Single suit mahjong

Single suit mahjong is a variation of mahjong for two players that uses just one numeric suit. This variation is devised as practice for working with chinitsu hands and their notorious ability to form complicated waiting patterns.

General rules and variations

• This variant is usually played with 36 tiles: 1-9 in a single numeric suit, usually circles (pinzu) or bamboo (souzu). In the latter case, it is also possible to include the green dragon (hatsu) tiles to encourage the ryuuiisou yakuman scoring pattern, and add honitsu (half-flush) scoring possibilities.
• Due to the low number of tiles, single-suit mahjong is only played between two players. It is not required to track seats by wind: only whom is dealer, and whom is non-dealer. As per typical rules, the dealer starts with fourteen tiles in hand and makes the first discard, while the non-dealer starts with thirteen tiles in hand.
• There are no dora tiles nor dead wall; a draw occurs when there are no tiles remaining to be drawn.
• You may not call chii, pon, or kan on another player's discards. You may call a closed kan (ankan). Depending on the variation, riichi may or may not be allowed; in the case that it is allowed, it is often a free declaration (no 1000-point cost).
• On a win, the winning player must accurately declare their yaku, total han, waits, and score. If there is a mistake in the count, then the winner only receives what they call. If you want to be more strict, you can also agree to reduce the payout (e.g. 1 han per mistake) or nullify payments completely.
• You may follow standard scoring rules (tsumo pays out as much as ron), or a simplified rule where each han is worth 100 or 1000 points, up to a maximum of 10 or 13 han.
• Chombo penalties for major errors are often severe. Since chinitsu hands typically start at haneman level already, it's not unusual to establish a reverse yakuman (or max value) penalty for a chombo. Be very careful about furiten ron and any invalid win declaration!
• The winner of each hand becomes the next dealer; play until one player busts the other (you might want to start with more points than usual if you follow standard Riichi scoring) or a fixed number of hands, according to taste.

Single suit mahjong as a teaching tool

Highly stripped-down variations of single-suited mahjong can also be used as a teaching aid for new players. The Tibet rules method starts players with a hand of four tiles in a single numeric suit (typically circles/pinzu), with the objective being to develop a hand consisting of five tiles: one set of three tiles (mentsu) and one pair (jantou). Scoring and furiten are ignored completely; the focus is simply on completing a hand's shapes. Once players understand the flow of the game and the difference between a set and a pair, the standard next step is to add three more tiles to the hand (a total of seven), with the objective of creating a hand of eight tiles: two sets of three tiles, and one pair.

However, as a teaching tool, it might be trickier to extend into ten-tile hands with only a single suit. As noted, single-suited hands can generate some complex waits, and disentangling those possibilities can distract from enjoyment of the game at such an early stage of learning. There are already many ways in which seven tiles can generate complex waits -- it could be argued that seven-tile hands with two numeric suits is actually easier for new players to understand than with only one numeric suit. And so the standard next step to take in Tibet rules is to move to the seven tiles and two suits game, rather than continue on with the single-suit path.

That said, for those who already understand the full rules of mahjong, but are looking to gain experience with reading single-suited hands, playing with ten-tile hands instead of the standard thirteen tiles can be a good starting point to develop your chinitsu reading skills. It's still very much in line with the variation's main goal of getting practice in reading and developing single-suited hands.

External links

• Bamboo Mahjong @ gamedesign.jp
• 2-player Chinitsu Mahjong @ hinakin.main.jp
• 【麻雀】タッキーｖｓヒサト激突生バトル2013.12.10.OA (YouTube)

Two player single suit using pinzu.