Naki

Naki 「鳴き」 are legal claims on immediately discarded tiles. The instant a discarded tile is declined for a claim, then it goes out of play and remains in the discard pile until the next hand. Discarded tiles gives players another source of tiles for hand completion, other than the regular wall. Upon claiming a discard, the player's hand is then considered to be open. As a consequence, the player loses the option to call riichi, and the hand is not eligible for the yaku, mentsumo among other closed only yaku. Yet, some yaku allow the use of open hands, but they decrease in value by 1-han, when opened.

Yet, players may benefit from open tile calling from increasing the speed of hand development, convenience, or the irrelevance of losing hand value by opening. Players must also consider the number of tiles available. Overall, tile calling is a discretionary move. Especially with hands valued of mangan or greater, opening the hand may be a better option than keeping it closed.

The last discard cannot be claimed for any open calls, even if needed to attain tenpai. The call on the last discard is limited for winning hands, by which houtei raoyui is awarded.

Mentsu and overview

Main article: Mentsu

As a general rule, tile calls apply to the tile immediately discarded. Naturally, players are not required to claim discarded tile; but they may do so under the condition of possessing 2 out of 3 tiles for a meld in the hand. Every discarded tile not claimed by discard remain in the discard piles, until the end of the hand.

In addition, kuikae is an additional rule to tile calls. Players may have melds within the hand; and a discarded tile may allow a tile claim. If a player wishe to create an open meld using parts of an existing meld, then a player is not allowed to discard the remainder of the meld, until one full turn later.

Tile calls

Chii	チー	Sequences
Pon	ポン	Three-of-a-kind
Kan	カン	Four-of-a-kind
Ron	ロン	Win on discard

For each immediate discard, players have the option to make claims on discarded tiles based on the following conditions:

• For all claims, a player must have 2 out of the 3 tiles in the hand necessary to form a complete meld.
• Discard claims must be made immediately after discard, and before the next player's turn. Otherwise, a discarded tile remains in the discard pile and may not be claimed.
• Players reveal their two tiles and append the claimed tile. Then these three revealed tiles are placed to the right corner of the player's area.
• The claimed tile must be arranged sideways to indicate the claimed tile.
• The claimed tile must be arranged on the left, middle, or right to indicate the source of the claim.
• The open tile call notation helps with the enforcement of furiten, as claimed tiles are still noted as part of player discards.
• If the discarded tile completes a hand, then any player may call ron.

Chii

Chii 「チー」 is applied for opening sequential melds, to form minjun. To claim and complete sequences, the player to the right of the discarder may claim the tile and call chii. This means, any player calling chii may only claim tiles from the player to the left. Therefore, the tile turned sideways is always indicated on the left.

Pon

Left	Across	Right

Toitsu, or pairs, may be upgraded to minkou, or open triplets. Unlike "chii", the call for pon 「ポン」 may be called from any player on the board. As long as a player possess two identical tiles and a third is discarded, the player may call for that discarded tile regardless. Because any player may call, sometimes a player's turn may be skipped.

Kan

Main article: Kan

Kan 「カン」 may work like pon, except this call has some added procedures and additional situations. Likewise, the tile arrangements works similarly to pon. However, there is the addition of the other two kan types: ankan and shouminkan. For ankan, the hand remains closed, despite the use of a tile call. Instead, such a call is used to invoke the rules specific to kan; and certainly, kan does have some specific rules applied. Mostly, these relate to the dead wall and the revealing of additional dora.

In addition, two yaku, (rinshan and chankan), are particularly associated with kan.

Agari

Instance where Ron, Kan, Pon, or Chii may be called.

Agari 「アガリ」 is the generic call for a winning tile.

Ron

Ron 「ロン」 is a specific tile call on a discard, when the discard actually completes the hand. Also, the hand must have a valid yaku. Under furiten, a player may not call ron, otherwise, it is a violation of rules and subject to chombo penalty.

Call precedence

The different tiles calls take precedence.

1. Ron or Agari
2. Kan or Pon
3. Chii

It is impossible for kan and pon to be called simultaneously. However, either can simultaneously occur with chii. Due to precedence, the player, who calls kan or pon, gains the right to a discarded tile over a chii call. Overall, the call for ron or agari supercedes all tile discard calls.

Kuisagari

Kuisagari 「喰い下がり」 is a property of some yaku to lose value when called open, yet the yaku remains valid when open. By calling on a discard and opening the hand, a player sacrifices the value of 1-han per yaku for the privilege. Sometimes, the devalue may be viewed as disadvantageous; but the sacrifice for losing han value may be gained in the form of faster hand development. If certain tiles may be previously discarded, a player may need to make the open call, or else risk not be able to finish the hand at all. With the use of dora, the value loss from an open call is regained anyways.

Various 1-han valued yaku may be affected by kuisagari. However, they are only denoted as "closed only", in order to remain valid. If they were to function as open hands, their value would be reduced to 0-han; and thus, it is pointless to count them as such.

Finally, some yaku are not affected by kuisagari. Their value is only affected in terms of fu. Even when open, they retain their original han value. These are yakuhai, toitoi, sanankou, sanshoku doukou, shousangen, sankantsu, and any yakuman, that allow open play.

Yaku affected by kuisagari

Main article: List of yaku

The following yaku are affected by kuisagari:

From 2 han to 1 han	From 3 han to 2 han	From 6 han to 5 han
Sanshoku	Honitsu	Chinitsu
Ittsu	Junchan
Chanta

Atozuke

Main article: Atozuke

A side effect to kuisagari involves atozuke. Tile calls may put a hand into position, where one of its waiting tiles do not produce valid yaku. With this in mind, tile calls must be made with careful discretion.

Other tile calls

Kan	カン	Forming a quad
Kita	キタ	Picking a North dora
Riichi	リーチ	Ready hand declaration
Tsumo	ツモ	Win by self-draw

These tile calls do not apply to discards. Just like the discard calls, these calls are announcements.

Kan

Main article: Kan

Apart from claiming a discard to form a quad, a quad may also be formed by adding the fourth tile from the hand to the open triplet, or by taking out four identical tiles form the hand.

Kita

Main article: Sanma

In some rules of three-player mahjong, North tiles may be picked and functions as a dora.

Riichi

Main article: Riichi

Riichi 「リーチ」 is a player's declaration for a ready hand. If desired, a player may announce riichi prior to discarding and invoke the rules involving riichi as a yaku.

Tsumo

Tsumo 「ツモ」 is the declaration for winning by self-draw. This may apply to any hand, open or closed. Yet, with a closed hand, then it also counts as for the yaku, mentsumo. Even when furiten, it is acceptable to win the hand.

Open vs closed

Main article: Haipai

With regards to mahjong hands, the common question looks to determine the best practices of opening or closing a hand. For starters, players should know the yaku and their han values. Essentially, this begs the question: "Is it worth opening the hand, or is it better to remain closed?" Naturally, there are advantages and disadvantages to either approach. For both cases, the speed at which a hand attains tenpai rests on this decision.

For various yakuman hands, it is certainly advantageous to make calls on specific tiles. The sheer difficulty of yakuman hands overall make it necessary to make use of tile calls to even come near completion, much less score one.