Kuikae: Difference between revisions

The main purpose of tile calls is to push hands forward and reduce the number of [[shanten]]. However, a kuikae call doesn't reduce the number of shanten, because the discarded tile would've completed the [[mentsu]]. When kuikae is allowed, players can make calls that do not advance their hand, but achieve other goals.

* Call tiles in order to "easily" disrupt others. Players can make "meaningless" calls in order to interrupt other players' [[ippatsu]] or shift the [[haitei]] draw.  

* Call tiles in order to "easily" skip having to draw a (potentially dangerous) tile late in the round. This can be especially important if in [[tenpai]], due to the [[noten]] penalty.

* Call tiles in order to "easily" raise the value of their hand. Kuikae can be used to change the end of a sequence (as shown in Example 1) to obtain yaku, such as [[tanyao]] or [[sanshoku]]. It can also be used to obtain dora, such as calling a [[red five]], then discarding a five afterwards.

By restricting kuikae, both cases become less prevalent: it is harder to disrupt players for the sake of disruption, and it is harder to gain value with an otherwise useless call. Allowing kuikae is not an inherently bad thing - these "disruptive" tactics have a strategy of their own. However, since more players prefer to play with kuikae restricted, the kuikae restriction became more popular to use. Today, kuikae nashi is the standard rule, and most places include some form of it.