Daisangen

Daisangen
Type	Yakuman
Kanji	大三元
English	Big three dragons
Value	Yakuman
Speed	Slow
Difficulty	Hard

Daisangen 「大三元」 is a yakuman scored when a hand has triplets/quads of all three dragons.

Tile pattern

Agari:

Note: This hand is also winnable with

, but this hand would be shousangen instead.

Development

Daisangen is one of the three yakuman gosanke 「役満御三家」, or "the three big families of yakuman", along with suuankou and kokushi musou. Of the three, daisangen is the only one that can be played open.

As the name implies, this yakuman depends on all three dragons. If at least two copies of a dragon tile are unavailable, then completing a triplet becomes impossible, thus preventing the yakuman.

Viability

Most daisangen hands will call for the dragon tiles. One of the more reasonable hands to aim for daisangan is a hand with three pairs of dragons, which can pon any of them. Alternatively, a hand with two pairs of dragons can draw the third, then chase daisangen/shousangen if the third is paired.

Sekinin barai

Main article: Sekinin barai

The rule of sekinin barai (i.e. pao) may apply to daisangen. It applies when a player has made open calls (pon/kan) with two of the dragons. When another player discards the third dragon, and that dragon is called so that all three dragons are in one hand, then the discarder is liable to pay for the yakuman.

If the yakuman hand wins via ron, the discarder and ronned player each pay half. If the yakuman hand wins via tsumo, the discarder pays the entire hand. This effectively punishes a player for guaranteeing a yakuman. However, even if the third dragon is called for a kan, pao is still applied.