Suuankou
Suuankou 「四暗刻」 is one of the standard yakuman hands. As a direct translation, this hand consists of four concealed triplets and a pair. It is one of the three yakuman gosanke 「役満御三家」, or "the three big families of yakuman"
| Type | Yakuman |
|---|---|
| Kanji |
四暗刻 四暗刻単騎 |
| English |
Four concealed triplets Same with pair wait |
| Value | Yakuman |
| Speed | Slow |
| Difficulty | Hard |
If the hand is on a shanpon wait (two pairs waiting to complete a triplet), the winning tile must be a self-draw and not a discard from another player. While ron does not open the hand, it does open the resulting triplet, thus invalidating the yakuman.
Suuankou tanki 「四暗刻単騎」 is a variant which features the hand with a tanki wait. The hand in this state may win from another player's discard, and it still counts as a yakuman. In this case, all four triplets are present in the hand. A hand of this pattern may count double yakuman, as an added variation.
For either type of suuankou, either the shanpon or the tanki variety, the hand itself must be closed only in order to count for yakuman. So, none of the triplets must have been claimed from other players' discards. An "all triplet" hand with open calls would then either count for toi toi, sanankou, or both.
Tile diagram
Tsumo: or .
Either tile must be won by tsumo. Otherwise, this hand is toitoi and sanankou.
Tanki
Example 1:
Agari:
The hand scores a yakuman whether the 9-man is won via tsumo or ron. It can be considered a double yakuman in some rulesets.
Example 2
If the tanki wait is combined with additional patterns, then the yakuman may not be guaranteed. The hand has multiple waits allowing the win, but only one (3-sou) produces the yakuman.
Value
This hand is automatically a yakuman hand, won by tsumo using a shanpon (tenpai holding two pairs) or any win if using a tanki (one tile waiting for a duplicate).
Variants may allow suuankou tanki to count as a double yakuman. Some rules may only award the double yakuman if it is won from tsumo; others allow a double yakuman no matter how the suuankou tanki is won.
Formation
All four of the triplets must be concealed for this hand to be counted as yakuman. As mentioned above, if a triplet is completed via ron, then the triplet is not considered concealed. Therefore, if the hand has a shanpon wait, it can only win by tsumo. Closed kans are acceptable, as kans are considered triplets. Of course, calling pon automatically invalidates the yakuman.
The difficulty of this yakuman stems from the need to draw at least 3 out of 4 of a single tile type, for four different tile types. Of all the yakuman, suuankou is the most common. This is likely because it can be formed from any type of tile.
References
External links
- Suuankou in Japanese Wikipedia