text:
Ryu ga Gotoku: Ishin! – Mahjong Guide
PlayStation 4
Mahjong Guide by barticle
Version: 1.00 | Updated: 03/30/2014
Ishin! Mahjong Guide - Version 1.00 - 24 March 2014 - by Barticle at hotmail.com __________ ____________ ____ ____ __________ _____ ____ ____ | | / || | | || || \ | | | | |__ __|| ________|| | | ||__ __|| \ | | | | | | | (_______ | |____| | | | | \ | | | | | | | \ | | | | | \| | | | | | \_______ || ____ | | | | |\ | |____| __| |__ ________) || | | | __| |__ | | \ | ____ | || || | | || || | \ | / \ |__________||____________/ |____| |____||__________||____| \_____| \____/ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | M | A | H | J | O | N | G | | G | U | I | D | E | |___|___|___|___|___|___|___| |___|___|___|___|___| 01 INTRODUCTION 08 TABLE RULES 02 WHEN AND WHERE 09 SCORE CALCULATION 03 PLAY MODES o Points and Minipoints o Tournament mode o Limits o Gambling mode o Draws and Honba 04 QUICKSTART GUIDE o Uma 05 MAHJONG TILES 10 CONTROLS 06 WINDS AND TURN OF PLAY 11 DISPLAY 07 MAHJONG RULES o Table View o The Basics o Score Screen o Calling Pung and Calling Chow 12 FRIEND o Declaring Wins: Tsumo and Ron 13 COMPLETION o Declaring Riichi 14 STRATEGY o Scoring Elements and Fan 15 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS o Limit Hands 16 GLOSSARY o Double Limit Hands 17 CONTACT o Dora Bonuses 18 THANKS .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 01 | INTRODUCTION s01 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' This is a full guide to the traditional tabletop game of mahjong, specifically the modern Japanese rules and the mahjong minigame in the 2014 Japanese PS4/PS3 video-game 'Ryuu ga Gotoku: Ishin!' (hereafter "Ishin"). Following the 2008 title 'Ryuu ga Gotoku: Kenzan!' and the 2011 game 'Ryuu ga Gotoku: of the End' (released in the West as 'Yakuza: Dead Souls'), Ishin is another non-canonical "just for fun" spin-off from the main RGG/Yakuza game series. With its historical setting Ishin is closest in tone to Kenzan although it's set in the mid-1800's - two and a half centuries after Kenzan. If you want to get into playing the game as soon as possible then skip down to Section 04 for my quickstart beginner's guide. You can also find an illustrated version of this on the Yakuza wiki site here: http://yakuza.wikia.com/wiki/Barticle's_Introduction_to_Japanese_Mahjong Mahjong has a lot of rules and specialist vocabulary so it can be difficult to describe one aspect without making reference to others which I haven't yet explained but I've done my best to make everything clear. Where a new term is defined it is given in CAPS for easy reference. There is also a basic glossary near the end of the guide (Section 16). Primarily I'll be using the translated English terminology that was previously used in the localized games Yakuza 2, Yakuza 4 and Yakuza: Dead Souls but I will add some Japanese terms where I think it'll aid further study. If you want to learn more then check out my complete guide to the terminology and rules of Japanese mahjong. It's available as a 78-page, illustrated, linked PDF and can be accessed from the United States Professional Mahjong League website here: http://www.uspml.com/site/downloads.htm (Barticle's Japanese Mahjong Guide) If you want to discuss Japanese mahjong then join the international community of enthusiasts on Reach Mahjong's English forums. Hope to see you there. :) http://www.reachmahjong.com/en/forum If you're enjoying mahjong then think about importing a proper Japanese mahjong game. I have guides for several PS3 and DS titles on this site. The best games for both formats are arguably the Mahjong Fight Club ones. To jump to any section of this document use your browser's Find function (with Ctrl+F on a PC or Cmd+F on a Mac probably) and search for the letter S followed by the two-digit section number, for example s04 to find Section 04. This guide is designed to be viewed using a monospaced (non-proportional or fixed-width) font, preferably Courier New. Some sections of the document will display incorrectly if you are using a proportional font like Times New Roman. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 02 | WHEN AND WHERE s02 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' If you don't know Japanese (or even if you do) you'll want a full guide to the game so be sure to check out the comprehensive coverage of Ishin on the KHH Subs site. There's a full walkthrough of the story and substories plus sections with maps, items, weapons, combat upgrades, friends, bounty hunting, etc. Basically everything you need to know about the game. It's a massively useful resource. http://www.khhsubs.com/projectsrggishin.html You can play mahjong in the seedy and derelict Mukurogai district on the east side of the main map. You'll find the mahjong parlour in the south-west corner of the district, marked in purple on the map, just south of the weapons dealer. ___________________ |_ | | | _| Rakunai | ____| ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ |______ to Mibu <-- ___ _____ --> to Gion | | | |_____ | _____ | Rakugai ___ ____| | ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ | _||___ |_ | | | |_ | | | <-- Mukurogai |_ __| |M_____| ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ______| |_______ | | | Fushimi _| | ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ |() <-- ferry |_______________| You'll first visit Mukurogai (literally "corpse town"!) in the final phase of Chapter 2 after returning to your dockside lodgings at the Terada Inn following the fight at the bathhouse. The ferryman will deliver you to the south side of the district and you'll find the mahjong parlour nearby to the west. Thereafter you can travel between Fushimi and Mukurogai by boat. In Fushimi you will find the ferryman at the quay immediately south of Komaki's dojo (hand-to- hand style) which is east of the Terada Inn. He'll charge you 500 Mon per trip. After joining the Shinsengumi (blue coats) in Chapter 3 you'll be able to buy your way past the guards on the gate that connects north-west Mukurogai to the Rakugai district. It'll cost you one bottle of alcohol which must be in your personal inventory. If you don't have any already you can buy one from a shop, for example the big Don Quijote cornershop* in Rakunai - even a Doburoku barrel (800 Mon) is sufficient. Afterwards you can then continue to use the north gate for free by talking to the guard and then travel easily between Mukurogai and Rakugai (near the entrance to the training facility with the scarecrow courses). *Don't forget to turn up your volume so you can properly enjoy the lovely period instrumental reworking of the legendary Donki theme-song. :D .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 03 | PLAY MODES s03 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' Just like other recent RGG/Yakuza titles there are two different ways of playing mahjong in Ishin and you can access both of them at the mahjong parlour. I'm calling them Tournament and Gambling modes. Speak to the receptionist and you'll get a menu with five options: 1. Participate in Rising Dragon Match for Keiou* Mahjong Cup (Tournament) 2. Exchange Prizes (trade Gambling credit for rewards) 3. Purchase Scoring-Sticks (buy Gambling credit) 4. Hear About Uma (details of the ranking bonuses)** 5. Quit (exit menu) You can also become friends with this guy (see Section 12). *Keiou was the Japanese historical era that ran briefly from 1865 to 1868 prior to the Meiji period (which then continued well into the 20th century). **The numbers given here are wrong! See Section 09 below for the correct ones. Tournament Mode ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ The receptionist at the mahjong parlour gives you the option to register to play in the Keiou Mahjong Cup (a.k.a. Tournament mode). Registration for Tournament mode costs 5 Ryou (50,000 Mon) which may seem like a lot at first but it's only double what you pay for sufficient Scoring-Sticks to play on the Gambling mode tables. After paying the fifty grand, not only will you be able to play all Tournament matches for free but you can also win prizes with a combined resale value of over 70 Ryou (700,000 Mon)! After registration you can begin a Tournament match at any time by speaking to the parlour receptionist (top option, then top option again to confirm). There are no further fees to pay. For Tournament mode the pre-match menu looks like this: 1. Start ranking match 2. Exit mahjong 3. Mahjong basic knowledge - Mahjong rules - Scoring Elements list 4. Check rankings Tournament mode is played with a "ladder" format consisting of thirty ranked players including yourself - you start on the bottom rung. Each time you play a Tournament ranking match you compete against the person immediately below you in the ladder and the two people above you (unless you're currently in 30th, 2nd or 1st place, of course). After the game, the four of you will occupy the same four positions in the ladder but you will now be listed in order of your placings in the match. So, for example, if you are in 16th position in the ladder you would always play against the people in 17th, 15th and 14th. The player who comes first at the end of the game will then become 14th, second will be 15th, third will be 16th and fourth will be 17th. Here's an example showing how your character will climb two places up the ladder by winning a match: Ladder Standings Before Game Results Ladder Standings After ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ 14th Player A 1st You -------> 14th You 15th Player B 2nd Player B -------> 15th Player B 16th You 3rd Player A -------> 16th Player A 17th Player C 4th Player C -------> 17th Player C If you come first then you're promoted two places in the ladder, if you come second you go up one, if third you hold position and if you come last in the game then you drop a place. You're shown the revised ladder listing at the end of every Tournament game you play. There are seven prizes available in the ladder (only one of each per customer) which you win when you reach 25th, 20th, 15th, etc, as shown in the table below. You can continue to play after you hit the top spot but there's no more prizes, although the ranking table will show how many times you've defended your title! Rank | Prize | Resale Value | Use ======+====================+==============+================= 25th | Carved Wooden Bear | 3,750 Mon | Barter/Crafting ------+--------------------+--------------+----------------- 20th | Silver Plate | 10,400 Mon | Sell/Peddling* ------+--------------------+--------------+----------------- 15th | Golden Seal-Case | 12,150 Mon | Crafting ------+--------------------+--------------+----------------- 10th | Training Rice-Cake | 75 Mon | Experience ------+--------------------+--------------+----------------- 5th | Gold Plate | 80,000 Mon | Sell/Peddling* ------+--------------------+--------------+----------------- 3rd | Platinum Plate | 120,000 Mon | Sell/Peddling* ------+--------------------+--------------+----------------- 1st | Golden Statue | 500,000 Mon | Cherish/Sell If you want to make some quick money you could sell all these at either of the pawnshops** and receive a profit of 676,375 Mon (after subtracting your initial registration fee). However most of the items are more valuable in other aspects of the game so it's best to keep all of them apart from the statue trophy. *After filling a few dozen peddling orders at my Another Life home I received an order asking for one Gold Plate and it paid 20 Ryou (200,000 Mon)! That's enough for one whole instalment payment on the house. :D According to the Japanese wiki for Ishin you can also receive orders for one Silver Plate (pays 26,000 Mon) and one Platinum Plate (pays 300,000 Mon). **During Chapter 2 you can access the pawnshop in Fushimi which is behind the Umaiya noodle-bar in the north-west of the district. At the start of Chapter 3 the gate into Rakugai opens and from there you can proceed north into Rakunai where you'll find the second pawnshop on the south side at the east end of the main high street (near the bridge over to the Gion district). Gambling Mode ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ There are three mahjong tables being used inside the parlour, each providing a different level of difficulty. Your choice will also have quite a significant effect on the scale of the Uma bonuses applied at the end of each match (see Section 09) - your potential profits are much larger with the higher diffs. ___ ___ _____ strong table ------> | | | | |_____| <-- receptionist |___| |___| <------------ intermediate table ___ ___ empty table --> | | | | <---------------- weak table |___| |___| Just like gambling at a casino, you'll need to change some of your money before you play. Instead of using circular poker chips, mahjong points are counted with white plastic SCORING-STICKS marked with dots to indicate their value. | | | | | | | | | o | black dot | | | | | | | . | | | | | |. .| |. .| |. .| | | |. .| | o | red dots | o | red dots | o | red dot |. .| black dots |. .| |. .| | | |. .| | . | | | | | | | | o | black dot | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 10,000 pts 5,000 pts 1,000 pts 100 pts (You don't need to recognise those but since I'd already prepared the ASCII art for one of my Mahjong Fight Club guides - and I've tried to make this a general guide to mahjong - I thought I'd re-use the diagram.) All four players always start each match with 25,000 points* so you'll need to buy some before your first game. You can get these from the receptionist. Pick the third option from his menu and you'll get the following options: 1. Buy 100,000 pts for 100,000 Mon 2. Buy 25,000 pts for 25,000 Mon 3. Buy 10,000 pts for 10,000 Mon 4. Quit (If you're new to mahjong this could be an expensive way to learn so stick with the Tournament play option which requires a larger initial investment but it's a one-off payment so you can keep playing for free after registration.) You can see how many mahjong points you currently possess by going to the items inventory from the pause menu then pressing R1 four times to see your valuables. After buying some points you will see an item that consists of a pile of several Scoring-Sticks. When you highlight that item your current mahjong points total will be shown in the text description at the bottom of the screen. Once you have your points you can choose a table at which to play and talk to the person there (top option) to enter the pre-match menu: 1. Start game 2. Exit mahjong 3. Change rules (see Section 08) 4. Mahjong basic knowledge - Mahjong rules - Scoring Elements list If you have more than 25,000 pts after a match you can go straight into another one if you like. If you have fewer than 25k however you'll need to buy some more credit from the receptionist before your next game. If you find yourself with an excess of Scoring-Sticks you can exchange them for one or more of a dazzling array of prizes from the list below! Use the second option on the receptionist menu to access his shop inventory. Prize | Cost | Resale Value | Use ================+=============+==============+===================== Kizugusuri** | 300 pts | 150 Mon | Heal effect ----------------+-------------+--------------+--------------------- Platinum Plate | 150,000 pts | 120,000 Mon | Sell/Peddling ----------------+-------------+--------------+--------------------- Gold Plate | 100,000 pts | 80,000 Mon | Sell/Peddling ----------------+-------------+--------------+--------------------- Silver Plate | 13,000 pts | 10,400 Mon | Sell/Peddling ----------------+-------------+--------------+--------------------- Copper Plate | 1,000 pts | 800 Mon | Sell/Peddling ----------------+-------------+--------------+--------------------- Iron Plate | 100 pts | 80 Mon | Sell/Peddling ----------------+-------------+--------------+--------------------- Doburoku*** | 800 pts | 400 Mon | Heal/alcohol effect (As in other RGG/Yakuza games you cannot "cash out" and convert your points directly back into money like you would with chips at an American or European casino; this is a consequence of the (real) gambling laws in Japan. Instead you trade your Gambling points for prizes and if you want the money you have to sell them at one of the pawnshops.) The plates all follow the same "exchange rate" so you can choose any of them, but it makes sense to buy the most valuable ones you can afford since they will take up less space in your inventory slots. *The most common starting score for Japanese mahjong is 25,000 points although other values like 20,000 pts, 27,000 pts or 30,000 pts can be used sometimes. Often players will buy into a game with 30,000 pts but then pay the difference into a jackpot called the OKA which goes to the winner, so for example if the four players begin play with 25,000 pts they each pay 5,000 into the pot and the person who wins the game receives an additional 20,000 pts (4 x 5,000 pts). **Kizugusuri means "ointment" or "potion". It's the rounded brown covered pot. ***Doburoku is a cloudy unrefined form of sake ("rice wine"). In the Meiji era the term was synonymous with illegal moonshine. