Sankantsu

Sankantsu

Type	Yaku
Kanji	三槓子
English	Three kans
Value	2 han
Speed	Very slow
Difficulty	Very hard

Sankantsu 「三槓子」 is a standard yaku. It requires the player to call kan three times. Despite being only worth 2 han, it is the rarest and most difficult out the regular yaku.

Tile pattern

Waiting for:

Kan must be called three times, and as a result, the tenpai hand will have at most four tiles in its closed section. If necessary, the hand can call again to have a single tile remaining.

Development

Of all the standard yaku, sankantsu is the most difficult and least frequent. It appears less often than several yakuman, including rarer yakuman like suuankou tanki, tsuuiisou, and shousuushii.

• Being able to call 3 kans is difficult on its own. You must draw 3 of the same type of type by yourself, then draw/call the 4th, three separate times.
• Players may not want to call kan even if they are able. Each kan reveals kandora; this is already risky after one kan, let alone three. And until you get the 3rd kan, you won't have any guaranteed yaku (thus making the 1st and 2nd calls even more dubious).
• Even when someone is tenpai for sankantsu, the hand can end in the event another player calls kan for a fourth time, invoking an abortive draw.

Overall, this yaku is not worth the its measly 2 han value.

If the player calls kan for a fourth time, the hand instead gains the yakuman, suukantsu.

Compatibility

Main article: Yaku compatibility

^ Ippatsu requires riichi to be of any use.

RCH

DRI

IPP

SMO

TAN

PFU

IPK

ITT

YAK

SDJ

SDO

TOI

SNA

SNK

CHA

JUN

RPK

SSG

HRO

HON

CHN

CHI

RIN

HAI

HOU

CHK

SNK

Three out of the four tile groups must be called for kan, which are treated as triplets. This leaves no room for iipeikou, ryanpeikou, ittsu, and sanshoku doujun. Pinfu and chiitoitsu forbid kan calls and are thus not compatible. Every other yaku is compatible.

Value

This yaku is set at 2 han. However, the number of kans will increases the hand's value through fu and (potentially) kandora.

At minimum, a hand with sankantsu is worth 2 han and 50 fu (3200 points), which is equivalent to 3 han and 25 fu. To reach the minimum score, you must have 3 open kan composed of simples (tiles 2-8). Each open simple kan is worth 8 fu, for a total of 24 additional fu to the base 20. The net total of 44 fu is rounded up to 50 fu.

External links

• 三槓子

Sankantsu in Japanese Wikipedia