Takame and yasume

Takame 「高目」 and yasume 「安目」 involve tenpai hands, where the different multiple waiting tiles produces different value based on yaku and/or dora. This deals with the situation, where one group of waiting tiles may produce a hand of lower value than the other group of waiting tiles. Takame refers to the tile wait(s) producing the greater hand value, while yasume wins with the tile(s) of a lesser value. Often, the situation determines whether a hand produces specific yaku or not. A classic example involves atozuke, where the lesser valued tile prevents a hand from winning while the preferred tile does.

Of course, this condition may be nullified with hands of mangan or greater. This is simply due to the ranges of han required to produce mangan or greater. For example, a haneman hand is worth 6 or 7 han. So, the need to increase a hand's value from 6 han to 7 han becomes irrelevant, as the points awarded is the exact same. Of course, the condition is invoked again when the value differs from 7 han to 8 han.

In relation of tile waits, this condition potentially affects any hand with multiple tile waits. Any hand implementing only a penchan, kanchan or tanki wait usually cannot be affected, since there is only one type of winning tile. Other wait patterns, including a combination of multiple single waits such as nobetan, may lead to yasume and takame. Certain multiple waits, such as the kokushi musou 13-sided wait, and the chuuren poutou 9-sided wait, are inherently immune to this, while others may depend on the precise circumstances of the hand. For instance, a ryanmen wait that would potentially complete an iipeikou will only have takame and yasume if the hand is closed.

Cases involving choosing riichi or using damaten provide interesting scenarios. Using damaten, players retain the ability to be selective of particular tiles to win. A player can simply decline yasume tile(s), in order to wait for the takame tile(s). Those who call riichi may not have that option, as using the same tactic of declining winning tiles renders the hand in furiten. Such a decision may prove to be risky or rewarding.

Examples

• Atozuke

Waiting for or

This is a special case, where only one tile can produce a valid win while the other does not.

• Chuuren poutou - Example

Waiting for: , , , or

Only one tile can produce the yakuman, chuuren poutou, while the other waits produces chinitsu.

• Dora-based

Waiting for: or

This is just a regular pinfu hand waiting on one of two tile types. If one of them is dora, then the hand prefers to win off of that dora tile. However, at times, it may just end up accepting the non-dora winning tile.

• Pinfu and tanyao potential

Waiting for: or or

In this case, the hand is waiting on three tiles. Two waits will result in pinfu (1m and 4m). Two waits will result in tanyao (3m and 4m). Winning with 4m maximizes hand value.

• Sanshoku

Waiting for: or

In this case, the hand is waiting on two tiles. One tile will result in sanshoku. The other does not.