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 04 | QUICKSTART GUIDE s04 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' Although it's no substitute for reading this entire (loooong!) document, I've written this section to cover the essentials as concisely as possible. This will hopefully enable anyone with little or no knowledge of mahjong to achieve a useful functional level of ability on a short timescale. For an expanded and illustrated version of my mahjong quickstart guide check out my article on the English RGG/Yakuza wiki site here: http://yakuza.wikia.com/wiki/Barticle's_Introduction_to_Japanese_Mahjong o Register for Tournament mode. This will cost you 50,000 Mon for registration but thereafter you can play as many Tournament matches as you like for free (and you'll have the chance to win various prizes worth a lot more than that). o You'll need to learn to recognise the Chinese/Japanese numbers on the Craks suit (the tiles with red and black markings). Press Triangle during play for the in-game help, pick the second option and turn to page 15. This shows a Full Flush hand of 11233445666789 in the Craks suit. o You should really learn the characters used on the Wind tiles too (the ones with black markings). Continue flicking through the help to page 18. This shows a Little Four Winds hand with three East tiles, three South tiles, two West tiles and three North tiles (reading from left to right). o You start with 13 tiles and each turn you take one extra and discard one. Your aim is to make a complete hand composed of four sets of three and one matching pair. The set can be a Chow (three consecutive tiles in the same suit), a Pung (a triplet of three identical tiles) or exceptionally a Kong (a quad set). o If an opponent discards a tile which you could use to make a triplet then you can call Pung to steal it, but the set and your hand will now be "exposed" and no longer "concealed". Similarly you can call Chow off the player to your left to make a sequence but again it will be exposed. It is usually best to NOT do this because you'll limit your scoring potential. Keep your hand concealed and reject any Pung and Chow pop-up options that appear. o Unless you have a hand which obviously lends itself to Pungs/pairs, you should usually try to make Chows (sequences). Keep the numbered tiles from the three suits, favouring ones that can make sets together. For example, 6_8 becomes a Chow by adding a 7 or _45_ becomes a Chow if you get either a 3 or a 6. Groups of four or more adjacent suit tiles can be very versatile. o In addition to the four sets, your hand will also need a pair of two identical tiles so make sure you keep a pair when you have one. o To declare a win with a hand it *must* also qualify for at least one Scoring Element. These are loosely equivalent to the combinations of poker except in mahjong you can combine them. Check Section 07 of this guide for a list or review the illustrated examples in the in-game help. o The two most important Scoring Elements are Riichi and Pinfu. I would suggest that most of the time you attempt to use both in combination, hopefully with some other stuff too to boost your score. o If your hand is "ready" (one tile away from being complete) and concealed you can declare Riichi by pressing the Square button. If you're not sure you can just press Square each turn and see what happens! Declaring a win after Riichi will add a double to your score and there's a couple of extra possible bonuses too. It does cost 1000 points to use it though so it's best to use it when you could win with two or more tiles (see display in top-right corner when picking the Riichi option) and when there are at least 15 tiles remaining to be played (see bottom-left counter in the centre of the screen). o Pinfu is the hardest Scoring Element to explain but it's one of the most common and useful. For Pinfu you must meet the following requirements: - your hand must be concealed (so don't call Chow/Pung when offered) - all four sets must be Chows (which is a good thing because that's the most efficient structure to use) - the hand must be completed on a Two-Sided Wait, for example _56_ (in other words your hand must consist of three complete Chows, one pair and two more tiles with consecutive numbers in the same suit, e.g. 234 789 345 11 _56_) - the pair cannot be composed of any of the Dragons (the special white, green and red tiles), the current Prevalent Wind (check the kanji symbol in the top-left box in the centre of the screen) or your current Seat Wind (shown with the kanji symbol next to your character's face) It sounds complicated but this should all flow naturally from sensible play. o Riichi and Pinfu are often combined with All Simples. This is achieved by having a hand with no Dragons, Winds, 1's or 9's, in other words the hand is composed entirely of suit tiles with numbers between 2 and 8 inclusive. (NB: The Scoring Element of All Simples can only be claimed on an exposed hand if the Kuitan rule is applied.) o Another handy way to boost your score is the Dora bonus tiles. The tile shown in the centre of the screen is the Dora indicator and the next sequential tile is the Dora and each is worth one double. For example if the indicator is the 2-Dots tile and you have a pair of 3-Dots in your hand then you have two Dora. (The numbers wrap so a 9 indicator makes the Dora 1 in the same suit and the Dragons and Winds follow the sequences Green>Red>White>Green (it happens to be in alphabetical order in English) and East>South>West>North>East.) With the Red Dora option applied you'll see special red versions of some of the number 5 suit tiles. These are worth one double each too. o The player with the current Seat Wind of East is known (in English) as the "Dealer" and receives around 50% extra points each time they win; therefore you should try to take advantage of your stints as Dealer. You will "stay on" as Dealer if you win the Hand or if it results in a draw where you have a "ready" hand (one that is one tile away from being complete). o You declare "Tsumo" to register a win with a tile you've drawn yourself or "Ron" to win off an opponent's discard. If you have a ready hand that could be completed by any of the tiles that you've already discarded yourself then you are Furiten and you cannot declare a Ron win on any tile; you can still win by Tsumo or you can change your hand structure to escape the Furiten. o Although generally you should avoid calling discarded tiles from the other players, here are some examples of when it might be a good choice:- - If you have a pair of Dragons, Seat Wind or Prevalent Wind (see Pinfu above) then you can call Pung on a third matching tile to give the Scoring Element required for a win. You might use this to give a quick/cheap win in order to stay on as the Dealer in the next Hand. (Aside from such pairs, you'd usually discard the Winds and Dragons first.) - If you have several Dora tiles in your hand you might call tiles to complete an All Simples hand to secure the win quickly. - A Half Flush (one suit plus Winds and Dragons) or Full Flush (one suit only) can be completed more easily by calling tiles, although it will devalue the hand somewhat. - Any player with a ready hand in a draw receives a share of 3000 points from their opponents so even if you are unlikely to win you might call tiles in the final few turns to achieve a ready hand. o Once you've won some points you'll want to keep them! If an opponent declares a Ron win off one of your discarded tiles then you pay the full amount for their win so sometimes you'll need to play defensively. If another player calls Riichi then you know they are only one tile away from winning and the safest action is to "fold", i.e. to dismantle your hand so you can discard safe tiles. This is a tough lesson to learn but sometimes you need "to lose a battle in order to win the war"! The best tiles to discard are ones that your opponent has already discarded because they will be Furiten on them. It's also good to drop tiles that you or the other opponents have discarded since the player declared Riichi. (This is another reason not to steal tiles from your opponents. The tiles in your exposed set/s are locked so you have less to choose from when folding.) o Be patient, keep practising and enjoy learning the game. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 05 | MAHJONG TILES s05 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' Mahjong is a traditional oriental game of skill and luck using a set of tiles usually made of bone or plastic and played by four players around a square table. The game's true origins seem to have been lost in the mists (and indeed myths) of time but it's safe to say that it originated in China and that it dates back to the late nineteenth century. There are numerous variants of the game but I will be focusing on the modern Japanese version as it appears in Ishin and the associated terminology. The pieces are likely to make you think of dominoes but the tiles actually have more in common with a deck of playing cards and the core gameplay is similar to some card games, most notably Rummy. A full mahjong set has 144 tiles. In some versions of mahjong the four Seasons tiles and four Flowers tiles - each associated with one of the four Winds - are used to give bonuses but in the Japanese version of the game (in Ishin) they're removed from the set so the game is played using the 136 remaining tiles. Whereas a deck of cards has four suits with thirteen cards in each, a mahjong set has three suits - Dots, Bamboo (Bams) and Characters (Craks) - with nine numbered tiles in each and there are also three Dragon tiles and four Wind tiles. There are four copies of each of these tiles in the full set. (3 suits x 9 tiles x 4) + (4 Winds x 4) + (3 Dragons x 4) = 136 tiles in total If you're new to mahjong you will need to learn to recognise all of the different tiles so I would suggest that you consult the following webpages: http://mahjong.wikidot.com/equipment http://www.mahjonged.com/mahjong_tiles.html The tiles numbered 2 to 8 are called SIMPLES, the ones marked 1 and 9 are called TERMINALS (end of the line) and the seven different Dragon and Wind tiles are known collectively as HONOURS. Dots (also known as Circles, Balls, Coins or PINZU) ¯¯¯¯ The tiles of the DOTS suit are marked simply with blue and red circles denoting their value, from 1 to 9. The patterns on the first six tiles are similar to the patterns of dots on dice. Bamboo (also known as BAMS, Sticks or SOUZU) ¯¯¯¯¯¯ Similarly the tiles for values of 2 to 9 in the BAMBOO suit are marked with the appropriate number of (mostly) green symbols, each representing a single piece of bamboo. The exception is the 1-Bams tile which is traditionally marked with a bird, in this case a green peacock with a dark grey tail. Characters (also known as CRAKS, Grands or MANZU) ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ The tiles of the CHARACTERS suit are all marked with the same red symbol* plus a black kanji character above it representing a number 1 to 9. Some real mahjong tiles made for western markets are marked with "Arabic" (i.e. English) numerals in the corner but you're out of luck here! To play the game you will need to learn which of each of the nine characters represents each of the nine numbers. If you press the Triangle button to access the help pages and then select the bottom option and flick to page 15 you can see a full set of Craks tiles given as an example of a Full Flush (Chinitsu) hand. The fourteen tiles are shown in the order 11233445666789 so you can use that to work out which is which. (One, two and three are fairly obvious and you should learn to recognise the others after playing a few games, even when they're sideways and upside-down!) Here's a quick attempt to reproduce the nine numbers in ASCII art... _ ___ _____ / _|_ | _|_ _|_ _____ --- ___ | | |_| | | | ----- | / \ | | ----- _____ |/____| | _|_|_ / \ '--' / \ / |_ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 *The red symbol on each Craks tile represents 10,000. Originally the circles on the Dots represented individual coins, the Bams were actually strings of one hundred coins and the Craks were sets of one hundred strings - hence 10,000. Winds ¯¯¯¯¯ There are four WINDS tiles, each named after one of the cardinal points of the compass - East, South, West and North. Each is marked with a single black kanji symbol so again you will have to learn to recognise them. The four Wind symbols look (a little!) like this. The relative proportions are a bit off but hopefully you get the idea! _+_ East: |_|_| South: _|_ West: ____ North: | |_|_| __|__ _||_ _||/ /|\ | \ / | | ||_| || / | \ | T | |/___| _||_. I think the easiest way to tell them apart is to look for the distinguishing feature of each symbol. If the kanji looks like it has three legs (tripod) it's East - this is the most important one to learn because the player sitting at East is the Dealer. If it looks like a lower-case letter "t" standing next to its reflection then it's North. The remaining two are similar in appearance but if it has a flat horizontal bar on top (detonator plunger!) it's West and if the bar is crossed like a "+" symbol then it's South. In Japanese mahjong the four Winds are named TON (East), NAN (South), SHAA (West) and PEI (North), although you don't need to remember that! Dragons ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ There are three coloured DRAGONS: red, green and white; the Japanese don't actually refer to these as Dragons but this is the name by which they are commonly known internationally and in English texts. The Red Dragon tile is marked with a simple red kanji character - a box with a vertical line through it - which means "centre". In Japanese mahjong it is known as CHUN. The Green Dragon has a complicated green character which means "departure" and is read as HATSU. The White Dragon is a plain white tile and is called HAKU. You might like to think of it as a white dragon on a white background! :) Outside Japan, the White Dragon tile is often marked with an empty blue rectangular frame but I prefer the Japanese version. (The Chinese names for the three Dragons are Chung, Fa and Po respectively so often mahjong tiles made for export are marked with C, F or P in the corner.) .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 06 | WINDS AND TURN OF PLAY s06 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' You can choose to play either a Half Game or a Quarter Game (see Section 08). A HALF GAME is made up of two ROUNDS (or WIND ROUNDS) each of which is comprised of four HANDS (or KYOKU) and therefore eight Hands* in total, while a QUARTER GAME, as you might expect, lasts for only one round, or four Hands. However sometimes additional Hands, which I will refer to as EXTRA HANDS, will be played (see below); also a game will finish early if the points total of one player (hopefully not you!) drops below zero - this rule is called DOBON. Seat Winds At the start of a game the console will select a player to be ~~~~~~~~~~ East and therefore the first DEALER (or OYA). The player to the West left of the Dealer is North, opposite is West and to their right N .------. S is South (NB this is the opposite of a western compass layout). o | | o This is each player's SEAT WIND (or OWN WIND or JIKAZE) and these r | | u will change as the game progresses, moving counterclockwise t | | t around the table at the start of each normal Hand. Each player's h '------' h Seat Wind is shown on screen next to their name, using the same East kanji as the Wind tiles. Each time the Seat Winds move, the player at East becomes the new Dealer. It is important to know which player is the Dealer in each Hand because the current Dealer pays and receives double points (see Section 09). In every Hand of the game there is also a PREVALENT WIND (in the sense of a "prevailing wind") also called the BAKAZE or the ROUND WIND because it changes at the end of a round. This is shown on the first counter in the centre of the screen and always starts as East in the first round and then, in a Half Game, changes to South in the second. The following table shows how the Seat Winds rotate during the course of play for the four players (labelled A-D working counterclockwise around the table). | First Round | Second Round | | (Prevalent Wind = East) | (Prevalent Wind = South) | ----------+-------.-------.-------.-------+-------.-------.-------.