Rinshan kaihou

Rinshan kaihou

Type	Yaku
Kanji	嶺上開花
English	Dead wall draw
Value	1 han
Speed	Varies
Difficulty	Hard

Rinshan kaihou (嶺上開花) is a standard yaku, where a player wins with the rinshanpai, or the replacement tile after forming a kantsu. As such, this yaku is only accessible via kan calls.

Kan procedure

Main article: Kan

When calling kan, a player must draw an extra tile; and that tile comes from the dead wall. This is the rinshanpai.

Setting up rinshan kaihou

Like any hand, this yaku requires tenpai to even have a chance of winning. This is particularly true when kan is involved. As such, the fourth tile for kan counts as an extra tile. If that tile is in the hand, it actually takes up one tile space, that could be used for normal hand development.

Tenpai, with chance for rinshan:

Draw: Waiting for:

In order for this hand to proceed to tenpai, either kan must be called or one of the hatsu is to be discarded.

Rinshan kaihou and haitei

Rinshan kaihou cannot be combined with haitei, a yaku for calling tsumo on the final tile from the live wall. When winning on the replacement tile after a kan, tsumo is not called on any tile from the live wall, but on a tile from the dead wall.

Sekinin barai

Main article: Sekinin barai

Some rule systems impose a liability payment, called sekinin barai or pao, on the discarder of a kanned tile in the event of a rinshan kaihou win.

If this rule is in effect, whenever a player starts his turn by calling kan on a discard, the discarder is liable for the entire price of the caller's hand until end of turn. If the caller calls tsumo on the replacement tile after the daiminkan, payments occur as if he called ron against the liable player. If the caller continues to make ankan or shominkan on the same turn, then wins on a replacement tile, payments again occur like a ron against the liable player. When the caller discards a tile, the discarder of the kanned tile is no longer liable.