Hanchan

Hanchan 「半荘」 encapsulates one game of Japanese mahjong. A typical game involves two rounds designated as East and then South. Even if a game ends early, such as when a player falls below zero points, then it is still considered to be a full game. For shorter games, players may play tonpussen 「東風戦」, or East only games.

Wind rounds

Typical games begin with the East Round, or Tonkyoku 「東局」. After that, the game moves into the South Round, or Nankyoku 「南局」. If necessary, it can go into the West round, or shaakyoku 「西局」.

Renchan

Renchan are additional hands, by which the wind rotation does not occur. This is possible when the dealer wins a hand, an abortive draw occurs, or the dealer is tenpai at exhaustive draw.

Oorasu

Oorasu is designated for the last dealer of the game, barring any player ending the game earlier by dropping below zero points. This is the South 4 hand. Naturally, if the last dealer wins, an additional hand, or renchan, may be awarded and the game continues. Though, the game may also end if the last dealer happens to be the points leader, or if the other players force a wind rotation.

Shaakyoku

Main article: Enchousen

If necessary, the game may continue into an extra wind round. For a hanchan game, this is designated as Shaakyoku, or the West Round. This functions as an "overtime session", where no player during oorasu managed to score equal or greater than the goal score, which is typically 30,000. The instant a player does score that mark, then the game immediately ends with the result as is. As it can be implied, scores during this round can be fairly close scores. Hands worth mangan or less may be enough to pull off a 1st place finish.

Game proceeding

Designation	Japanese	English
E1-0
E2-0
E3-0
E4-0
E4-1
S1-0