-------| Hand | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------| Player A | East | North | West | South | East | North | West | South | Player B | South | East | North | West | South | East | North | West | Player C | West | South | East | North | West | South | East | North | Player D | North | West | South | East | North | West | South | East | |<-------- Quarter Game ------->| |<------------------------- Half Game ------------------------->| The turn of play is complicated by the fact that it depends on whether a Hand is won by the Dealer, won by another player or drawn (and how). If a Hand is won by a non-dealer then the Seat Winds move one place to the right so South becomes East (and therefore the new Dealer) and the next Hand played is a "normal" one which is counted as one of the four per round. However if a Hand is either won by the Dealer or it's a draw and the Dealer is only one tile away from having a complete hand, i.e. the Dealer is TENPAI, then the Seat Winds don't move and an extra Hand is played; this is a CONTINUANCE or RENCHAN. (A player that is Tenpai is sometimes described as WAITING, CALLING or FISHING or as having a READY hand.) If the Hand was a draw but the Dealer was not Tenpai then the Seat Winds move and the next Hand is a normal one, not an extra Hand, although it's still counted as a draw in terms of points (see Section 09). There is one final complication as the game uses an optional rule (AGARI YAME) whereby the player who's the Dealer in the final normal Hand of the game has the option to end the game early if they win that Hand and are leading on points; this gives them the opportunity to ensure their victory (and pick up the Uma bonus - see Section 09) rather than risk losing their lead in an extra Hand. If one of the computer players wins the final Hand as East then they'll sensibly choose to end the game and if you win as East you are given the option (there'll be a question box in the centre of the screen and pop-ups on the right - press Circle to end the game or Cross to keep playing). For other topics relating to extra Hands please refer to "Two Fan Minimum" in Section 08, "Draws and Honba" in Section 09 and the bit about the table's Honba counter under in Section 11. *The term "hand" is used to describe both your allocated tiles, like a hand of cards, which I will write in lower-case, and the basic unit of gameplay that makes up a round, which I'll write capitalised as Hand for the sake of clarity. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 07 | MAHJONG RULES s07 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' This section covers the core rules of Japanese mahjong. The Basics ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ At the start of each Hand of the game, each player draws four tiles, then four more, then another four and finally one more unless they are the Dealer in which case they get two (this is how the tiles are issued in the real game*). The Dealer chooses one tile to discard, then the next player to the right takes a tile and discards one, then the next player to their right and so on, with play proceeding in a counterclockwise direction around the table. The basic aim of the game is to form a complete hand of usually fourteen tiles which consists of four sets of three tiles each (called Pungs or Chows) and one matched pair (also called the HEAD, EYES or ATAMA), although there are a couple of exceptions to this basic pattern which are listed later in this section (7 Pairs and 13 Orphans) and you can also have sets made of four tiles (Kongs). ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 2 | 3 | 4 | | 6 | 6 | 6 | | 3 | 4 | 5 | | 7 | 8 | 9 | | 1 | 1 | |___|___|___| |___|___|___| |___|___|___| |___|___|___| |___|___| set set set set pair (A winning hand must also always have at least one Scoring Element - see below.) A valid set of three tiles can either be a PUNG (also TRIPLE or KOUTSU in Japanese) which is a triplet of three identical tiles or a CHOW (also SEQUENCE, STRAIGHT, RUN or SHUNTSU in Japanese) which is a set of three tiles with consecutive values from the same suit (I like to think of it as a mini version of a straight flush in poker) for example 2 Dots, 3 Dots and 4 Dots. Since they lack numerical values you cannot make a Chow of either Wind or Dragon tiles (they can only form Pungs, Kongs and pairs). It is also possible to form a set called a KONG (also QUAD, FOUR or KANTSU in Japanese) which is like a Pung but it includes all four of the same tile. This is counted as one of the four sets required to make a valid hand but it would of course leave you a tile short overall so when you declare a Kong you receive an extra tile, sometimes called a LOOSE or SUPPLEMENT TILE. (The three different ways to make a Kong are discussed in the next subsection.) Through the rest of this guide I will use the word SET to refer generally to Chows, Pungs and Kongs. You'll notice during play that when a player calls for a discarded tile (see below) they use special spoken declarations, CHII for a Chow, PON for a Pung or KAN for a Kong - these are the original Chinese names for the three types of set transcribed phonetically into Japanese. *In real life the tiles are taken from the four-sided WALL (or YAMA) but this is not depicted in Ishin apart from the part of it known as the DEAD WALL (also called the WANPAI). The Dead Wall is made up of seven stacks of two tiles each - the first two stacks are used as supplement tiles after a Kong is declared and the other five are used as Dora indicators (see Dora Bonuses later in this section). These five stacks are shown in the centre of the screen. In Japanese mahjong the Dead Wall is effectively replenished, in other words it must always have fourteen tiles and therefore for each supplement tile taken there will be one less tile available from the Wall at the end of the Hand. Calling Pung and Calling Chow ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ If any other player discards a tile which you can use to form a Pung (triplet) with two tiles you already hold then you can do what is known as CALLING PUNG. You can take the tile you need but the Pung will then be displayed face up on the virtual tabletop. Such a Pung is said to be EXPOSED (or OPEN or MELDED) and your hand is therefore no longer fully CONCEALED (or CLOSED) which restricts your options and scoring possibilities. Similarly if the player to your left (and only that player) discards a tile which you can use to form a Chow (sequence) with two tiles you're holding then you can take it; as you might've guessed, this is referred to as CALLING CHOW. Again the set will be exposed and the hand is no longer concealed. If there is more than one option then you can choose which two tiles from your hand to use. Exposed sets are shown to the right of your hand. The captured tile is laid perpendicularly to the other two and positioned to indicate which player it was taken from: on the left if taken from the player to your left (1), on the right if it came from the player to the right (2) and, predictably, in the middle of the set (3) if it came from the player seated opposite you. (This is necessary when playing a real game as you need to be able to monitor all your discards to check if you are Furiten - see next subsection.) ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ (1) ____| | | (2) | | |____ (3) | |____| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |____|___|___| |___|___|____| |___|____|___| After calling Pung/Chow the player has fourteen tiles and must make a discard as if it is their turn and play then continues from the player to their right. So the turn of play is interrupted - the normal sequence is East, South, West, North, but if then West calls Pung the next turn will go to North, then East. Any Pungs and Chows that are exposed (also called MELDS) are locked - the tiles cannot be discarded and the sets cannot be changed, except to turn an exposed Pung into an exposed Kong (quad); if you already have an exposed Pung you can only upgrade it to a Kong with a SELF-DRAWN tile, i.e. one that you were dealt. This tile is placed above the horizontal tile in the exposed set. ____ ____ ____ | |___ ___ ___ ___| | ___| |___ |____| | | | | |____| | |____| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |____|___|___| |___|___|____| |___|____|___| Alternatively if you have a concealed Pung in your hand then you can call Kong on another player's discard which also makes an exposed Kong. Again one tile is positioned perpendicular to the others to indicate which player the called tile was stolen from. ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ____| | | | | | | |____ | | |____| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |____|___|___|___| |___|___|___|____| |___|___|____|___| If, on the other hand, you have four of the same tile concealed in your hand you can choose when to declare it as a Kong. At this point you draw your replacement tile and the Kong is laid on the table with two tiles facing upwards and two downwards; such a set is still counted as concealed. (Since there's no need to draw a replacement tile, it's not necessary to declare a concealed Chow or Pung in your hand.) Claims on discards to make a Pung or Kong take precedence over claims to make a Chow. The game will process this automatically, so occasionally you might be offered the chance to call Pung, reject this and then see the player to the discarder's right take the same tile to make an exposed Chow. __|__o \ / ----- _|___ \ / | / __|__ ____ | | / / | \ / | | | / -' / / / | / PUNG (pon) CHOW (chii) KONG (kan) The option to call Pung, Chow or Kong appears at the bottom-right corner of the screen. The option to declare a concealed Kong or to "upgrade" an exposed Pung into a Kong appears in the same place but you have to press the Square button to make the pop-up command appear there. Declaring Wins: Tsumo and Ron ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ When you choose to announce that you have a complete and valid hand you declare MAHJONG (and therefore win the Hand), this is sometimes called GOING OUT. If you complete your hand using a self-drawn tile (one you were "dealt") this is called TSUMO. If on the other hand you complete your hand by picking up a discard tile from another player this is called RON. Crucially you *must* have at least one of the Scoring Elements or Limit Hands (see below) to be able to declare a win. Whereas you can usually call Chow only from the player to your left, you can
call Ron from any player and complete a Chow, Pung or pair to finish your hand; it doesn't cause the hand to become exposed either. If you are Tenpai (i.e. one tile away from a complete hand) and *any* of the tiles among your own discards would complete your hand then you are FURITEN and cannot claim *any* discard tile to win (Ron). When you are Furiten you can still win with a self-drawn tile (Tsumo). The game won't tell you when you're Furiten so this is something that you have to watch out for. There is also a second type of Furiten which is known as TEMPORARY FURITEN. This occurs if you have a Tenpai hand and (either by choice or accident) don't claim a Ron win on a discarded tile that would complete it. In this case you only stay Furiten until your next turn. However if you miss a Ron win after declaring Riichi (see below) you will be permanently Furiten until the end of that Hand. The two different ways of winning a Hand, by Tsumo or by Ron, have consequences on the way points are distributed - with a Tsumo win the three losing players all pay the winner but with Ron the player who discarded the winning tile has to pay it all - see SCORE CALCULATION (Section 09) for more information on this. Some versions of the rules allow Double Ron which is when two players can both declare a Ron win on the same discarded tile (so they both win points from the hapless discarder!) but in the RGG/Yakuza games the ATAMA HANE (literally "head bump") rule is applied instead and, when two players claim the same discard for a win, it is the one that is closest to the discarder's right that gets the win. .-----. \ / \\ / ------- | | / / | | | / / --+-- |_____| / / |__ RON TSUMO The option to declare Ron or Tsumo appears at the bottom-right of the screen. Declaring Riichi ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ If you are only one tile away from completing a concealed hand (and there are at least four tiles still to be dealt in the Hand) you can pay 1000 points to declare RIICHI (ready). This is a gamble - essentially you're betting that you will win the Hand. If you do win, you'll get your 1000-point stake back, the Riichi will improve your score and you might get further benefits from Ippatsu and Underside Dora (these are explained in the "Scoring Elements and Fan" and "Dora Bonuses" subsections below respectively). When you (or another player) declare Riichi, a Scoring-Stick (like a casino chip) is placed above the discard tiles - you are literally putting your 1000 points on the table - and the first tile to be discarded is placed at right- angles to the others as a record of when it happened (this is used to check for Ippatsu (see next subsection) and it also enables other players to see which tiles you discarded before and at the declaration of Riichi). The 1000-point stake/s from any Riichi are claimed by the next player to win a Hand, i.e. if a Hand results in a draw then any stakes carry over into the next one. Once you've called Riichi your hand is frozen and play proceeds automatically (therefore quite quickly) until either you or another player wins; you won't have to do anything except choose to accept Tsumo/Ron or continue (or rarely to declare a Kong*). Riichi is a Scoring Element in its own right so as long as your hand is closed (with no sets made by stealing an opponent's discard) you can always use Riichi to give your hand the Scoring Element that's required for a valid win). | | ----- | | ____ __|__ / | / / RIICHI The option to declare Riichi appears at the bottom-right of the screen, although you have to press the Square button to make it appear. If a game ends with Riichi stakes still on the table (i.e. if the final normal Hand results in a draw where the Dealer is not Tenpai) then the Riichi points are paid to the player in first place, added to their Uma (see Section 09). One nice new feature which has been added since Yakuza 2 is what I like to call the "Riichi Helper". When you choose to declare Riichi, a box appears at the top right of the screen showing you which tile/s you require to complete the hand and how many of them are left unplayed (i.e. not visible on the tabletop). If you have a choice of discards then you can switch between them and see which gives you the best chance of winning. *If you are given the opportunity to declare a Kong after calling Riichi you should check first that this won't spoil your hand. On one occasion in Yakuza 2 I'd declared Riichi with a hand including 56777 Craks (which I was counting as a 567 Chow and a 77 pair) and an incomplete Chow of Bams. I was offered a Kong on the sevens and I accepted without thinking, leaving me with two incomplete sets. At the end of the Hand I was penalised 8000 points for "Illegal Riichi". Ouch! (For the record, the Dealer got 4000 points and the other two players got 2000 each. The penalty points due to a foul are called CHOMBO and are the same as the number of points awarded for Mangan - see Section 09.) Scoring Elements and Fan ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Unlike poker where you can only ever have one type of hand (a full house is not also a pair and three of a kind), in mahjong you can have a number of patterns and conditions - referred to as SCORING ELEMENTS or YAKU - in a single hand (I think the most I've seen is six). Each Scoring Element present in a hand is awarded a specified number of FAN (also known as HAN) and each Fan will - in simple terms - *double* your score for the hand. It's important to note that for a valid win your hand must always qualify for at least one Scoring Element; you can't just make any random four sets and a pair. (Any hand with Scoring Elements and Dora bonus tiles worth thirteen or more Fan in total is counted as a Limit Hand and always scores the limit; Dora tiles and Limit Hands are covered later in this section. Also note that for any Scoring Elements that require Pungs you can always use one or more Kongs instead.) Although I've completely reformatted these listings (since my original Yakuza 2 Mahjong guide), they still give the Scoring Elements in the order in which they are given in the in-game help pages. I've now added page references (so for example 3.2 is the second entry on the third page) and I've given the Romanji spellings of the Japanese names in brackets. Those Scoring Elements marked with an asterisk (*) score one Fan fewer if the hand is not concealed (i.e. if it has exposed sets completed by calling a tile). 