Tibet rules: Difference between revisions

If your players are feeling competitive, they might ask to play while keeping score. While there's a lot of different ways of setting up a scoring system (and indeed, scoring is one of the main ways in which different variations of mahjong distinguish themselves), a simplified version of the Riichi scoring table will be introduced here:

!'''Total Han''' !! 0 !! 1 !! 2 !! 3 !! 4-5 !! 6+

To unpack the table, on a ''tsumo'', each player pays the winner; on a ''ron'', only the discarder pays, and they pay for everyone's contribution. The dealer is individually responsible for twice the amount against each other player, so they ultimately get 1.5x the score of non-dealers on a win. (Note that this isn't exact due to rounding at small ''han'' values.)

The overall value of a hand is determined by its ''han'' value. Hands earn ''han'' based on the scoring patterns, or ''[[yaku]]'', that they satisfy; scoring patterns reward hands that are consistent or exceptional in its sets. To score a hand, add up the total ''han'' from all of the patterns satisfied by the hand, then look up its point value from the corresponding column.

At the ten-tile hand game with two numeric suits and dragons, we'll start with the following patterns:

After introducing the characters numeric suit and moving up to the full thirteen-tile hand size, you can add one more pattern:

* '''Half Flush''' (''[[honitsu]]''): [2 ''han''] The hand's tiles are from a single numeric suit, plus any number of dragon tiles (including as its pair).

* At this learning stage, there is no requirement to have a ''yaku'' in order to win a hand. However, note that while a hand's value doubles for each ''han'' from 1-''han'' to 4-''han'', the 0-''han'' value is only about 1/3 the 1-''han'' hand value. You should be encouraged to try and aim for having at least 1 ''han'' in your hand if you can see an opportunity for it; the full Riichi ruleset also enforces a 1-''han'' minimum so it can be good to be prepared for that additional restriction in the future!

* Playing a set of hands where each player has had a chance to be dealer forms a single round. (Don't forget that when the dealer wins, they get to stay as dealer.) A game usually lasts for one or two rounds.

With all of the rules above, players are at the point where they're playing actual games of mahjong. In order to get all the way to Riichi mahjong, there are a few more 'core' rules to learn that are found in most common variants of mahjong, followed by a number of rules that are specific to the full Riichi Mahjong ruleset. From here, specific details on teaching and instruction will be more brief: this is more an overview of the remaining facets of the game that have not yet been introduced.

* '''Wall building and breaking''': With all three numeric suits and the dragons, there will be 120 tiles on the table. This is enough tiles that just drawing tiles from a pool of face-down tiles in the center of the table might feel a bit disorganized. So you can start going through the rituals of wall-building and breaking at this point. Without the wind tiles, each player should gather thirty tiles after shuffling, and build walls of fifteen tiles long, stacked two tiles high. All other parts of the wall-breaking and starting hand draw procedure apply as standard. A key point for new players: while turn order is counter-clockwise, tiles are drawn from the wall in clockwise order.

* '''[[Kazehai|Wind tiles]]''': Like the dragon tiles, winds are honor tiles that cannot form sequences. Unlike dragons, however, their value is conditional on your seat and the round of play. Wind triplets that do not match your seat or the round wind can still be used to advance your hand towards completion, but are not inherently worth ''han''. The dealer is always the East seat, and the winds advance in order of play to South, West, and North. Note that this does not reflect the compass directions when looking at the ground, but rather the celestial compass when looking up towards the sky.

* '''[[Riichi]]''': If your hand is in ''tenpai'' and does not have any open calls (no ''chii'' or ''pon'' calls, and any ''kan'' calls must have been from having all four tiles in-hand), then you can declare ''riichi'' when making a discard. Declaring ''riichi'' tells your opponents that you are ready to win, which can cause them to change the way to play in order to avoid discarding your winning tile. Additionally, your hand is locked in: tiles that do not let you win must be discarded (exception: a ''kan'' can be declared using a drawn tile, if doing so doesn't change what you could win on). On the other hand, a hand won under the ''riichi'' status confers an additional ''han'', which can represent a large point boost. In the full ruleset, a closed hand without any other inherent ''yaku'' cannot be won on ''ron'', so ''riichi'' is a vital part of being able to win with arbitrary hands -- it's the name of the game, after all!

* '''[[Furiten]]''': If a player had discarded a tile that their current hand could've won with, they are in ''furiten''. A hand in ''furiten'' may not call ''ron'' by any means. Even if the player's discarded tile and the opponent's tile are different, you may not call ron. A hand in fuirten may win from ''tsumo'' (self-draw) as normal, or change its wait so that it is no longer in ''furiten''.

* '''Additional scoring patterns (yaku)'''