Suukantsu

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Suukantsu
Type Yakuman
Kanji 四槓子
English Four kans
Value Yakuman
Speed Extremely slow
Difficulty The most difficult

Suukantsu 「四槓子」 is a yakuman scored when the hand has called kan four times. Suukantsu is the rarest hand in the game, even rarer than tenhou or chiihou. It is also the longest, requiring 18 tiles total.

Tile pattern

Agari:

Development

Suukantsu tenpai with an inescapable hadaka tanki situation.

This yakuman requires four kan calls. As a result, the hand in tenpai always has a hadaka tanki wait. In order to call a single kan, a player must draw at least 3 out of 4 of a single tile type under any of these three scenarios:

  • A player has a pair and calls pon, then draws the fourth to call kan.
  • A player has a closed triplet and calls kan on a discarded fourth.
  • A player draws all four of a tile type and calls kan.

For this yakuman, a player must repeat any of those kan calls four times. This yakuman is the most difficult yakuman to attain tenpai, let alone score.

  • You must obtain a total of 4/4 tiles of four different types. If any tile is rendered unavailable (e.g. in an opponents hand, in the dead wall), the hand is practically impossible.
  • You must obtain 3/4 of those tiles by self draw. That feat is already worth a yakuman, that being suuankou. A hand that could be suuankou is unlikely to call an open kan, because it's much easier to win with suuankou.
  • If any other player has called kan, the hand becomes impossible. If playing with abortive draws, this will trigger suukaikan. If playing without, then players are still only allowed a combined total of 4 kans in one game.
  • Calling four kans adds a total of four kan dora, which will greatly boost the value of others' hands. A player may not want to kan even once in order to avoid the extra dora.
  • Calling four kans immediately reveals you have a yakuman hand, so players are likely to defend.
  • The hand always has a hadaka tanki wait. In addition to being difficult to win off, it leaves you with no room to defend.

Finally, like any other yakuman, another player could have a faster hand and win before you.

Value

Despite the greater degree of difficulty and exceptionally low frequency of occurrence, the value remains as that of the other single yakuman.

External links

Suukantsu in Japanese Wikipedia