourself (tsumo), but ron is blocked for as long as you hold that wait.
For example: say you're waiting on 1-man or 4-man to complete the last sequence, but you discarded 1-man earlier. That 1-man sitting in your pond could have completed your hand — so even if an opponent discards a 4-man now, you can't call ron on it. You'd have to draw the 1-man or 4-man yourself, or restructure your hand. It's worth double-checking your own pond when you reach tenpai to see whether you've already discarded a possible winning tile.
Scoring Basics
Every winning hand's value is built from two components: han and fu. Together they determine how many points change hands.
Han
Each yaku contributes one or more han, and a hand can combine multiple yaku. Bonus tiles called dora also add han (covered below). Dora aren't yaku on their own — you still need at least one real yaku to win. The more han, the more valuable the hand.
The three types of dora
Dora — At the start of each hand, one tile is flipped face-up from the wall as the dora indicator. The actual dora is the tile one step higher in sequence. For numbered suit tiles, that means the indicator 4 makes 5 dora; the indicator 9 wraps around to make 1 dora. Any dora tiles you hold at the end of a winning hand add 1 han each. For honor tiles, winds cycle East → South → West → North → East, and dragons cycle White → Green → Red → White. There can be more than one dora indicator in a hand — each kan call flips an additional one.
Uradora — When you win after declaring riichi, an additional indicator tile is flipped beneath each existing dora indicator. These uradora (hidden dora) follow the same step-up logic and are only revealed at the moment of a riichi win, adding a layer of suspense and reward for committing to riichi.
Akadora (red fives) — Special versions of the 5-tile in each suit, marked in red, that count as 1 han each regardless of what the dora indicator is. They're common in casual and online play, but not always used — house rules vary, so check before you sit down. When akadora are in play, a hand can rack up han quickly just from holding red tiles, which tends to produce higher-scoring games overall.
Fu
Fu are base points earned from the specific shape of your hand and how you won. They add texture to lower-scoring hands. Once your hand reaches 5 or more han, fu no longer matter — the score jumps to a fixed limit amount. As a beginner, don't worry about calculating fu yourself — just ask a tablemate to help until it becomes familiar.
Limit hands
High-han hands earn special names and fixed payouts: mangan (5 han), haneman (6–7), baiman (8–10), sanbaiman (11–12), and counted yakuman (13+). At the top are true yakuman — difficult & rare hand patterns that are the highest-scoring in the game.
For the full breakdown — including the complete yaku table, fu calculation, and an interactive payment calculator — visit the Scoring page.
Table Etiquette
Riichi mahjong has a set of common courtesies that keep games smooth and friendly. These aren't strict rules, but following them is good habit — especially at club nights and tournaments.
Tile handling
Keep your tiles upright and facing you. Don't touch other players' tiles, the wall, or the discard pond unless it's your turn or you're making a call. The discard pond is the organized grid of tiles each player builds in front of them as they discard — it's a public record of everything you and your opponents have thrown away. When discarding, place the tile firmly and clearly in your pond — avoid ambiguous placement.
Calls and declarations
Say your call out loud (chi, pon, kan, riichi, ron, tsumo) as you make it. For riichi specifically, follow the order described in the Game Flow section: verbal declaration first, then discard sideways, then place the 1,000-point stick at the center only if no one wins off your discard. When you win, show your full hand face-up so everyone can verify it.
Pace
Try to keep things moving — long pauses slow the game for everyone. It's fine to think, but aim to be ready when your turn comes. If you need a moment for a complex decision, a brief "thinking" signal is appreciated.
Handling mistakes
Errors happen, especially when learning. Common ones include accidentally exposing a tile, making an invalid call, or mis-declaring a win. A mis-declared win is called a chombo, and it typically results in a fixed penalty payment to all other players. At club nights, your tablemates will help you sort it out — we're lenient with beginners, so don't stress. At tournaments, the specific penalty rules are announced in advance.
Ready for more?
Once you're comfortable with the basics, the Scoring page is your next stop.
And of course, the fastest way to learn is to play! Come to one of our weekly meet-ups. Beginners are always welcome, and we'll walk you through everything at the table.