1.1 Name: PINFU Value: 1 Fan Requirement: A concealed hand that receives only the basic 20 or 30 minipoints (see Section 09) for the declaration of a win. To achieve this all four sets must be Chows, the hand must be completed on a TWO-SIDED WAIT (e.g. _56_ waiting on a 4 or 7) and the pair cannot be formed from Dragon, Seat Wind or Prevalent Wind tiles. (Although Pinfu has a low minipoints value it can be combined with other Scoring Elements and Dora to boost the score. Since Chows are much easier to complete than Pungs it is also an efficient form.) 1.2 Name: ALL SIMPLES (Tanyao) Value: 1 Fan Requirement: A hand consisting of only suit tiles with numbers between 2 and 8 inclusive. If the Kuitan rule is off the hand must be concealed - see TABLE RULES (Section 08) 2.1 Name: PURE DOUBLE CHOW (Iipeikou) Also known as a DOUBLE RUN. Value: 1 Fan Requirement: Two identical Chows (same numbers and suit) in a concealed hand. (The suit tiles are always displayed in numerical order so this will look like three consecutive pairs, 223344, rather than two adjacent Chows, 234234.) 2.2 Name: FULLY CONCEALED HAND (Menzen Tsumo) Also known as CONCEALED SELF-DRAW. Announced simply as "Tsumo". Value: 1 Fan Requirement: A hand composed entirely of tiles drawn by the player. It cannot include any sets completed by calling Chow or Pung from opponents and it cannot be won by Ron off a discard either. (The combination of Fully Concealed Hand, Tanyao and Pinfu is quite a common one so Japanese players have an abbreviated name for it: "Mentanpin" - a contraction of Menzen Tsumo, Tanyao and Pinfu.) 2.3 Name: RIICHI Sometimes Anglicized as "REACH" and used as both noun and verb. Value: 1 Fan Requirement: Awarded if you declared Riichi (see previous description). 3.1 Name: IPPATSU Literally a "ONE-SHOT" win. Value: 1 Fan Requirement: Awarded if you declare a win within four dealt tiles (one cycle of play) after calling Riichi, i.e. on the next discard of any of your opponents (Ron) or on your next draw (Tsumo). Entitlement to Ippatsu is negated by any player calling Pung/Chow or making a Kong. Since your hand must be concealed for Riichi, winning on your own next turn for Ippatsu will also give Fully Concealed Hand. 3.2 Name: DRAGON PUNG (Yakuhai) Value: 1 Fan Requirement: A Pung or Kong of any of the three Dragons. This will be listed on the scoresheet as "Red", "White" or "Green". 4.1 Name: PREVALENT WIND / SEAT WIND (Kazehai) Value: 1 Fan Requirement: A Pung or Kong of either the Prevalent Wind or your current Seat Wind. (You can claim both together for Double Wind - see below.) Technically this is another form of Yakuhai but the Yakuza games always use "Kazehai" instead which specifies that Winds are used. This will be listed on the scoresheet as "East", "South", West" or "North" as appropriate. (Since you can score a Fan (which doubles your score) with sets consisting of Dragons, Prevalent Wind or your Seat Wind, these tiles are known collectively as the DOUBLING HONOURS, VALUE TILES or LUCKY TILES. These are also the only tiles that give minipoints (Fu) if they form your pair - see Section 09 below.) 4.2 Name: LAST-TILE TSUMO (Haitei) Value: 1 Fan Requirement: Declaring a Tsumo win on the last tile to be dealt in the Hand. 4.3 Name: LAST-TILE RON (Houtei) Value: 1 Fan Requirement: Declaring a Ron win on the last tile to be discarded in the Hand. 5.1 Name: AFTER A KONG (Rinshan Kaihou) Also occasionally known as KING'S TILE DRAW. Value: 1 Fan Requirement: Declaring a Tsumo win on the replacement tile picked from the Dead Wall after declaring a Kong yourself. 5.2 Name: ROBBING THE KONG (Chankan) Value: 1 Fan Requirement: Declaring a Ron win on a tile that another player had used to "upgrade" an exposed Pung into an exposed Kong. (There is one exception to this rule which is that you are also allowed to "rob" a *concealed* Kong when declared if you are using the tile to complete the Limit Hand known as Thirteen Orphans.) (Those last four Scoring Elements occur far less often than the ones above them, especially Robbing The Kong! I have got it a couple of times though.) 6.1 Name: ALL PUNGS (Toi-Toi) Also known as NO CHOWS or FOUR TRIPLETS. Value: 2 Fan Requirement: A hand with four Pungs or Kongs (plus a pair obviously). 6.2 Name: MIXED OUTSIDE HAND (Chanta) Value: 2 Fan (1 Fan if hand is open)* Requirement: All sets must include a Terminal or Honour tile and the pair must also be composed of Terminals or Honours. 7.1 Name: PURE STRAIGHT (Ikkitsuukan or "Ittsuu" for short) Also known as THREE CONSECUTIVE SEQUENCES. Value: 2 Fan (1 Fan if hand is open)* Requirement: 123456789 tiles in the same suit (three Chows: 123, 456 and 789). 7.2 Name: SEVEN PAIRS (Chii Toitsu) Value: 2 Fan Requirement: This is one of the two exceptions to the usual hand format. As you might've guessed from the name, it consists of seven matched pairs. All seven pairs must be unique. Since there are no Pungs or Chows it will always be concealed. Seven Pairs always receives exactly 25 minipoints with no additions and no rounding up (see Section 09). 8.1 Name: MIXED TRIPLE CHOW (San Shoku Doujun or "San Shoku" for short) Value: 2 Fan (1 Fan if hand is open)* Requirement: Three Chows with the same numbers but each in a different suit, for example 234 Bams + 234 Craks + 234 Dots. 8.2 Name: DOUBLE WIND (Ren Fon Pai) Value: 2 Fan Requirement: A Pung or Kong of the Prevalent Wind when this is the same as your Seat Wind. This isn't really a Scoring Element in its own right - it's just two instances of Kazehai/Yakuhai in a single set. 9.1 Name: THREE CONCEALED PUNGS (San Ankou) Value: 2 Fan Requirement: Three concealed Pungs! Although the hand can also include an open set, all the tiles in the three Pungs must be self-drawn, so if you complete one by Ron you cannot claim this (There is no Scoring Element of "Pure Triple Chow" here but instead it would be counted as Three Concealed Pungs that just happen to be in the same suit. Some versions of Japanese mahjong do recognise it as a Scoring Element called SAN REN KOU, also known as PURE SHIFTED PUNGS in the new Chinese Official rules.) 9.2 Name: ALL TERMINALS AND HONOURS (Honroutou) Value: 2 Fan Requirement: A hand with no 2-8 numbered tiles. If you claim this you cannot also claim Mixed Outside Hand. (Obviously this will have no Chows. It will either be made with Pungs - in which case you also get two Fan for All Pungs (and one each for any Yakuhai sets) - or it might be made with Seven Pairs for two Fan again. You might also be able to combine it with Half Flush which is listed below.) 10.1 Name: LITTLE THREE DRAGONS (Shou San Gen) Value: 2 Fan Requirement: Two Pungs or Kongs of Dragons plus a pair of Dragons. (You get one additional Fan each for the two Dragon Pungs too.) NB There's also a Big Three Dragons - more on that later... 10.2 Name: TRIPLE PUNG (San Shoku Doukou) Value: 2 Fan Requirement: Three Pungs or Kongs of the same number. This is a rare one. 11.1 Name: THREE KONGS (San Kantsu) Value: 2 Fan Requirement: Any three Kongs, open or closed. This is a *very* rare one! 11.2 Name: DOUBLE RIICHI (Daburu Riichi) Value: 2 Fan (*instead* of the usual 1 Fan for Riichi, not in addition) Requirement: Riichi is declared on the player's first discard. 12.1 Name: PURE OUTSIDE HAND (Junchan) Value: 3 Fan (2 Fan if hand is open)* Requirement: All sets include a Terminal (1 or 9). You have a good chance of getting Mixed Triple Chow with this too. 12.2 Name: HALF FLUSH (Honitsu) Value: 3 Fan (2 Fan if hand is open)* Requirement: A hand containing only one suit and Honours. Most effective if combined with one or more Yakuhai/Kazehai sets. 13.1 Name: TWICE PURE DOUBLE CHOW (Ryanpeikou) Value: 3 Fan Requirement: A concealed hand with two instances of Pure Double Chow. Although this will have a Seven Pairs form, e.g. 22 445566 667788, you cannot also claim that Scoring Element on such a hand. 14.1 Name: TERMINAL AND HONOUR DISCARD (Nagashi Mangan) Value: Mangan (5 Fan) Requirement: This is a special Scoring Element claimed when a Hand ends in a draw, there are no Simples (2 to 8) in the player's discard pile and none of his discards have been claimed by other players. (This is a hand which you would attempt only very rarely. It can only be claimed by a player when a Hand ends in an exhaustive draw, i.e. when the supply of seventy tiles is exhausted, so you would usually need to have around 17 or 18 Terminal and Honour tiles to be able to do this. If you start a Hand with a lot of these tiles then you'd probably go for Thirteen Orphans, All Terminals and Honours, or something like that, so the only situation where you'd normally go for this hand would be one where you discard all your initial T&H tiles to try for a Tanyao hand but find that you keep on drawing more T&H from the Wall and keep discarding them.) 15.1 Name: FULL FLUSH (Chinitsu) Value: 6 Fan (5 Fan if hand is open)* Requirement: All the tiles in the hand are from the same suit. (Of the above Scoring Elements, Triple Pung, Three Kongs, Twice Pure Double Chow and Terminal & Honour Discard are easily the least common.) It should be noted that the sets in the winning hand can only be counted one way so if, for example, you're counting all the sets as Pungs (to get All Pungs) then you can't claim any Scoring Elements involving Chows or if you have a hand including tiles of 22334455 you can count this as two 234 Chows and pair of 5's (and get Pure Double Chow if the hand is concealed) but you cannot also claim it as a pair of 2's and two 345 Chows to get Pure Double Chow again. *These Scoring Elements are worth one Fan less if the hand contains one or more sets completed by calling an opponent's discarded tile. This property is known as KUI-SAGARI ("eat and decrease"). Limit Hands ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ LIMIT HANDS, also known as YAKUMAN, automatically score the maximum points regardless of their Scoring Elements. They are scored at the top Limit (see Section 09) which is conveniently/confusingly also called Yakuman. You should be aware that Limit Hands are very rare, i.e. you'll probably have to play mahjong for literally dozens of hours before you see one! Examples of the various Limit Hands are illustrated on pages 16 to 21 of the in-game help pages. 16.1 Name: FOUR CONCEALED PUNGS (Suu Ankou) Value: Top Limit (Yakuman) Requirement: All four Pungs must be entirely self-drawn (you cannot complete any by either calling Pung or declaring Ron). 16.2 Name: ALL HONOURS (Tsuuiisou) Value: Top Limit (Yakuman) Requirement: Only Dragon and Wind tiles are permitted. Much like All Terminals & Honours above, this can be made either with four Pungs and a pair or with seven pairs. The latter would be much harder but it gives the most beautiful hand in the game, with two each of all seven types of Honour tile. 17.1 Name: BIG THREE DRAGONS (Dai San Gen) Value: Top Limit (Yakuman) Requirement: Three Pungs or Kongs of Dragons (plus any other set and pair). 17.2 Name: ALL GREEN* (Ryuuiisou) Value: Top Limit (Yakuman) Requirement: A hand containing only purely green tiles, i.e. only Green Dragons and 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8 Bams are permitted. 18.1 Name: THIRTEEN ORPHANS (Kokushimusou) Value: Top Limit (Yakuman) Requirement: This is the other exception to the normal hand structure, composed of one of each Terminal and Honour tile (thirteen in total) plus a duplicate of one of those. (Realistically you need a starting hand with at least nine or ten different Terminals and Honours to stand a chance of making this.) 18.2 Name: LITTLE FOUR WINDS (Shou Suu Shii) Value: Top Limit (Yakuman) Requirement: Three Pungs of Winds plus one pair of Winds (and one other set). 19.1 Name: ALL TERMINALS (Chinroutou) Value: Top Limit (Yakuman) Requirement: Only suit tiles with values 1 and 9 are permitted. 19.2 Name: BIG WHEEL (Dai Sharin) Value: Top Limit (Yakuman) Requirement: Seven Pairs but specifically with 22334455667788 in the Dots suit. (Some versions of Japanese mahjong allow this Limit Hand in any suit but in this game only Dots are permitted. Other versions don't count it as a Limit Hand although you will always get Twice Pure Double Chow, Full Flush, All Simples and Pinfu so there's a good chance of getting the 13 Fan for a Counted Yakuman (see below).) 20.1 Name: FOUR KONGS (Suu Kantsu) Value: Top Limit (Yakuman) Requirement: Four Kongs! (and a pair) Very simple, but almost impossibly rare. 20.2 Name: NINE GATES (Chuurenpoutou) Value: Top Limit (Yakuman) Requirement: A concealed flush with specifically 1112345678999 in the same suit plus one extra tile from the same suit. (If you consider the thirteen tiles of the flush you'll see that the pattern of numbers is such that when you add one further tile from the same suit, regardless of which it is, you will always end up with four complete sets and a pair. The hand therefore has nine ways of "going out", hence the English name Nine Gates!) 21.1 Name: HEAVENLY HAND (Tenhou) Also known as INSTANT WIN. Value: Top Limit (Yakuman) Requirement: The Dealer has a complete hand at the very start of the Hand. 21.2 Name: EARTHLY HAND (Chiihou) Also a.k.a. Instant Win. Value: Top Limit (Yakuman) Requirement: As above but for a non-dealer winning on their first drawn tile. 21.3 Name: COUNTED YAKUMAN (Kazoe Yakuman) Value: Top Limit (Yakuman) Requirement: Any complete hand containing various Scoring Elements and Dora worth thirteen Fan or more in total. This is really just an application of the Limit system. *Be careful not to confuse All Green with American soul singer Al Green! ;) Double Limit Hands ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ The DOUBLE LIMIT HANDS or DOUBLE YAKUMAN (in Japanese: DABURU YAKUMAN) are four specific, even rarer, versions of one the Limit Hands above. They're worth twice as many points as a Limit Hand, hence the name! Examples of the four Double Limit Hands are illustrated on pages 22 and 23 of the in-game help pages. 22.1 Name: FOUR CONCEALED PUNGS WITH SINGLE WAIT (Suu Ankou Tanki Machi) Value: Double Top Limit (Double Yakuman) Requirement: You must already have the four complete sets and you finish the hand by making the pair. As usual you can have any mixture of Pungs or Kongs but all four sets must be entirely self-drawn. 22.2 Name: PURE THIRTEEN ORPHANS (Junsei Kokushimusou) Value: Double Top Limit (Double Yakuman) Requirement: As Thirteen Orphans above (one of every Terminal and Honour tile plus one dupe) but the pair must be completed last; the hand is won on a THIRTEEN-SIDED WAIT, i.e. there are thirteen different tiles that could complete it. 23.1 Name: BIG FOUR WINDS (Dai Suu Shii) Value: Double Top Limit (Double Yakuman) Requirement: Four Pungs or Kongs of Winds (obviously one of each) and any pair. 23.2 Name: PURE NINE GATES (Junsei Chuurenpoutou) Value: Double Top Limit (Double Yakuman) Requirement: As Nine Gates above but it must be completed with the extra single tile to make the pair, i.e. it is won on a NINE-SIDED WAIT. This is an incredibly rare hand. There is a superstition attached to Pure Nine Gates that says it's a bad omen and that if you make this hand you'll die soon after! Some rules allow you to stack Limit Hands so you can claim more than one on the same hand, for example you might have Big Three Dragons combined with a Wind Pung and a Wind pair which would give you All Honours too and score as a Double Limit Hand. It's theoretically possible to make a *Septuple* Limit Hand through such STACKING but that would be very very very very very very very rare! Although I'm yet to see it happen in an RGG/Yakuza game, a special rule called either PAO or SEKININ HARAI (literally "liability payment") applies to certain Limit Hands, usually Big Three Dragons and Big Four Winds. If a player has two exposed Pungs of Dragon tiles and another player discards the tile that lets them make a third for Big Three Dragons, or if a player has three Pungs of Wind tiles exposed and someone discards the tile that lets them complete the fourth Pung for Big Four Winds, then the discarding player has to pay. If the hand is won by Tsumo the discarding player pays the full amount (Yakuman!) or if the hand is won by Ron from a third player then the discarder has to pay half. Dora Bonuses ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ During play you should make a mental note of the exposed tile/s on the Dead Wall of tiles in the middle of the screen. At the start of a Hand only one tile is exposed - this denotes that the next sequential tile is the DORA bonus tile. For example if 3 Bams is showing then the Dora is 4 Bams and you will score an additional Fan for every 4 Bams in your hand, i.e. a Pung of 4 Bams would score you an extra three Fan! If a 9 tile is showing then the numbers wrap and the Dora is the 1 tile of the same suit. Obviously the Dragons and Winds don't have numbers so instead they are assigned the sequences Red-White-Green and East-South-West-North (this is the order of the Seat Winds working counterclockwise around the table) and again these wrap so a Green Dragon showing would make the Dora tile Red Dragon. Each time a Kong is formed, a replacement tile is taken from the Dead Wall and one more tile is flipped to give another Dora (technically a KAN DORA). Also if the winner of a Hand declared Riichi then there will also be a UNDERSIDE DORA (or URA DORA) tile revealed at the end of the Hand. There will also be an Under- side Dora for each of any Kan Dora (these are called KAN URA DORA). So as an example if a Hand saw one Kong being made and the winner calling Riichi there will be a total of four bonus tiles (the Dora and a Kan Dora and for both of these one Underside Dora) and these will all be shown on the scoresheet. The following diagram illustrates the functions of the fourteen tiles of the Dead Wall (specifically under the modern Japanese rules). Remember in the Ishin minigame the first two stacks are not shown on the screen. _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ | | | | | | | | | 1 | 3 | A | B | C | D | E | |_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______| | | | | | | | | | 2 | 4 | F | G | H | I | J | |_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______| Tile A is the indicator for the standard Dora and is always flipped at the start of each Hand of play. When a Kong is declared the player takes Tile 1 as their supplement tile and flips Tile B as a Kan Dora indicator; this process would be repeated with 2/C, 3/D and 4/E for the second, third and fourth Kong sets. If a player wins a hand after declaring Riichi they also apply the Ura Dora indicator (Tile F) and the Kan Ura Dora indicators under any *active* Kan Dora indicators (potentially Tiles G-J). The Dora are different to the Red Dora (red fives) which are explained in the next section. Although each Dora (and Red Dora) tile in a hand is worth one Fan apiece* you still need to have at least one Scoring Element in your hand to declare a win. *If the same tile appears twice amongst the Dora and Underside Dora then it is counted twice and each occurrence is worth two Fan. It's also possible for a Red Dora tile to also be a Dora tile. