Agari houki

Agari houki 「アガリ放棄」, or a dead hand, is a lesser penalty compared to chombo. A penalty for a dead hand denies the player to win the corresponding round, when the minor rule violation was committed. A player may still defend the hand and utilize betaori.

When the player's hand is declared dead, additional tile calls are prohibited. This includes all tile calls, win by ron or tsumo, or declare riichi. Afterwards, play continues; and the penalized player must continue to draw and discard tiles as normal. Once again, all tile calls are barred. Any additional tile calls with a dead hand results in a chombo. If the player called riichi before the hand was declared dead, the hand continues but 1000 points for riichi may not be reclaimed. Finally, if the hand results in ryuukyoku, dead hand is never considered tenpai, because a win may not be called.

Situations

Wrong amount of tiles

At any point of the game, if the player has more or less than 13 tiles (add one after each kan) before drawing the next tile, the hand is considered dead.

Drawing before kamicha discards

Drawing before kamicha discards will result in a dead hand.

Drawing from the dead wall

Accidentally drawing from the dead wall will result in a dead hand.

Kuikae

Main article: Kuikae

Players may call on tiles and discard the exact tile that was called, or discard any tile that would complete the chii after calling chii. This will result in a dead hand if the ruleset forbids this.

Improper tile calls

Players may end up calling on discarded tiles, without having the appropriate tiles to complete a tile group. For example, a player may call "pon" on a tile, without having the prerequisite paired tiles. A player may even declare a winning hand. If the hand is revealed with an improper win, then it is declared a chombo. However, if the hand was not revealed during this situation, then it may be declared as a dead hand instead.

• In case a player wins by tsumo but calls "ron" instead (or its reverse), correction is allowed.
• In case a player tends to call "chii" on a tile but calls "pon" instead (or other combinations among "chii", "pon" or "kan"), it cannot be corrected and dead hand is declared.

Online platforms

Via online game play, players do not need to consider any dead hand because the games automatically validate hand states. Any accidental cases to invoke the dead hand cannot happen because software does not allow such actions to occur. Therefore, these cases can only occur with real tile play. Currently, no known online platform permit dead hand cases to occur.