EMA Riichi Competition Rules: Difference between revisions

The '''Riichi Competition Rules''' (RCR) of the [[European Mahjong Association]] (EMA) are used for many [[Japanese Mahjong]] [[List of European tournaments|tournaments]] throughout Europe.

* [[Furiten]] treatment: Temporary furiten is treated like ippatsu, a call from any opponents can nullify a temporary furiten state, unlike everywhere else requiring that the furiten player take his own action before exiting the furiten state. Permanent and self-furiten are treated the same.

 

* Changes from previous EMA rules (2012): no more red fives; open tanyao ([[kuitan]]) allowed; renhou is now a strict mangan only; the maximum score is a single yakuman (Daisuushii no longer worth double); 11-han hands and above are all scored as sanbaiman; the timing rule was changed; no more swap-calling ([[kuikae]]); temporary furiten ends once the player can play their turn (draw or claim a tile); the 2-han restriction ([[ryanhan shibari]]) with 5 or more repeats is gone; no more abortive draws; no more nagashi mangan; rank bonus ([[uma]]) is now [+15P, +5P, -5P, -15P]; the chombo penalty in a tournament is now -20P (after rank bonus); penalties are generally less harsh.

* Differences with WRC rules (2015):  

** ''4 han, 30 fu'' is not rounded to mangan payment

** Riichi bets at game end go to the winner

Ura dora, kan dora, and kan ura dora are used. After declaring any type of kantsu, the next dora indicator is flipped immediately.

Abortive draws are no longer used in EMA riichi rules.

Temporary Furiten is cancelled only when the player takes a tile from the wall.

A player is karaten (empty tenpai) if his hand could be completed with one more tile, but all possible winning tiles are already used in his own hand. Open melds and kantsu belong to his hand. Karaten counts as noten.

[[Kuitan|Open tanyao]] is allowed.

[[Renhou]] is a mangan. This is awarded to any player winning by Ron within the first uninterrupted set of turns, before the player has made his first draw from the wall. The winner does not need to have another yaku, Renhou by itself is the yaku.

[[Sekinin barai]], or pao, is in effect for [[daisangen]] and [[daisuushii]].

Yakuman are not cumulative.

In case a player goes negative on points, a "penalty" 10,000 point stick is usually handed to them by the tournament judge in order to carry out further point transactions and resume play. This is ultimately subtracted from the player's end score.

Players may declare Riichi with any score. Winning players always get one Riichi stick back. Leftover Riichi sticks go to the winner sitting closest to the discarder's right.

Table counters are added whenever East won a hand, or there was an exhaustive draw. Table counters are all removed when someone else than East wins and East does not. Chombo leads to a repetition of the hand with the same number of table counters.

After each Hanchan, players receive a relatively large [[Uma|uma]] of 5-15, i.e., the second player receives 5,000 points from the third, and the first player receives 15,000 points from last place. When player scores tie, the tying players share their Uma; ties are not resolved by player seating order. Players tying for first share any leftover Riichi sticks. There is no [[Oka|oka]]. Scores are ''not'' rounded to the nearest thousand.

In the end of the Hanchan, the scores of each player are typically marked as the difference between the starting points (30,000) and their current amount of points, divided by 1,000. Uma is added on top of this to form the total. For example, a player finishing at 1st place with 60,000 points would mark their score as +30, followed by the uma (+15), totaling up to +45. Finally, any penalties (e.g. for a chombo) are subtracted from the liable players' total score for that Hanchan.

When played with a time limit, a gong sounds 15 minutes before end. Only one more valid hand may be started after the gong. A hand starts when the dice are thrown. Won hands and exhaustive draws constitute a valid hand. Chombo renders a hand invalid, therefore another hand must be played.

* [http://mahjong-europe.org/portal/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30&Itemid=166 EMA RCR official rulebook]