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 08 | TABLE RULES s08 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' Although there is a core rule-set (including Riichi and Dora) which is common to all Japanese play, there are literally dozens of optional rules and variations. The situation is such that mahjong parlours and gaming servers need to publish a full page of information detailing the "local rules" they use. Things are a little simpler in the RGG/Yakuza series though and only four rule options are available (the same four that have been included ever since Yakuza 2 in 2006). Tournament mode uses a fixed rule-set (with Half Games and Red Dora) but you can adjust the table rules when playing in Gambling mode. The following four options can be set from the mahjong menu that's displayed when you first join a table to play. The default setting for each is indicated with an asterisk (*). The rules and options are listed below in the order they appear in the game. 1. Match Settings - Half Game / Quarter Game* In most versions of mahjong each match is played over four wind-rounds - one for each of the four Prevalent Winds - but in the Japanese rules the standard duration is only two. Such a game is called a HANCHAN (literally "Half Game") or TONNANSEN ("east south match") because it has only east and south rounds. Alternatively you can play half a "half game" which is often referred to in English as a Quarter Game (for obvious reasons) or in Japanese as TONPUUSEN (which means "east wind match"). If no extra Hands are played, a Half Game will last for eight Hands while a Quarter Game will run for four. 2. Kuitan - Use* / Don't Use Setting the KUITAN rule to "Use" allows the Scoring Element of All Simples (Tanyao) to be claimed on an exposed hand instead of it being allowed only on a concealed hand. The "Kui" implies eating (which in a mahjong context means calling tiles from your opponents' discards) and the "Tan" is short for Tanyao. 3. Two Fan Requirement - Use* / Don't Use When the TWO-FAN MINIMUM rule is applied, a minimum score requirement of two Fan is imposed when five Hands have passed without a non-dealer win and the Honba counter (see Section 11) is showing five or more. This rule limits the extent to which the Dealer can take advantage of the Honba bonus points that are paid each time they win consecutive extra Hands (see Section 09). The Japanese name for this rule is RYAN HAN SHIBARI. "Ryan" is the word used for the number two in Japanese mahjong, "Han" is the Japanese form of Fan and finally "Shibari" denotes a binding or, by extension, a restriction. (The word Shibari is also used in relation to Japanese bondage so it can give some exotic results in online image searches!) 4. Red Dora - Use / Don't Use* With the RED DORA option (also called AKAPAI or simply RED FIVES) set to Use four of the number-five tiles from the suits will be marked in red ink instead of the usual colours. Each such Red Dora tile in your hand gives you one additional Fan for your score (and this is on top of the standard Dora bonuses) so you should turn this rule on if you want higher scores (for both you and your opponents!) and more to think about. The game follows a traditional distribution of Red Dora tiles: one 5 Craks, one 5 Bams and two 5 Dots. I think the reason for having four in total is that the extra optional Red Dora tiles fit neatly into a case designed to hold tiles in rows of four. The standard number 5 tiles all include some red bits in their designs but the Red Dora have purely red markings. *This is the default setting for the option. In real Japanese mahjong the term ARI (with) is used to denote a rule that is being used and NASHI (without) denotes one that is not. For example you might say that you are playing a game "Kuitan ari" if the Kuitan rule is applied. It's kinda like specifying "aces wild" in some western card games. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 09 | SCORE CALCULATION s09 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' Luckily the game does all this for you! Points and Minipoints ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ The points score for a winning hand is calculated using both the total number of Fan and the total number of MINIPOINTS (also known as FU). Fan are awarded for the Scoring Elements present in a winning hand (see Section 07) and for any Dora and Red Dora tiles (see Sections 07 and 08). For a valid win in Japanese mahjong your hand must always have at least one Fan obtained from a Scoring Element. (Subject to the limits applied - see below - each additional Fan will double the score for your winning hand so try to include as many different Scoring Elements and Dora as possible.) Minipoints are awarded for declaring a win, the type of win, the type/s of set present, the composition of the pair and how the hand was completed. You get 20 minipoints simply for winning the Hand plus a further 10 for a win with a concealed hand by Ron or 2 for a win by Tsumo. If your hand qualifies for Pinfu and you win by Tsumo then the 2 minipoints are waived and you take the one Fan (double) for Pinfu instead. Exceptionally if you win by Ron with an open hand which otherwise meets the requirements of Pinfu (four Chows, a non-scoring pair and won on a two-sided wait) then you get 2 minipoints too although, since the hand is not closed, you cannot actually claim Pinfu on an "open Pinfu" hand! An exposed Pung of Simples is worth 2 minipoints but with Terminal or Honour tiles it's worth twice that and if concealed it's worth two times more as well. A Kong is worth four times as many minipoints as the equivalent Pung, so a con- cealed Kong of Terminals or Honours will get you 32. Since they are easier to make, no minipoints are given for a Chow. A pair of Dragons, Prevalent Wind or your current Seat Wind is worth 2 minipoints, or 4 for a pair in Double Wind (i.e. when your Seat Wind matches the Prevalent Wind). (Although Chows yield no minipoints they are much easier to make than Pungs and Kongs so, since the effect of minipoints is less significant than Fan, it's best to usually make hands of Chows.) You also get minipoints for certain types of WAIT - a Wait is an incomplete set or hand (which is completed when you declare a win). It's easiest to explain the different types with examples: an EDGE WAIT is a 1 and 2 waiting on a 3 to make a Chow, a CENTRE WAIT is a 4 and 6 waiting on a 5, a Two-Sided Wait or OPEN- ENDED WAIT is a 5 and 6 waiting on a 4 or a 7 and a PAIR WAIT or SINGLE WAIT is one tile waiting to become part of a pair. Only an Edge Wait, Centre Wait or Pair Wait is awarded 2 minipoints, i.e. when you win with a "one chance" ready hand - one that was waiting on only one specific tile. The total of the minipoints is rounded up to the nearest ten and will usually be shown on the scoresheet. The Seven Pairs hand is a special case and always gets exactly 25 minipoints with no additions and no rounding up. The following tables summarise the allocation of minipoints:- Any win | 20 minipoints -----------------------------------------+---------------- Bonus for Tsumo win | 2 minipoints -----------------------------------------+---------------- Bonus for Ron win with a concealed hand | 10 minipoints (In most rule-sets the 2 minipoints for a Tsumo win are waived in the case of a Pinfu hand in order to meet the "no points" requirement of the Scoring Element.) | exposed set | concealed set ---------------------------------------+----------------+--------------- Pung of Simples (e.g. 444) | 2 minipoints | 4 minipoints ---------------------------------------+----------------+--------------- Pung of Terminals/Honours (e.g. 999) | 4 minipoints | 8 minipoints ---------------------------------------+----------------+--------------- Kong of Simples (e.g. 6666) | 8 minipoints | 16 minipoints ---------------------------------------+----------------+--------------- Kong of Terminals/Honours (e.g. 1111) | 16 minipoints | 32 minipoints ---------------------------------------+----------------+--------------- Any Chow (e.g. 567) | 0 minipoints | 0 minipoints (NB: If you declare a Ron win to complete the final set in a concealed hand then the set completed with the discarded tile is considered exposed but your hand will still be recognised as concealed.) Pair of Dragons | 2 minipoints -------------------------------------+--------------- Pair of Seat Wind or Prevalent Wind | 2 minipoints -------------------------------------+--------------- Pair of Double Wind | 4 minipoints -------------------------------------+--------------- Any other pair | 0 minipoints (These additions are not applied to a Seven Pairs hand; that always gets exactly 25 minipoints with no further points for pairs or the type of win.) Edge Wait (e.g. 12_) | 2 minipoints ------------------------+--------------- Centre wait (e.g. 4_6) | 2 minipoints ------------------------+--------------- Pair wait (e.g. 8_) | 2 minipoints ------------------------+--------------- Any other wait | 0 minipoints The BASE POINTS for a hand are then calculated from the number of Fan and the total of the minipoints using the following formula. Base Points (BP) = minipoints x ( 2 ^ ( 2 + Fan ) ) This is an exponential function in powers of two - in other words it involves doubling the minipoints. They always get doubled twice and then they're doubled a further number of times equal to the number of Fan (this is why Scoring Elements are sometimes referred to as DOUBLES). The player who won the Hand is then paid points by the other players as shown in the following table. | Player wins by Tsumo | Player wins by Ron ---------------------+---------------------------+----------------------------- Dealer wins Hand | All three losing players | The player who discarded | pay 2 x BP each* | the winning tile pays 6 x BP ---------------------+---------------------------+----------------------------- Non-dealer wins Hand | Dealer pays 2 x BP* and | The player who discarded | other two pay 1 x BP each | the winning tile pays 4 x BP In every case the points paid are always rounded up to the next multiple of 100 and consequently, for any given combination of Fan and minipoints, the sum of points received for a Tsumo (self-draw) win do not always exactly equal the points for a Ron (stolen discard) win, but it will be close. Rather than using the formula to determine the points, mahjong players use pre- calculated look-up tables. These were included in the help pages in Yakuza 2 and Kenzan but they've been removed from this game. You don't need them to play but they might make the scoring a little clearer so take a look at this link:- http://www.mahjongtime.com/mahjong-japanese-scoring-4.html For example, if a non-dealer (i.e. a player with a Seat Wind other than East) wins with a hand worth 3 Fan and 50 minipoints they would get 6,400 points for a win by Ron. If it was a win by Tsumo then the Dealer would pay 3,200 points and the other two players would each pay 1,600. *The standard payment for each player is 1 x Base Points but "the Dealer always pays and receives double". Limits ¯¯¯¯¯¯ Japanese mahjong is played with a tiered system of LIMITS which apply to the points you can win off a hand. The bottom Limit is called Mangan and applies to any hand where the Base Points exceed 2000, i.e. one with five Fan, or four Fan with 40 or more minipoints*, or three Fan with 70 or more minipoints*. If you get six of more Fan then higher Limits apply - see table below. In such a case, the Limit will be shown on the scoresheet instead of the mini- points total; if you won the Hand then your character will announce the Limit after stating all the Scoring Elements present in your winning hand. The table below shows the five different Limits and the Fan (and in some cases minipoints, Fu) needed to achieve for them. Each Limit is always worth the same specified number of points, for example a Dealer with Mangan always gets 12,000 points. A Limit Hand always gives you Yakuman which is worth the maximum possible points: a jaw-dropping 48,000 pts on a Dealer win (and a Double Limit Hand gets twice that!). | | Points for | Points for | Mangan | Criteria | non-dealer win | Dealer win | equivalence -----------+----------------+----------------+------------+-------------- | 3 Fan & 70+ Fu | | | Mangan | 4 Fan & 40+ Fu | 8,000 | 12,000 | 1 x Mangan | 5 Fan | | | -----------+----------------+----------------+------------+-------------- Haneman | 6 or 7 Fan | 12,000 | 18,000 | 1.5 x Mangan -----------+----------------+----------------+------------+-------------- Baiman | 8, 9 or 10 Fan | 16,000 | 24,000 | 2 x Mangan -----------+----------------+----------------+------------+-------------- Sanbaiman | 11 or 12 Fan | 24,000 | 36,000 | 3 x Mangan -----------+----------------+----------------+------------+-------------- Yakuman | 13 or more Fan | 32,000 | 48,000 | 4 x Mangan Although Yakuman scores the maximum Limit points, if you're lucky enough to get this you will receive any Riichi stakes and Honba points (see below) as usual on top of the Yakuman points. *Sometimes a rule called MANGAN KIRIAGE, literally "Mangan rounding-up", can be applied causing a hand with either four Fan and 30 minipoints or three Fan and 60 minipoints to be rounded up to the Mangan level. Draws and Honba ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ If no-one has won after the final tile is dealt (and final discard made) then the Hand is a draw*, specifically an EXHAUSTIVE DRAW (the supply of tiles in the Wall is depleted/exhausted). In this event the game checks to see if any players are one tile short of a complete hand, i.e. they are Tenpai (if you see one or more players reveal their tiles on a draw it's because they are Tenpai). There are 3000 points available in a drawn Hand and these are awarded to the player or players that are Tenpai and deducted from the ones that are not (NO-TEN). The points paid out on a draw are called NO-TEN BAPPU. If one player is Tenpai they get 3000 pts and the other three pay 1000 pts. If two players are Tenpai they get 1500 pts and the other two pay 1500 pts. If three players are Tenpai they get 1000 pts and the other one pays 3000 pts. If all or none of the players are Tenpai then it's a complete draw and no-one gets or loses any points. When a Hand ends in either a draw or a Dealer win, the HONBA counter is used (this is displayed top right in the centre of the screen). This is normally set to zero but when a Hand is either a win by the Dealer or a draw (regardless of whether or not the Dealer is Tenpai) it moves up to one; if it happens again it moves up to two, etc. It keeps incrementing like that until a non-dealer wins a Hand and at this point the Honba number is set back to zero again. This affects the scores because whenever someone wins a Hand they receive an additional number of points equal to the Honba number multiplied by 300. For a win by Ron these points are taken from the player who discarded the winning tile and for Tsumo each of the three losing players pays an equal share. (Unlike the Riichi stakes, these points are not left "on the table", instead they are just counted there and then paid when required.) So not only does the Dealer get six times the Base Points for a win instead of the usual four, he can also get these extra points for as long as he "stays on" as Dealer - 300 points for a win in the first extra Hand, 600 for a win in the second, 900 in the third, etc. The Two Fan Minimum rule (see Section 08 above) restricts