Futari mahjong
Futari mahjong or ninin mahjong 「二人麻雀」 (lit. "two-person mahjong", sometimes abbreviated to nima 「二麻」) refers to a number of two-player variants of Japanese mahjong. At this point, there is no established ruleset governing this mode of game play.
The most common variants of Japanese two-player mahjong appear in early computer and arcade games, and in strip mahjong video games. Various other uncommon variations exist, some of which appear in works of fiction, such as comics and TV shows.
Rules common in video games
Rules are almost the same as in standard four-player mahjong. Unlike in three-player mahjong (sanma), the full set of 136 tiles is used, making it harder to reach a winning hand with only two players. To compensate, strip mahjong games often have mechanics that allow the player to cheat in certain situations, making it more likely to win a hand.
Differences with standard Japanese mahjong:
- There is no north or west seat.
- Depending on the game, each player draws 18, 20, or 22 times from the wall before the end of the round.
- There are usually only two hands per wind round, making a hanchan 4 hands in total. In some cases exhaustive draws are ignored (in which case a hanchan is played until 4 winning hands are scored). In arcade games, it was common for play to continue until the player lost once.
- While usually not the case, some games have a tsumo disadvantage rule 「ツモ損」, where a tsumo earns half the points of a ron.
Other rulesets
- San Hako - a ruleset based on those from old video games, adapted to be more balanced. Uses the full tile set of four-player mahjong.
- Single suit - mahjong using only the 36 tiles of a single suit.
- Single suit modified - a variant with honor tiles added, making the game more similar to four-player mahjong than the original single-suit variant.
- Juunana Ho (17 Steps) - players get 34 random tiles to arrange into a tenpai hand, and strategically discard 17 of the remaining tiles one by one.
Appearances in fiction
- In the Bakuchi Ryuuun Nagumo manga series, using only the 52 terminal and honor tiles.
- In the Bakuto manga series, using only character tiles and honor tiles, and limited to closed hands only.
- In the Guren manga series.
- In the Kaiji manga and anime series, using the Juunana Ho rules
- In the Ten - Tenhoudoori no Kaidanji manga series, involving a rule where if a player calls tenpai, they can keep drawing tiles from the wall until the opponent guesses one of their wait tiles.
- In the Washizu manga series.
External links
- Bamboo Mahjong - online single suit mahjong against AI
- 二人麻雀
- Futari mahjong in Japanese Wikipedia
- Strip mahjong in Japanese Wikipedia