Beginner FAQ
These are the questions English-speaking beginners actually ask — collected from years of community threads, answered without hedging.
My hand is complete — why can’t I win?
A complete shape is not enough: the hand must contain at least one yaku (scoring pattern). Dora do not count as yaku. The three easiest guarantees are riichi (any closed tenpai hand), tanyao (no terminals or honors), and yakuhai (a dragon or relevant wind triplet). See the winning lesson for the full rule.
Why am I furiten when I never discarded the tile I’m waiting on?
Furiten checks your whole wait, not one tile. If your hand waits on 5s and 8s and an 8s is in your discards, ron is blocked on both — including the 5s you never discarded. You can always still win by tsumo (self-draw).
Do dora and ura dora count as yaku?
No. Dora (including red fives and ura dora) add one han each to a hand that already has a yaku, but a hand of dora alone cannot win. This is the most common source of the “why can’t I ron” confusion after furiten.
How many yaku are there?
It depends what you count. Our encyclopedia lists roughly forty standard entries — about two dozen regular yaku plus thirteen yakuman — and a couple of optional ones (nagashi mangan, renhou). Sites that say 26, 38, or 43 are all counting the same game with different groupings: yakuhai can be one entry or five, and optional/local yaku may be in or out.
Is fu calculation really necessary?
At five han and above, no — fu is ignored. Below that, two shortcuts (pinfu = 30 fu on ron / 20 on tsumo; chiitoitsu = 25 fu) plus one addition recipe cover everything. Most groups let beginners use a chart or calculator; announcing your own fu is a milestone, not an entry requirement.
Which yaku should a beginner actually learn first?
Riichi, tanyao, and yakuhai cover the majority of real wins. Add pinfu and menzen tsumo (they appear on your score screens constantly), then honitsu as your first “big hand” plan. Everything else can wait until you have seen it once at the table.
When should I call chii or pon?
Less often than feels natural. Every call opens your hand: riichi, menzen tsumo, and pinfu vanish, and several yaku lose a han. Good default: call to complete yakuhai, to keep a tanyao or honitsu hand on track, or when speed clearly beats value — otherwise stay closed and keep riichi available.
Should I always declare riichi when tenpai?
Usually, yes — riichi adds a han, unlocks ura dora, and pressures the table. Stay damaten (silent tenpai) mainly when your hand already has a yaku and revealing tension would kill your chances, or when the wait is terrible and you may want to reshape. As a beginner, defaulting to riichi is the smaller mistake.
Someone declared riichi. What is safe to discard?
Tiles in the riichi player’s own discard row are fully safe against that player’s ron (though not against the other two) — that is furiten working for you. Tiles other players dropped after the riichi passed are safe too. Beyond that, defense is probability (suji, walls), which is a strategy topic — but genbutsu alone will save you thousands of points.
Which rules should my group use — WRC, EMA, or “Japanese rules”?
They agree on far more than they differ. This guide teaches WRC 2025 as the baseline and flags differences (kiriage mangan, multiple ron, double yakuman) where they matter. For a home game: pick aka-ari (red fives), no kiriage, head-bump ron — then write down anything local before you start. Custom scoring apps like ALBANote exist precisely because every table has one house rule.
Is three-player mahjong (sanma) the same game?
Close relative, different animal: sanma removes most manzu tiles, chii is not allowed, and scores inflate wildly. Everything on this site teaches the four-player game; learn that first and sanma will take you an evening.
I learned online. What changes at a real table?
Three things: the wall (you build and break it by hand), scoring sticks (you pay physically — bring the score table), and etiquette (discards in neat rows — furiten depends on them being readable). Clubs are welcoming to online players; automatic tables remove the wall-building entirely and are the reason club nights run twice as many hands.