the extent to which this can be exploited; under this rule a player needs a hand worth at least two Fan to win the Hand when the Honba counter reaches five so it's no longer possible to go out quickly with a "cheap" hand. The following table summarises the consequences of different outcomes in a Hand. (The "Hand counter" is the number displayed top left in the centre of the screen that counts the normal Hands played in each round, from 1 to 4.) Any increase in the Honba number takes effect from the next Hand, so for example if the Dealer wins their first (normal) Hand they don't get any Honba points but the counter goes up to 1 and 300 points are paid for a win in the next (extra) Hand. | Seat Winds | Hand | Honba | | move round | counter | counter | ------------------+------------+-----------+-----------+------------------------ Hand is won by | yes | +1 | reset to | winner gets Honba pts a non-dealer | | | zero | (if any) ------------------+------------+-----------+-----------+------------------------ Hand is won by | no | no change | +1 | winner gets Honba pts, the Dealer | | | | next Hand is extra Hand ------------------+------------+-----------+-----------+------------------------ Hand is drawn, | no | no change | +1 | next Hand is extra Hand Dealer is Tenpai | | | | ------------------+------------+-----------+-----------+------------------------ Hand is drawn, | yes | +1 | +1 | Dealer not Tenpai | | | | If the final normal Hand of a game results in a draw where the Dealer is not Tenpai then the game ends (because otherwise the move of the Seat Winds would constitute the start of a new round). Any Riichi stakes left go to the winner. If the Dealer wins the final normal Hand and they are currently in first place then they have the option to either end the game early or to play an extra Hand; this rule is usually known as AGARI YAME. *Some versions of the Japanese rules state that an ABORTIVE DRAW occurs in any of the following situations:- o all four players call Riichi in the same Hand o two or more players declare four Kongs in total in one Hand o three players simultaneously declare a Ron win on the same discard tile o all four players discard the same Wind tile on their first turn in a Hand o a player has nine or more different Terminal and Honour tiles after drawing their first tile (and they choose to accept a re-deal) I have seen the first situation occur once in Yakuza 2 (it was called a "Four Riichi Draw") but I don't know if any of the other types are recognised. I would guess that the last two are not allowed as I would expect to have seen them a few times each by now. Uma ¯¯¯ At the end of a game the player with the most points is the winner, regardless of how many Hands they won (perhaps only one!), and you are shown who has come first, second, third and fourth. One final exchange of points, called the UMA, is then applied. This is an optional rule in modern Japanese mahjong but it's always used in every match in Ishin. The Uma payments are usually symmetrical and expressed as a pair of numbers, for example 10-20, representing the amounts of points (in thousands) that are paid at the end of the match. The player in 3rd place pays the smaller amount to 2nd and the player in 4th pays the larger amount to 1st. So for example with a 5-10 Uma you'll see 3rd pay 5,000 pts to 2nd and 4th pay 10,000 pts to 1st (and 1st also collects any unclaimed Riichi stakes left on the table). In the RGG/Yakuza games however they've always used a curiously asymmetrical Uma and now different scales are applied on each table too. This grid summarises the four Uma used in Ishin:
| Weak Table | Intermediate Table | Strong Table | Tournament -----------+---------------+--------------------+---------------+------------- 1st place | +25,000 pts | +35,000 pts | +45,000 pts | +75,000 pts -----------+---------------+--------------------+---------------+------------- 2nd place | no change | +5,000 pts | +5,000 pts | +15,000 pts -----------+---------------+--------------------+---------------+------------- 3rd place | -10,000 pts | -15,000 pts | -15,000 pts | -25,000 pts -----------+---------------+--------------------+---------------+------------- 4th place | -15,000 pts | -25,000 pts | -35,000 pts | -65,000 pts (These are the actual Uma used in the game which differ from the ones explained by the mahjong parlour receptionist! The Uma used in Tournament matches is the one that would be applied on the fourth (expert) table if it was available in Gambling mode. In Tournament mode having an Uma is meaningless - it's the final placings that are important not the scores and Uma never changes placings.) Given that you purchase points at a rate of 1 point per Mon this effectively gives you a monetary bonus of up to 45,000 Mon for winning a game! :D The same quantities of Uma points are shared in either a Half Game or a Quarter Game so Quarter Games are the quicker way to rack up points (and therefore profit). Equally, if you do badly, you're at risk of losing a further 35,000 Mon on top of the losses incurred during the match so you might want to save your game before playing at the strong table and reload if you lose. In the event of two players having the same number of points at the end of the game the priority goes to the player who started the game as East (i.e. South in the final Hand), then to the player that was East next, etc. So if for example the two players seated at South and West in the final Hand were tied for second place, the priority goes to South (who gets 2nd place) and not West (who ends up taking 3rd). If the match was played on the Normal table (with a 10-20 Uma) the player now in 2nd place would take 10,000 pts from the player in 3rd. Your overall points total for gambling is carried over between games and can be checked by going to your items inventory in the pause menu, pressing R1 (x4) and selecting the white "Mahjong Sticks" item; you are also shown your total in the top-right corner of the screen at the start and end of each mahjong game there. If your total drops below 25,000 points you will need to buy more before you can play again. After a heavy loss (especially with Uma) you might end up with a negative score for a game; this will be deducted from your overall points but your total will never drop into negative figures. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 10 | CONTROLS s10 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' The controls are pretty much the same as in Yakuza 2 except that some buttons have been swapped and an alternate view is available by holding L1. d-pad up/down - navigates initial menu - selects pop-up commands when necessary d-pad left/right - selects tile to discard (or tiles to meld into) (or left stick) Circle button - discard selected tile - use selected pop-up command (see below) __|__o \ / ----- _|___ \ / | / __|__ ____ | | / / | \ / | | | / -' / / / | / PUNG (pon) CHOW (chii) KONG (kan) .-----. \ / \\ / ------- | | ----- | | / / | | | ____ __|__ | | / / --+-- / | |_____| / / |__ / / RON TSUMO RIICHI Cross button - cancel pop-up command/s (see above) Triangle button - displays rules and Scoring Elements lists Square button - show option to declare Riichi - show option to declare a Kong - hides scoresheet at end of Hand (to see table underneath) When you are in a position to call Riichi* or to make a Kong you can press the Square button and you will then be given the option to perform the action. Options button - displays list of controls for minigame (on PS3 you would use the Start button) touchpad (tap) - gives option to quit minigame** Pick the left option twice to confirm. (on PS3 you would use the Select button) L1 (hold) - gives a cleaner table view without the counters and scores *If you're lazy you can use this as a "Riichi detector"! You just tap the Square button and if your concealed hand is Riichi-able you'll be given the option of Riichi. If you do not want to declare Riichi you can still press O to select it to see which tile/s you can safely discard without losing your Tenpai status and then press X to cancel Riichi and discard as normal. **If you quit mid-game while playing in Gambling mode then you will lose the 25k points you used to buy into the game. In Tournament mode however you can happily quit without it affecting your league standing at all. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 11 | DISPLAY s11 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' This section describes the layout of the gameplay and scoring screens. Table View ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Your hand is shown at the bottom of the screen while your three opponents' tiles are at the right, top and left. Your tiles are shown in this order: Craks, Bams, Dots, Winds and Dragons, and in sequential order within each of those. When you are dealt a new tile it appears at the right end of your current tiles and any exposed sets are shown beyond that (e.g. the right player in the diagram below). Your currently selected tile in your hand is shown in a raised position. Each player's name and face is shown along with their current points score and a showing the symbol of their Seat Wind for the current Hand. Tiles discarded by players are shown in front of their hand in two neat rows. When a discard is claimed by another player it is still displayed for reference but it appears darkened. Small pop-up boxes at the bottom-right of the screen shows the options available to you and the button press required to do them (i.e. O to accept, X to reject). .-------------------------------------------------------------. | _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | | _ |_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_| | | |_| '-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-' _ | | |_| _ _ _ _ _ |_| | | |_| _ _ |_| _ _ _ _ _ _ _|_|_|_|| | |_| | | |_| |_|_||_| |_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|| | |_| | | |_| |_|_|| | '-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'| | _ '-' | | |_| '-|_|| | _______________________ |_||_| _ | | |_| |_|| ||_|_|____________|______|| ||_| |_| | | |_| |_|| | _ _ _ _ _ ___ __ | ||_| |_| | | |_| |_|| | |_|_|_|_|_| |___|__| | ||_| |_| | | |_| |_|| | '-'-'-'-'-' |___|__| | ||_| |_| | | |_| |_|| | _______________________ | ||_| |_| | | |_| |_||_||_|_|____________|______|| ||_|_ |_| | | |_| |_|| | _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | ||_|_| |_| | | '-' '-'| ||_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_| |_||_|_| |_| | | | ||_|_|_|-'-'-'-'-'-'-' |_||_|_| |_| | | |_|'-'-'-' |_|'-'-' |_| | | _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ '-' | | |_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_| | | '-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-' | '-------------------------------------------------------------' The block of tiles in the centre of the screen is (part of) the Dead Wall. At the start of each Hand one tile is exposed (face up) here - this is the Dora bonus indicator. Each time a Kong is formed, another bonus indicator tile will be revealed. If someone wins a Hand with Riichi then indicators for the Under- side Dora are also applied - these are on the bottom row of the Dead Wall. There are also four numbers shown in the centre of the screen immediately to the right of the Dead Wall. ___ __ Hand count --> |___|__| <-- Honba counter tiles remaining --> |___|__| <-- Riichi sticks The first number is the Hand counter which shows the current Prevalent Wind and the number of ordinary Hands played with it, so it counts from East 1 to East 4 in the first round and then - if you're playing a "half game" - from South 1 to South 4 in the second round. Extra Hands are not counted here. The two numbers on the right are both shown next to a Scoring-Stick (these are also called BONES, COUNTERS or TENBOU and are used like casino chips). The first of these two numbers (top right) is the Honba counter which counts the number of consecutive preceding Hands where either the Dealer won or it was a draw. If a Hand is won when the Honba counter is in use then the winner receives extra points equal to 300 multiplied by the number. When a non-dealer wins a Hand the counter resets to zero. The next number (bottom right) counts any unclaimed 1000-point Riichi stakes from previous drawn Hands. The next time a Hand is won an additional 1000 points multiplied by this counter are added to the winner's points in addition to any Riichi stakes from the current Hand. You'll notice that the Scoring-Stick next to this number is one marked with a single dot, the same type that a player lays down when declaring Riichi. The last of the four numbers (bottom left) is the easiest to understand - it simply shows the number of tiles remaining to be drawn in the current Hand. The counter starts at 70 and goes down until it reaches zero (or someone wins). Score Screen ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ The layout of the scoresheet shown at the end of each Hand is fairly straight- forward and is similar to the one in Yakuza 2. The winning hand is displayed at the top of the larger upper section of the sheet with the winning tile at the right end of the unexposed tiles so the type of Wait can be determined. Any Dora bonus tiles are shown on the next row* (in this example one player declared a Kong so there are two Dora and the winner called Riichi so there are two Underside Dora). The Scoring Elements present are listed below this with the number of Fan awarded for each. Any Dora bonus tiles in the winning hand are listed after the Scoring Elements; regardless of the combination of Dora, Underside Dora and Red Dora, these are all listed together. At the bottom of this section the number of Fu/minipoints (or the Limit) and the total number of Fan is shown. The final row gives the number of points awarded for the winning hand, calculated from the minipoints and number of Fan. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ the winning hand -> |_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_||_| <- the wining tile _ _ _ _ Dora |_|_| Underside Dora |_|_| ------------------------------------------------- Riichi 1Fan Ippatsu 1Fan Fully Concealed Hand (Tsumo) 1Fan Seven Pairs 2Fan Dora 2Fan ------------------------------------------------- 7Fan Haneman <- Limit applied ------------------------------------------------- 12000Points .--------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Player1 (you) |@| Player2 |$| Player3 |#| Player4 |&| |-----------------+------------------+------------------+------------------| | +13000 37100 | -3000 24700 | -3000 24500 | -6000 12700 | '-----------------'------------------'------------------'------------------' The lower section of the sheet shows the players' names, current Seat Winds and points totals plus all points won or lost in the last Hand (including any 1000- point Riichi stakes and 300-point Honba rollovers as appropriate). Since points are transferred between players, the scores will always add up to 100,000 pts (i.e. 4 x 25,000 pts) unless there are unclaimed Riichi bets left on the table following a drawn Hand. At the press of a button (O) the points from the Hand are incorporated into the player totals. In the event of a drawn Hand, the Scoring Elements are not considered and therefore only this lower section of the scoresheet is shown. NB: You can hold the Square button or L1 to hide the scoresheet and see the table underneath (although the counters above the Dead Wall are removed). In a new feature added since Kenzan, after the final Hand you're shown a table confirming who came 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the game. If you're playing in the tournament this page is followed by a display of the revised ladder standings. *The scoresheet shows the actual Dora tile/s as opposed to the Dora indicator/s which are seen on the table, so for example if the Dora is 8-Bams you will see this on the scoresheet but the indicator on the Dead Wall would've been 7-Bams. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 12 | FRIEND s12 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' One of the many NPC's with whom you can make friends in Ishin is the guy who runs the mahjong parlour. You can boost his friendship bar simply by playing a game of mahjong and exiting the parlour - you'll get around 20% each time. You can play either Gambling mode or Tournament mode for the first four times but to get the fifth and final chunk of the friendship gauge you'll need to play a Gambling match on the strong table - the one farthest from the entrance. You don't need to win the games, in fact you can even quit out each time if you want to (tap the touchpad then pick the left option twice) although if you're playing in Gambling mode you will lose your 25,000 pts by doing this. If you're not interesting in playing mahjong (sad face) then the quickest and cheapest method to complete the friendship is to pay the 5 Ryou (50,000 Mon) to register for the Tournament (see Section 03), play four Tournament matches and each time quit and exit the mahjong parlour, then buy 25,000 pts (25,000 Mon), play one Gambling match on the strong table and quit out. Your reward for 100% friendship is one Seductive Doll (crafting ingredient). .