Open Tanyao

[Tom Sloper]

Which means a cunning player in WMO can win without Yaku. Pity.

:unsure: There is no such thing as "yaku" in MCR (the WMO\'s rules). :unsure:

[alban lusitanae]

I stand corrected then, misunderstood

[Tina]

@shirluban regarding EMA rules and red fives.
I must admit that I never considered the lack of red fives to be a problem to consider. Before some of us brought home real Japanese sets after travelling to Japan, we simply marked the fives of our Chinese plastic tiles with a red marker pen. It wears of slowly over the years so when we changed from four to three red fives with the EMA rules in 2008, one of the fives could be washed clean again. And you can just ignore the coloring if you are playing a different rule set. Anyway we don\'t need to do that anymore, as the Danish organization has recently acquired 14 riichi sets from Mahjong Mart :-)

@hirohurl Thanks for the introduction to the concept of Nemawashi.

@silent_observer regarding tournaments in Europe with Open Tanyao.
If you make an interesting event and advertise it well, I am sure you could attract several players, but you and Toby are also right that when players have many tournaments to choose between, the ranked ones would for many players take priority. But there are other priorities such as networking and support for new initiatives, which is why several players travelled from the continent to Guildford to play in a not-ranked riichi tournament.

@barticle and several others regarding the terminology of yaku/han(fan)
As some have suggested the definition of \"yaku\" in the EMA rules may be based on a lack of knowledge of the Japanese language, and the (wrong?) way to use the word has then rooted years ago when we didn\'t have contact to the experts we have now. I will consider changing it when the time comes to update the rule booklet. The booklet could use some scoring examples and a bit about etiquette, so one day there\'ll be an update, but I am not really in a hurry to do it. Mind you, all the kind people who are translating into other languages have to also update each time I do.

Which reminds me: I am still looking for someone to proofread the German version...

@Bunta and others regarding yakitori in Kinryu Majan Taikai
Yes it\'s a bit of a mess, and I am not fond of the inconsistency of a different rule being applied there. Hopefully this year should be the last time with yakitori at KMT. And to those laughing their asses off, well, when you build something new you need to begin somewhere and then learn from your mistakes. There\'s a lot of stuff to coordinate and organize and we are very few volunteers to do it; some things, inevitably, will slip beneath the radar; we\'re only human afterall.

[hirohurl]

Some people here say they dont like closed tanyao. I favor open tanyao too, BUT i can change my kind of play to the prevalant rules and dont think it should be any problem for anybody who understands how to play the game.
IMHO, i think its necessary to be able to change your playingstlye cuz of the tremendous number of rule variation in Riichi.

I think thats all i wanna say about tanyao.

I entirely agree with this comment. The ability to adapt is the key in approaching mahjong, whether it is adapting to the rules and conventions of the group you are playing with or adapting to the situation in the game, or adapting to the other players.

@Tina, thanks for noting the concept of "nemawashi".

FAN and YAKU

After reading the discussion of "fan" and "yaku", it looks as if we need to get some clarity in English rule translations.

A quick look at a Japanese mj book, "Mahjong Nyumon" (Intro to Mahjong), confirms that "fan" are simply point value whereas "Yaku" are the key to going out on somebody else\'s discard and of course are the foundations of large "fan" counts.

So we have "ii fan yaku" and "ni fan yaku" and so on, and then extra "fan" for bonuses.

All yaku have a fan value, but not all fan are yaku.

And yes, you do need at least one YAKU to complete your hand on somebody else\'s discard. A hand with 3 red fives, and six other dora is meaningless without a YAKU unless it is TENPAI and you declare RIICHI or go TSUMO.

A YAKU gives you the RIGHT to GO OUT on someone else\'s discard.

If you are Tenpai without a Yaku you can "BUY the right to go out on somebody else\'s discard" by going RIICHI, or sit tight and seek either to (1) improve your hand by building a Yaku or (2) go out on TSUMO.

[silent observer]

A YAKU gives you the RIGHT to GO OUT on someone else\'s discard.

Uh....

A yaku gives you the right to go out. There\'s no \"on someone else\'s discard\" in there. If you don\'t have a yaku, you can\'t go out; even if you draw the tile yourself.

Consider the following:
1236m123s234p called: 111p
The hand is in tenpai, but lacks yaku. Even if you draw 6m yourself, you can\'t go out on it. If it had been closed you could go out on it if you drew it yourself, obviously (since drawing the necessary tile would give you menzen tsumo).

[hirohurl]

I decided to add \"on someone else\'s discard\" so as to avoid the inevitable discussion as to whether Riichi and Tsumo are really Yaku or not!

If your hand does not contain a Yaku you can\'t go out on someone else\'s discard unless you declare Riichi.

