Suuankou
Suuankou 「四暗刻」, literally "four closed triplets", is a yakuman scored when a hand has four closed triplets and a pair.
| 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 (tsumo) and not a discard from another player (ron). While ron does not open the hand, it does open the resulting triplet, which means the 4th triplet is not closed, invalidating the yakuman.
Suuankou tanki 「四暗刻単騎」 is scored when the hand is on a tanki wait, i.e. it has completed the four triplets by tenpai. The hand may win from another player's discard, counting for a yakuman. A hand of this pattern may count double yakuman, as an added variation.
Regardless of the wait, suuankou must be scored with a closed hand; none of the triplets can be called from other players' discards. An "all triplet" hand with open calls would then either count for toitoi, 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. Most rules allow the double yakuman no matter how its won; a few rules award the double yakuman if the hand is completed by tsumo.
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.
Suuankou is one of the three yakuman gosanke 「役満御三家」, or "the three big families of yakuman", along with kokushi musou and daisangen. These are the three most common yakuman in the game. Suuankou itself is the most common yakuman in 4-player, likely because it can be formed from any type of tile. 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.
References
External links
- Suuankou in Japanese Wikipedia