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 13 | COMPLETION s13 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' In most previous RGG/Yakuza titles the completion requirement for the mahjong minigame was that you finish a match with 50,000 points or more (before the Uma bonus was applied). This was pretty tough - even a skilled player would need a little luck and probably several attempts to achieve this. In Ishin however the requirement has been relaxed a little and now you need to score 40,000 points. However, unless you can get someone to play it for you, there's no alternative to learning the basics of Japanese mahjong but hopefully my quickstart guide gives sufficient instruction to get you playing effectively. If you play a Half Game (two rounds) that will give you more opportunities to accrue points but also more chances to lose them too! It's quite feasible to get a score of 40,000 pts or more in a Quarter Game (one round), especially if you get one or two big wins when you're the Dealer (East). With the starting scores of 25,000 pts you'll need to gain (and keep) 15,000 pts during the match. There's no trophy for the mahjong minigame (aside from the one you get simply by playing every minigame once) and there are no minigame cheat items this time. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 14 | STRATEGY s14 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' (Disclaimer: I wrote this for my previous Yakuza guides when I was still quite new to mahjong but I think it's still good, if somewhat long and rambling...!) Mahjong is a complex game so it's obviously advantageous to have a good working knowledge of all the rules and Scoring Elements and an awareness of the points system. I hope that the other sections of this guide cover everything you need to know; even if you already know enough to play the game I think it's worth reading through the whole thing to pick up on anything you might've missed. Don't forget that you can choose your difficulty level when playing in Gambling mode on the three active tables at the parlour. At the start of a Hand I'd survey my tiles quickly to see if they lend them- selves to any particular Scoring Element/s. If there's a fair chance of obtain- ing this I'd work towards that goal but you have to be flexible - you might need to change your plans later in the Hand based on the tiles you're dealt. Then I'd look at any Honours (Winds or Dragons) in the hand. If you have a pair of Dragons, Prevalent Wind or your Seat Wind then it's definitely worth keeping them; if nothing else you can use them as your pair (that's worth a couple of minipoints too) but in my experience you are very likely to get the opportunity to pick up a third by calling Pung (since other players will discard them) which will score you one Fan and give you the Scoring Element you need to declare a win (your hand will no longer be concealed though). If you have Double Wind (i.e. your Seat Wind matches the Prevalent Wind) then the pair or Pung is worth double; because of the way the Seat Winds move, each player will be in Double Wind for at least one Hand per round. If you find yourself with an individual Dragon or Prevalent/Seat Wind tile then it's tempting to hang onto it - there are only thirty-four different tiles in the game so there's a chance you'll be dealt another to make a pair and then you can steal a discard to make a Pung - but I think it's probably best to ditch them quite early (so that you don't miss any opportunities to start building sets with the other tiles) and you'll notice that the other players do the same. The only solo Honour tile you might want to keep is your Seat Wind, especially when it is a Double Wind, as this is usually of no use to your opponents and therefore a more likely discard. (Keep an eye out for hands where the majority of the tiles are Honours (in pairs or Pungs) and suit tiles from a single suit as this will give you a good chance of getting a Half Flush hand. In this case any Winds are useful - they don't have to be the Prevalent Wind or your Seat Wind, although they are better.) Although Honours can be used to make scoring sets they are not very flexible as they cannot be used in Chows, only Pungs (or Kongs). Terminals (1's and 9's) are slightly more useful because they can be used in Pungs or one Chow (e.g. 111 or 123) and tiles marked 2 or 8 are better still because they can make a Pung or two different Chows (e.g. 222, 123 or 234). The suit tiles marked 3 to 7 are the most useful as they can make a Pung or three possible Chows. This analysis not only shows which tiles are generally the most helpful to retain in your hand but also which are the better Waits to aim for. Given a choice of two options it's better, for example, to make a ready hand needing a 1 rather than a 4 because a 1 is less useful and is therefore more likely to be discarded by another player. If you can see two of a given Honour tile on the table there's no chance of making a Pung from your single or pair of the same and equally you can safely discard one without someone calling Pung on it (although they could still claim it by Ron to make a pair and go out). However if it's late in a Hand and you can only see one (or none) of a certain Honour tile then it's likely that another player is sitting on a pair and it will be risky to discard one. Next I'd discard any stray tiles that look less useful. If I only have one Craks tile for example I'd ditch it. If I have 1, 4, 5, 7 and 9 Bams then the 4 and 5 could form a Chow and so could the 7 and 9 but I'd usually get rid of the 1 that doesn't have any near neighbours. Any suit tile with a number more than two away from the others you're holding can't make an easy Chow so is a likely discard. You should keep probabilities in your mind when building your hand. From the earlier example, if I have 7 and 9 then I could make a Chow with an 8 of the same suit but if I have 4 and 5 then either a 3 or a 6 would do it - so speaking generally I'm twice as likely to draw a tile I need in the second case. Two con- secutive suit tiles, like 4 and 5, are called a SERIAL PAIR or RYANMEN Wait, and such elements are the most effective way to build a hand. If I have 6, 7 and 9 Dots then I'm waiting on a 5 or 8 Dots to make a Chow with the 6 and 7 but also waiting on an 8 again to make a Chow with the 7 and 9. In this case I might discard the 9. You need to govern your hand with a view to maximising your chances of each drawn tile helping you complete a set. (You should learn to recognise patterns of tiles that give you multiple winning options and try to steer your hand towards these. For example if you have 6667 you can take a 5 to make a 567 Chow and a 66 pair, or a 7 to make a 666 Pung and a 77 pair or an 8 to make a 66 pair and a 678 Chow. If you have 2345 you can make a Chow and a pair with either a 2 or a 5. You'll also come to instantly recognise complete sets that overlap, for example 455667 is two Chows - 456 and 567 - and 12223 is a 123 Chow and a pair.) Of course there are other factors to consider when thinking of probabilities. You should check the discards, the Dora indicator/s and any exposed sets to see if the tile/s you need are inaccessible. Also remember that the tiles you want might be in the concealed section of another player's hand or among the fourteen tiles in the Dead Wall which will not enter play. If I've got two 3-Bams in my hand then I can use that as my pair. I might be able to make a Pung with another 3 Bams but there are only four 3 Bams tiles in the whole game and I've already got two of them! Even if none have been discarded, the chances of that aren't so good, although of course you can call Pung on any player's discard whereas you can only call Chow from the player to your left. Pungs can give you a better hand too, with better Scoring Elements and minipoints to be had, but generally it's preferable to go for Chows. You should also think about all the possible Scoring Elements, especially the one-Fan patterns which are easiest to achieve. Calling Pung and calling Chow (picking up discards from other players) makes it a lot easier to complete sets in your hand but this will make your hand exposed which rules out some elements like Pinfu, Riichi and obviously Fully Concealed Hand! You might want to con- sider ditching all the Terminals and Honours from your hand to get All Simples or conversely you might keep them for All Terminals And Honours or Mixed Outside Hand. You might keep Terminals as part of a Pure Straight or Honours to help with a Half Flush. Don't forget that you need a pair in your hand so if you only have one pair think twice before you call Pung on it. It can be quite hard to make a new pair. Speaking of pairs, if you have a hand with several (five maybe?) then you could try aiming for the Seven Pairs hand but this often doesn't give a great score and can be hard to complete. A better option is to go for All Pungs which gives two Fan, good minipoints for Pungs and opportunities to make Kongs. If you can complete three of the Pungs with self-drawn tiles you can claim a further two Fan for Three Concealed Pungs and if you make all four by self-draw you've got yourself a Limit Hand! However usually you will need to call for discards in order to complete the hand and this will limit your defensive potential. If you find yourself with four of the same suit tile in your hand it might be best to wait before declaring a Kong - this gives you the flexibility to use the tiles as a Pung and part of a Chow. Also if you hold off on declaring the Kong until you are Tenpai (i.e. one tile short of a complete hand) then there's a chance that you'll score one extra Fan for "After a Kong" if you complete your hand. If one or more of your opponents has called Riichi then it's better not to make a Kong as this will give them potentially two extra Dora if they win. If you have some exposed Pungs remember which tiles are there. You might be dealt the fourth you need to make one into a Kong which will boost your score. Declaring Riichi can be a good way to make points - you can score Fan for Riichi itself plus Ippatsu and Underside Dora bonuses - but if you call Riichi late in a Hand you won't have many opportunities to get the tile/s you need. It is also better to call Riichi when there are several possible tiles that could complete your hand, for example if you are holding 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 Craks you could form two Chows with either 1-Craks, 4-Craks or 7-Craks. Again you should check the discard piles to see if some of the tiles you need have gone as this will shift the odds against you. Don't forget that taking Riichi costs 1000 pts so if your chances aren't so good it may be better not to risk it. If you have a choice of several discards when "reaching" (declaring Riichi) you should carefully compare the different options. How many of the tile/s you need are still in play? Will your choice affect your Scoring Elements (for example All Simples)? Will it make you Furiten? Will it get you more or less Dora tiles? Would it be better to hold off until you're waiting on more/different tiles? You should also think about whether your opponents are close to winning because you won't have any control over your discards and therefore can't play defence. Keep in mind that you need a hand worth at least one Fan (not counting Dora bonuses) to be able to declare a win; you can't just have four complete sets and a pair. This is one reason to avoid calling Pung/Chow at every opportunity - you can get an ill-formed and worthless (and exposed) hand. Make sure you have a Scoring Element (it's usually best to combine Pinfu and Riichi). You should also remember to check the exposed tile on the Dead Wall for the Dora bonus as this might affect your decisions. A pair or Pung of Dora tiles will give you two or three extra doubles to your score so you'll want to keep them. If you only have a single Dora in your hand then it's worth hanging onto for a while - you might at least be able to make a pair with it - but if you don't get the tiles you need to make a set with it then you should let it go. The same goes for the Red Dora bonus tiles if you have that rule/option turned on. Being the Dealer (i.e. in a Hand where your Seat Wind is East) is a bit of a double-edged sword. If you're an optimist then you'll relish the opportunity to score extra points on a win and then "stay on" as Dealer to do it again but if you're a pessimist you might be worried about facing a bigger loss of points if you lose. It might be better not to risk going for a higher-scoring hand and instead to go out on the first available possibility, then repeat this process. If you are doing well in a Hand then you might want to stop and count how many Fan your hand is worth. If it's currently worth 4 or 6 Fan then it's not worth taking a gamble on getting one more Fan since a 6 Fan hand scores the same as a 7 Fan hand and a 4 Fan hand (with 40+ minipoints) scores the same as 5 Fan. As you get better at mahjong you will start to think more about defensive play. The essence of defence is to avoid discarding tiles which help your opponents, especially ones they can claim by Ron to win the hand; they might still win with a self-drawn tile or with someone else's discard but at least you won't have to pay all the points. Since the discarder pays all the points for a win by Ron, feeding a player the tile they need to win could easily cost you as much as 12,000 points if they're the Dealer! You should be cautious of any player who has called Riichi because they must have a Tenpai hand and are therefore in a position to claim Ron on a discard. However you should also keep in mind that a player might be Tenpai but not call Riichi because either their hand is not concealed or they have a poor Wait (i.e. their chance of getting the tile/s they need is not high enough to risk the 1000 points for Riichi). This is called "SILENT TENPAI" or DAMA TEN. Remember that the other players can also claim discards to make sets which will put them closer to a winning hand. It's particularly important to watch the player to your right as they can call Chows from you as well as Pungs. The key to defence is to read your opponent's discards to try to work out what tile/s they need. Mahjong experts have written on this topic at length but I'll just give a few simple points here. At the most basic level, you can sometimes get an overall impression of their discards/hand, for example if one suit is missing from their discards then they could be making a Flush or Half Flush hand and you should avoid discarding tiles of that suit, or if they've discarded a lot of Honours and Terminals they are probably trying to get All Simples. In general play it is usually safe to discard a tile that someone has discarded recently because if someone needed it they'd have taken it! Also when a player is Tenpai you are safe to discard any tile which they have discarded because of the Furiten rule - they cannot call Ron on any tile they've discarded. Although it's less certain, you might also choose to assume that a Tenpai player has made the most effective sort of Wait, the serial pair, for example a 4 and a 5 waiting on a 3 or 6 to become a Chow, but they are unlikely to have made a Wait where they are Furiten on one of the two winning tiles, so you can reason that if they discard a 3 for example then they probably don't have a 3/6 wait and the 6 tile of the same suit could also be safe (you will learn the tiles that go together, i.e. 1-4-7, 2-5-8 and 3-6-9). This works best with low or high value discards because, for example, a 1 discard means that 4 could be safe (with a 23 wait) but a 4 discarded might mean that either 1 (with a 23 wait) *or* 7 (with a 56 wait) could be safe. In an extreme case, if at any stage you think you're unlikely to win (i.e. your hand is far from complete) then you should start to play defensively. You might even choose to break up non-exposed sets in your hand in order to be able to discard tiles that are safer and prevent another player from winning. Breaking a Pung is especially useful because if no one claims the first discard then you have two more of the same tile to discard on your next two turns! When heading for a draw you might also call Pung/Chow on tiles that you wouldn't normally take in an effort to get your hand into a Tenpai state and therefore fair better when the points are shared out. A Tenpai hand is any that is only one tile away from being complete, regardless of it being concealed or exposed or being a "good" (Pungs of Honours) or "bad" (Chows of Simples) hand. If you're the only player that's Tenpai in a draw you get a very handy 3000 points which is more than you get for winning with a low-value hand! Don't lose heart in a game if you've been stuck in fourth place for ages. One high-scoring hand can win you the game or at least put you in second place where you'll avoid losing points on the Uma. