Pinfu (all sequences) 平和 · pinfu
A closed hand of four sequences and a valueless pair, won on a two-sided (ryanmen) wait.
| Value | 1 han — closed hands only |
|---|---|
| How often | very common |
Pinfu is less a pattern you spot than a shape discipline you keep. From the early discards, favor connected middle tiles that grow into two-sided waits, called ryanmen リャンメン — shapes like 45 or 67. Let go of what blocks them: lone honors, a closed middle wait (kanchan カンチャン), an edge wait on 12 or 89 (penchan ペンチャン). Keep an ordinary number pair, because a pair of dragons, your seat wind, or the round wind disqualifies the hand by itself.
The usual way to lose pinfu is at the finish. Reach tenpai テンパイ on a kanchan, penchan, or tanki (pair) wait and the yaku is off, even though the rest of the hand qualifies. So when two tenpai choices are equally fast, take the two-sided one: it keeps pinfu alive and gives you more winning tiles at the same time.
Pinfu combines with nearly everything built from sequences: tanyao when you stay off terminals and honors, riichi and menzen tsumo for the standard closed finish. What it rules out is triplets — one triplet anywhere and the hand isn't pinfu — so a pon-heavy plan is a different hand entirely. For how its fixed fu plays out in points, see fu.
Key points
- Three conditions: all sequences, the pair is not a value tile (dragons, seat wind, round wind), and the wait is two-sided
- Pinfu itself adds no fu — a closed ron scores the flat 30 fu of the closed-ron bonus, and a pinfu tsumo scores 20 fu
- Pinfu + riichi + tsumo is the classic beginner scoring combo
Related yaku
- Riichi 立直 — Declare that you are one tile from winning, with a closed hand, by betting a 1,000-point stick.
- Fully closed self-draw 門前清自摸和 — Complete a closed hand by drawing the winning tile yourself.
- All simples 断幺九 — A hand made entirely of number tiles 2 through 8 — no terminals, no honors.
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