However, you can go out if your hand is Tenpai without a Yaku if you go Tsumo. Obviously such a hand would have to be closed.

[hirohurl]

...

To be exact, Riichi and Tsumo are the two forms of \"Agari Yaku\" that are listed (in Mahjong Nyumon) as \"Tehai Taisei\" (\"hand systems\" i.e. ways to get hands, I guess). They form a kind of subsection in the chapter on Yaku before the \"actual Yaku\" listings.

The chapter goes:

===
HAND FINISHES (two types)

Type 1:

1.1 Menzen chin ron (not an agari Yaku)
1.2 Mensen chin tsumo (1-fan agari Yaku)


Type 2:

2.1 Riichi Ron (1-fan agari Yaku)
2.2 Riichi Tsumo (2-fan agari Yaku)

===
1 Fan Yaku (7 types listed)
===
2 Fan Yaku (7 types listed)
===
3 Fan Yaku (5 types listed)
===
5 Fan Yaku (5 types listed)
===
Chiitoi Yaku (7 types listed)
===
etc etc.

There is a distinction between \"Agari Yaku\" and the \"in-hand- Yaku\" that are listed according to their \"fan value\".

I hope this clarifies the point I was trying to make about a Yaku giving you the right to go out on somebody else\'s hand.

DH

[Shirluban]

Interesting.
You made me think all these \"problems\" of termiology come from the fact that we, westerners, didn\'t learn the rule like japanese do.

For instance, I never made any distinction between \"agari yaku\" and other yaku.

[Benjamin]

Well, I did learn the rules the way the Japanese did and I think hirohurl and other did too. :P

At least in common conversation amongst Mahjong pros, \"yaku\" means basically what everyone here thinks it means--a pattern in your hand that scores han/fan and meets the 1-han minimum. SO is correct in pointing out that the EMA rules don\'t make an accurate distinction between yaku and han in certain places, but I don\'t think this has ever created a problem in an actual tournament (and not this forum).

I think hirohurl may have translated his book in a confusing way. Either that, or Mahjong Nyuumon (author? publisher? there\'s more than one) isn\'t organized very well. There are several errors in hirohurl\'s post:

\"menzen chin ron\" should not have anything to do with yaku. \"menzen chin\" refers to the hand being closed, not the way that you win. It\'s probably only listed there because it gives you an extra 10 fu. Also, although you have a listing for \"Chiitoi Yaku (7 types listed),\" Chiitoi referrs to 7 pairs so I think this is a mistranslation.

\"I hope this clarifies the point I was trying to make about a Yaku giving you the right to go out on somebody else\'s hand.\"

As SO points out, this is a confusing explanation. A yaku gives you the right to win, period. Winning on a self-drawn closed hand is in itself a yaku, which is the reason you can go out if you don\'t have any other patterns.

[hirohurl]

Hi Benjamin,

Several points to cover...

Yes, my earlier post was confusing. I should have clarified what I was talking about! I plead late night posting! (It\'s now 2:21am... again but I\'ll try to think clearly for this post...)

You are right, there are numerous \"Mahjong Nyumon\" books out there - I have three different books all called \"MJ Nyumon\"!! The one I was looking at was by a certain \"Tenno Oomitsu\" (at least, that\'s my rendering of his name kanji)... It\'s true, his book is arranged differently from the other two, which both place \"Riichi\" in the middle of the \"1 fan\" yaku section.

Now let\'s look at the perceived \"errors\" (apologies for lack of clear explanation before):

1. Menzen Chinron: Nobody said this is a Yaku. Oomitsu lays out a logical sequence of ways of going out from \"menzen chin ron\" through \"menzen chin tsumo\" to \"riichi ron\" and \"riichi tsumo\". \"Menzen chin ron\" is a way of winning and to win you need a Yaku but of course \"menzen chin ron\" is not ITSELF an agari yaku (as I-quoting-Oomitsu said in the previous post).

The 10 fu is mentioned, but it is not the main point of the arrangement.

Benjamin: How would you arrange the agari rules?

2. Chiitoi. Yes, Chiitoi = 7 pairs. There are SEVEN different types of Chiitoi according to Oomitsu. I\'ll list them for you, but not at 3am.

3. Yaku. Yes, my explanation was confusing and needs to be rewritten... I should have clearly distinguished between different types of Yaku.

How about:

1. Agari yaku

2. In-hand yaku

2.a. 1-fan yaku which disappear when the hand is opened

2.b. 1 fan yaku which remain when the hand is opened

2.c. 2 fan< yaku

... any more?

[zzo38]

I always play open tanyao, now days Japanese mahjong is almost always played with open tanyao as far as I can tell.