Learn Sign up

Learn riichi mahjong

A free course from your first tile to scoring, building a hand, and attack and defense. Every lesson has hands you play right in the page, with the same controls as a real game. No account needed.

1. Basics

  1. How to play riichi mahjong The goal of the game and what a winning hand looks like. · 3 steps
  2. The tiles Three suits, winds and dragons: names and how to read them. · 5 steps
  3. Sets and a winning hand Four sets and a pair: sequences, triplets, quads. · 5 steps
  4. The table and a turn Seats, the wall, the dora indicator, draw and discard. · 3 steps
  5. Calling: chii, pon and kan Taking discards to finish sets, and what it costs. · 6 steps
  6. Winning: tsumo, ron and yaku Tsumo, ron, and the one-yaku rule. · 6 steps

2. Reading your hand

  1. Tenpai and shanten One tile from winning, and how to count the distance. · 4 steps
  2. Wait shapes Ryanmen, kanchan, penchan, shanpon, tanki and multi-sided waits. · 5 steps
  3. Furiten Why you sometimes cannot win on a discard. · 5 steps

3. Yaku

  1. Your first yaku Riichi, tsumo, all simples, value tiles and pinfu. · 5 steps
  2. Riichi Declaring ready: conditions, the deposit, ippatsu, ura dora. · 4 steps
  3. Dora Bonus tiles: the indicator, wrap-around, ura and red fives. · 5 steps
  4. More yaku Flushes, triplets, straights and closed-only yaku. · 5 steps

4. Scoring

  1. Scoring: han and fu From han and fu to points: the score table and limits. · 5 steps
  2. Counting fu Build a hand’s fu one part at a time. · 6 steps
  3. Payments, counters and draws Honba, riichi sticks, draws and noten payments. · 5 steps
  4. How a game ends Rounds, placement, uma and going bust. · 3 steps

5. Building a hand

  1. Tile efficiency Discard so the most tiles help you. · 4 steps
  2. Good and bad shapes Rank partial sets, keep the shapes that make good waits. · 4 steps
  3. The five-block method Four sets and a pair: count blocks to find the discard. · 3 steps
  4. Aiming for yaku Which yaku are worth a few tiles of speed. · 3 steps
  5. When to call Call with a yaku, and only when it makes the hand fast or big. · 4 steps

6. Attack and defense

  1. Riichi or dama When to declare riichi, and the few hands to keep quiet. · 4 steps
  2. Basic defense Safe and safer tiles against a riichi. · 3 steps
  3. Push or fold Keep attacking or give up the hand: the two-of-three rule. · 4 steps
  4. The last hand Play for placement: the value you need to move up. · 3 steps

Reference

  1. Yaku listEvery yaku with an example hand.
  2. GlossaryJapanese terms in plain English.

Put it into practice. Free account, rated games, no downloads.

Sign up and play Play a bot now