A closed race for a yaku
The row at the top is the kind of mahjong. This page is Japanese riichi. The clickable Charleston and the jokers live on the American course, because those pieces do not exist here.
- The set is three suits, four winds, and three dragons, four of each. No flowers and no jokers. That is 136 tiles.
One of each family in a riichi set. - A winning hand is usually four sets and a pair. A set can be a chow, three in a row in one suit, or a pung of three identical tiles.
A chow. You may take it only from the player on your left. A pung of dragons. That pung is one kind of yaku. - Riichi is a declaration you make when the hand is still closed and one tile from finished. You put a stick down and the hand locks. An earlier chow or pung opens the hand, and an open hand cannot declare riichi.
The pair, still in the closed hand. - The finished shape is not enough. The hand also needs a yaku, a scoring pattern. A pung of dragons is one. A hand with no yaku does not win.
If the table tonight is American, start with the tiles. Riichi tables use their own yaku list.