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 15 | FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS s15 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' Q. I made four sets and a pair, why didn't I win the Hand? A. Your complete hand must have at least one Scoring Element or, if you're very lucky, a Limit Hand (see Section 07 for lists of both) before you can declare a win (Tsumo or Ron) and win the Hand. If you're playing the Two Fan Minimum rule and the Honba counter (the third number in the middle of the screen) is showing 5+ then your hand must be worth at least two Fan (not counting Dora bonuses) before you can go out. Q. I'm one tile away from a complete hand, why can't I do the Riichi thing? A. Firstly the game won't show you the option for Riichi, you have to press the Square button first. Secondly you need to fulfil the following criteria to declare Riichi:- o you must have a "ready hand" that's one tile away from completion, although two or more different tiles could complete it o your hand must be concealed (with no exposed sets made with discards) o there must be at least four tiles remaining to be drawn (dealt) in the Hand o you need the 1000 points to pay the stake Q. I had four identical tiles in my hand, shouldn't I have been able to declare a Kong set? A. Yes, but this is another situation where you need to press the Square button to display the pop-up command. Q. When should I declare a Kong? A. The most significant effect of declaring a Kong is that an additional Dora indicator is revealed (see Section 07). When a player declares a win they can benefit from this, and if they won after declaring Riichi then they will also have an additional Underside Dora indicator. This makes a generous gift so you should aim to give it only to yourself and not to an opponent! It is best to declare a Kong only when you are close to declaring a win. If you do it when your hand is Tenpai (ready) then there's a chance that you'll complete your hand with the supplement tile you take after declaring a Kong in which case you would receive the bonus Scoring Element "After a Kong" which is worth one extra Fan. It's usually a bad idea to declare a Kong after an opponent has "reached" because they must have a Tenpai hand so they're very close to winning and two additional Dora indicators will be applied if they win. Q. I was one tile away from winning and one of the other players discarded a tile I needed to win but I couldn't claim it (Ron), why was that? A. If you had already called Riichi then you were probably Furiten - this is the situation when any of the tiles you have discarded could complete your hand. When you are Furiten you are not allowed to win by Ron although you can still win by Tsumo (i.e. with a self-drawn tile). If you hadn't declared Riichi then either you were Furiten or your hand did not meet the criteria of any Scoring Elements so you couldn't win with it. For example:- o If the only potential Scoring Element in your hand was All Simples and you had a 2 and a 3 waiting to be a Chow then you could win with a 4 but you could not win with a 1 because then the hand wouldn't be "All Simples". o If you had no Scoring Elements and, say, a pair of 2-Bams and a pair of Red Dragons then you could win with another Red Dragon (giving the Scoring Element required: Dragon Pung) but you couldn't win with another 2-Bams. o If you were trying to win with only Fully Concealed Hand this Scoring Element has a requirement that the winning tile must be self-drawn so you can't win with Ron (unless you have other Scoring Elements present). If you're unable to "go out" you should either try to change your hand to get a viable Scoring Element (perhaps lose the Terminals and Honours to get All Simples, or try to get Pinfu) or attempt to hold out, being careful with your discards, and maintaining your Tenpai status so you fair better in a draw. Remember that Riichi is a Scoring Element itself so it's possible to call Riichi on a (closed Tenpai) hand and then go out with a complete but other- wise valueless hand using Riichi to give the one Scoring Element required. Q. What are all these different tiles?! A. There are thirty-four different tiles in the game (and four of each in the set) and you'll need to be able to tell them apart to play mahjong. Rather than describing each individual tile, it's easier to direct the reader towards helpful resources - have a look at the following webpages which show all the different tiles in the game, but disregard the Seasons and Flowers tiles as these are not used in the Japanese version of the game. http://www.mahjonged.com/mahjong_tiles.html http://www.mahjong-solitaire-game.com/mahjong-solitaire-tiles.htm Q. Do I have to learn all these Scoring Element things?! A. Not really - when you're new to the game it's probably best just to focus on the ones which occur most frequently in play. You should keep in mind that combining as many Scoring Elements (and Dora) as possible in a hand is the key to getting big scores. Here's a list of the top ten Scoring Elements you should learn, listed with the most common at the top. o Riichi o Pung of Dragon / Seat Wind / Prevalent Wind o All Simples o Pinfu o Fully Concealed Hand o Half Flush o Pure Double Chow o All Pungs o Mixed Triple Chow o Seven Pairs Ippatsu actually occurs fairly commonly too (above Half Flush in the chart) but since it's pretty much a matter of luck I've not listed it here. Some of even the low-value Scoring Elements are stupidly rare - a few even occur less often than Limit Hands. Don't expect to see Triple Pung, Robbing The Kong, Twice Pure Double Chow or (especially) Three Kongs any time soon! Q. What do the numbers in the middle of the screen mean? - (top left) Hand count This shows the current Prevalent Wind (East or South) and the number of the current Hand, e.g. East 1 or South 4. - (top right) Honba counter This is the number of consecutive preceding Hands that ended with either a Dealer win or a draw (each worth 300 points for a win). - (bottom left) tile counter This is the number of tiles remaining to be drawn in the Hand. - (bottom right) Riichi stick counter This shows the number of Riichi bets left unclaimed on the table from previous Hand/s (each worth 1000 points for a win). Q. How do I know which tiles give the Dora bonus? A. Any exposed tiles on the Dead Wall (the row of five tiles in the centre of the screen) are Dora indicators and the actual Dora is the next sequential tile. For example, if you can see a 6-Dots there then the Dora is 7-Dots. Each declaration of a Kong set causes another Dora indicator to be exposed and if the player wins with Riichi then secret Underside Dora also apply. See DORA BONUSES in Section 07 for further information. Also, if you are playing the Red Dora rule then any red fives also give a bonus (see Section 08). Q. How do the modern Japanese mahjong rules in the RGG/Yakuza games differ from other versions? A. There are actually quite a lot of differences between the various versions of mahjong played in different countries. The key features of "Riichi" mahjong that distinguish it from others are as follows: o only the winner of a Hand scores points, and for a win with a discard (Ron) the points are taken only from the player that discarded the winning tile o points are paid on a drawn Hand (if one, two or three players are Tenpai) o the list of permitted Scoring Elements includes Pure Straight, All Simples, Mixed Outside Hand, Mixed Triple Chow, Triple Pung and Seven Pairs o there are no restrictions on the number of suits or Chows in a hand o Dora and Red Dora are used o the Season and Flower bonus tiles are not used o Riichi is used (plus the related features of Ippatsu and Underside Dora) o the Furiten rule is used (and therefore discards are arranged neatly) o the game is usually played over two rounds (East and South) instead of four o the game is played with a one-Fan minimum (for declaring a win) Q. How can I get me one of them fancy Limit Hands? A. I think the best advice is to forget about it, or at least to put it to the back of your mind! Although they make up a big part of the rules and their interesting patterns and high scores are quite exciting, realistically you could play for a very long time and not see one, despite your best efforts! What you can do is to quickly check your tiles at the start of each Hand and see if they have the potential to form a Limit Hand, i.e. if you already have more than half the tiles required. For example lots of Winds and Dragons for All Honours, lots of ones and nines for All Terminals, a good range of both Terminals and Honours for Thirteen Orphans, several Pungs and pairs for Four Concealed Pungs or lots of Dragons for Big Three Dragons. The game stats on the Tenhou website show that (reasonably skilled!) players achieve Yakuman (top Limit) scores in about 0.18% of winning hands which is equivalent to about one in 550. The most common are Four Concealed Pungs, Big Three Dragons and Thirteen Orphans, each occurring in about 0.04% of wins. Q. What's the best mahjong hand you've got in an RGG/Yakuza game? A. I've completed Limit Hands (Yakuman) in several of the previous games. My first ever Limit Hand was in Kenzan where I made a rare "Natural Limit" (Counted Yakuman - a hand worth 13 or more Fan). I had two Kongs and got really lucky with the Dora bonus tiles - I had eleven! I called Riichi and got All Simples too, giving a total of 13 Fan. I also made Four Concealed Pungs in Yakuza 2 and Thirteen Orphans in RGG3. Believe it or not, it's actually harder to make a hand with 11 or 12 Fan (a Sanbaiman) than it is to make a Limit Hand (nominally 13 Fan). .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 16 | GLOSSARY s16 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' Since there are so many special terms used in mahjong I thought it would be helpful to include this section which defines the most important words. I've tried to keep the definitions very short and simple here; there's a more comprehensive explanation of each one somewhere in the document above... Bamboo - one of the three suits, also called Bams Calling Pung/Chow - making an exposed set using another player's discard Characters - one of the three suits, also known as Craks Chii - declaration made when calling for a discard tile to make a Chow Closed - descriptive of a concealed set or hand Chow - a set of three tiles from the same suit with consecutive numbers Concealed - a hand with no exposed tiles Counted Yakuman - a hand with Scoring Elements and Dora totalling 13+ Fan Dead Wall - a small wall of spare tiles shown in the centre of the screen Dealer - the player with a Seat Wind (q.v.) of East in any given Hand Dots - one of the three suits, they're marked with dots! Dora - one or more tiles that gives a bonus score (cf. Red Dora) Dragons - the three Dragon tiles are red, white and green Draw - a Hand in which no player declares a win Exposed - a set that has been placed face-up on the table - a hand with one or more exposed sets Extra Hand - an additional Hand played after a Dealer win or Dealer Tenpai draw Fan - a score doubler awarded for Scoring Elements and Dora in a hand Flowers - four tiles depicting flowers, not used in Japanese mahjong Fu - a measure of score awarded for features in a wining hand Furiten - when one of your discards would complete your hand you cannot call Ron Half Game - a game lasting two rounds (the standard length in Japanese mahjong) hand - the thirteen tiles you are holding plus one you are dealt Hand - each round consists of four normal Hands and sometimes extra Hands too Honba - a count of consecutive draws and Dealer wins Honours - collective term for the Dragon and Wind tiles Kan - declaration made when calling for a discard tile to make a Kong Kong - a set of four identical tiles Kuitan - a rule that allows the All Simples (Tanyao) element on an exposed hand Limit - a cap applied to high-scoring hands Limit Hand - a rare hand which is automatically worth maximum points Major tiles - a collective name for the Terminal and Honour tiles Meld - (verb) to call Pung/Chow thereby creating an exposed set - (noun) an exposed set Minipoints - a measure of score awarded for features in a wining hand (also Fu) Open - descriptive of an exposed set or hand Points - points are awarded in each Hand, based on Fan and Fu (qq.v.) Pon - declaration made when calling for a discard tile to make a Pung Prevalent Wind - this is East in the first round and South in the second Pung - a set of three identical tiles Quarter Game - a game lasting one round Red Dora - a special number-five tile marked in red that gives a score bonus Riichi - to declare that one is "ready", needing one tile to complete the hand Ron - to declare a win by claiming another player's discard (cf. Tsumo) Round - four normal Hands (cf. Half Game and Quarter Game) Round Wind - a more common English name for the Prevalent Wind in each round Scoring Element - a pattern or condition that is worth one or more Fan Scoring-Stick - a short white stick used like a casino chip to count points Seasons - four tiles depicting seasons, not used in Japanese mahjong Seat Wind - the Wind assigned to a player that changes after each normal Hand Set - a Pung, Chow or Kong (qq.v.) Simples - suit tiles marked with numbers between 2 and 8 inclusive Suit - a "family" of tiles like the four suits in a deck of playing cards Table rules - optional rules that can be chosen at the start of a game Tenpai - the state of having a "ready hand", one tile away from being complete Terminals - suit tiles marked with numbers 1 or 9 Tiles - the pieces used to play the game Tsumo - to declare a win with a self-drawn tile (cf. Ron) Two Fan Minimum - a rule applying a score restriction after four extra Hands Uma - a final exchange of points between players after the final Hand Underside Dora - a special Dora (q.v.) revealed after a Hand won with Riichi Wait - an incomplete hand that is "waiting" for the right tile to complete it Winds - the four Wind tiles are each marked East, South, West or North - see also Seat Wind and Prevalent Wind (qq.v.) Yakuman - a rare hand which is automatically worth maximum points - also the name of the top tier in the Limit system For a complete guide to the rules and terminology of Japanese mahjong you can download my PDF guide from the USPML website here: http://www.uspml.com/site/downloads.htm (Barticle's Japanese Mahjong Guide) .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 17 | CONTACT s17 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' I welcome all feedback on this guide and any contributions you'd like to make. I'm also happy to receive questions about this or any other mahjong game, or about the rules and terminology of Japanese mahjong. You can email me at barticle at hotmail.com - obviously changing the "at" to an @ and removing the spaces. It would be helpful if you include the word "mahjong" in the subject line and tell me which game you're playing. .------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------. | Section 18 | THANKS s18 | '------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------' I would like to thank the following:- o tokyoblade (GameFAQs ID) for the fantastic Ishin guide at khhsubs.com o the Japanese wiki for confirming the specifics of the Mukurogai gate unlock o Play Asia for a reliable worldwide seller service o Tangorin.com and Tuttle for great language resources o Lucette Bourdin (RIP), Jack Hertz, Eos and Murnau for super sounds I will be happy to give credit and thanks to anyone who makes a contribution.
___________ ___ \______ / ___ / / / / __ \_/ / / / \___ ________ _________/ \__ ___ ______ / / ________ .-------o / __ / \___ // ___/\_ ___// // ___// / / __ / | ANOTHER / / / /_____/ // / / / / // / / / / \/ / '---------/ /-/ // __ // /-----/ /---/ // /---/ /--/ _____/---------. / / / // / / // / / / / // / / / / / GUIDE | / \/ // \/ // / / \_ / // \_ / \ / \________ o-----' \______/ \______/ \_/ \____/ \_/ \____/ \___/ \___________/ -- Ishin! Mahjong Guide Copyright 2014 James R. Barton Initial version 1.00 completed 24 March 2014 All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders. This guide may be downloaded and printed for personal, private, non-commercial use only. This work is subject to copyright. It may not be hosted online or otherwise distributed publically or reproduced either in whole or in part without the advance written consent of the author. Any violation would constitute an infringement of copyright and is strictly prohibited. The only websites with the author's consent to publish this guide are GameFAQs (www.gamefaqs.com) and its affiliates (i.e. Gamespot). If you find this file hosted on any other site I would be grateful if you would inform me at the email address given at the top. Thanks!
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