Jihai

Jihai 「字牌」 are honor tiles. They can also be referred to as word tiles or characters, though these terms should be avoided as they can also be used for the manzu. Unlike the numbered suits, honors cannot be used to form sequences, but they can be used for triplets, quads, and pairs.

Honor tiles can be divided into two smaller groups:

Sangenpai, or dragons.
Kazehai, or winds.

All dragons, and certain winds, are considered yakuhai. A triplet of yakuhai tiles will score the "yakuhai" yaku, while a pair of these tiles is worth fu.

Sangenpai


Haku	Hatsu	Chun

The sangenpai 「三元牌」 (lit. three foundation tiles) are a group of three, often brightly colored, tiles. In English, they are most often referred to as the dragons, but occasionally they are referred to as the colours.

Haku 「白」, the white dragon, is usually depicted by an entirely blank tile in Japanese-style sets. In Chinese-style sets, it is more frequently depicted as a blue or black border around nothing, although those sets often come with blank replacement tiles which can be used instead. In some Japanese-style sets, especially those where the front and back of the tile are the same colour, haku will have a gem in the center.
Chun 「中」, the red dragon. Depicted by its kanji in red.
Hatsu 「發」, the green dragon. Again depicted by kanji; hatsu is often, though not always, written in green.

These tiles originally represented the three Confucian values, but their meanings are not important to the game.

The dragons are traditionally ordered haku, hatsu, chun, as in the table on the right. When one appears as a dora indicator, the dora tile is the next in this sequence, with chun pointing back to haku.

The dragon tiles have the following properties:

All dragons are considered yakuhai, no matter the gamestate.
A hand with a triplets/quad of two dragons, and a pair of the third, scores shousangen.
A hand with a triplets/quad of all three dragons scores daisangen.

There is only one difference between the three dragons: hatsu can be used to score ryuuiisou, the "All Green" yaku.

Kazehai


Ton	Nan	Shaa	Pei

Kazehai 「風牌」 (lit. wind tiles) are four tiles representing winds in the four cardinal directions. In English, they are most commonly called winds, but rarely called directions instead. The winds are each depicted with their respective kanji, although usually in a more stylized form than is common in modern Japanese. The four tiles are, in counterclockwise order:

Ton 「東」, or East
Nan 「南」 or South
Shaa 「西」 or West
Pei 「北」 or North

The above order is used for the dora indicators. If East is the dora indicator, then South is the dora. If North is the dora indicator, then East is the dora.

Note that this order does not follow the traditional Western order of directions (which, when counterclockwise, would be east -> north -> west -> south). One way to remember the mahjong order is to imagine a compass rose written on the ceiling, above the players.

The winds are special as they are the only tiles whose value changes throughout the game. There are three distinct types of wind:

Bakaze 「場風」, the round wind or table wind. This wind is the same for all players at any given time, and corresponds to the current round of play.
Jikaze 「自風」, the seat wind. Each player is assigned a seat. The dealer is always east, and the directions continue counterclockwise around the table, with the player to the dealer's right being south, the player across being west, and the player on the dealer's left being north. As the deal rotates, so do the wind positions. The tile that matches your seat is your seat wind.
Otakaze 「客風」, known as off winds or guest winds. These are neither the seat wind or the round wind.

A wind tile that is either the round wind, or the seat wind, is considered yakuhai. This means that guest winds are not yakuhai. A tile that is both the round wind and the seat wind is known as a double wind - it is worth two yakuhai. A double wind pair may score 2 fu or 4 fu, depending on the ruleset.

The wind tiles have the following properties:

A wind tile that matches the round wind or seat wind is considered yakuhai.
A hand with a triplet/quad of three wind tiles, and a pair of the fourth, scores shousuushii.
A hand with a triplet/quad of all four wind tiles scores daisuushii.

Properties

Properties of all honor tiles:

Honors cannot be used for sequences.
An triplet/quad composed of honors is worth doubled fu, the same value as a terminal triplet/quad.
A hand with all honors scores tsuuiisou.
Honors are explicitly allowed for honitsu, chanta, honroutou.
Honors cannot be used for tanyao, chinitsu, junchan, and chinroutou.

Strategy

Yakuhai tiles - those being any dragon, a player's seat wind, or the round wind - are an easy way to score points. A triplet of any yakuhai is a yaku worth 1 han, and a pair is worth 2 fu. Calling pon on a yakuhai is an easy way to gain a yaku, allowing any hand to bypass the yaku requirement to win.

Calling pon on a guest wind, however, is extremely limiting to the hand. The triplet of guest wind is not worth any han, prevents you from scoring tanyao or pinfu. In addition, calling pon at all prevents you from calling riichi later on. Since guest winds can only be used in triplets, and since a triplet of them is not worth a yaku, they are considered the worst tiles for tile efficiency. A guest wind triplet is still a valid tile group, though.

Safety

Main article: Defense

In order for an opponent to wait on an honor tile, they must have a copy of that honor tile, or have kokushi musou. Therefore, when more copies of an honor tile are visible (in anyone's discard pile, in the dora indicators, in your hand, in another player's tile call), that tile is safer.

When you can see all four copies of an honor tile, it is 99.9% safe. The only way an opponent can win with that tile is with kokushi musou, which is rare and easily detectable. If kokushi isn't possible (e.g. all four copies of a different honor/terminal are also visible), then these honors are 100% safe.
When you can see three copies of an honor tile, it is extremely safe. An opponent can have a tanki wait on the tile, but in order to do so they must have the last copy of that tile (which is not easy).
An honor tile you can see two of is relatively safe, often around the level of suji. They become safer if at least one copy has been discarded by any player.

When 3-4 copies of an honor are visible, it doesn't matter if the tile is a yakuhai or a guest wind. When <= 2 copies are visible, guest winds are safer than yakuhai.

Note that honor tiles can be very dangerous if a player is going for an honor-focused yaku (unless all 4 are visible). When a player has called for two dragon triplets, the third dragon is extremely dangerous due to the threat of daisangen. Similarly, when a player has called for three wind triplets, the fourth wind is extremely dangerous. Also, honors can be more dangerous than normal when a player is going for honitsu.

Machi

Main article: Machi

Since honor tiles cannot be used in sequences, a hand waiting on an honor tile must have a wait pattern of either: shanpon, tanki, or kokushi musou.

External links

字牌

Jihai in Japanese Wikipedia