Reachmahjong.com

Hi,

I've dabbled on and off with mahjong for a long time, but my interest really hit a high when I started watching the Saki series of anime and finding the online translations of the Saki manga. Shame they'll never see distribution in the US, but oh well...

Anyway, I've been trying to figure out how to play Riichi mahjong ever since, eventually finding Jenn Barr's "Reach Mahjong - The Only Way to Play". That was an interesting beginning, and when I found out she had a strategy ebook available, I picked it up on Amazon. Chapter one threw me a curve ball almost immediately, as it talks about how to count tiles from i-shanten to ready. I realized I had never figured out how to recognize when my hand was i-shanten!

Does anyone have any suggestions on where I would look for guidance on that? I think I'm at the advanced beginner or maybe early intermediate level, so I'd prefer something that isn't too advanced, but not too simplistic, either.

Thanks in advance!

Other publications which may help are Barticle's Japanese Mahjong Guide or Japanese Mahjong for Dummies. Both are online.
There is also a Mahjong book (in english) by Eleanor Noss Whitney which may help but the post from mrfeng below should be enough to get you going.

The moment is harder to see the shanten could be when you have a lot of possible combinations.

But to be Iishanten, 1 shanten, just means you're 1 tile away from Tenpai.

For me is hard to see the tiles I'm waiting for when the wait to win is 3 or more-sided wait. Something which is called Tamenchan, a multisided wait. Could get worse if I'm doing a one suited hand.

This is the only thing I'm able to think right now.

Sorry if I did not help.

Common 1shanten shape you would encounter:



You need ONE of any to waiting.



You need ONE of any to waiting.



You need ONE of any to waiting

Common 2shanten shape you would encounter:



Tiles need to move to 1shanten are



Tiles need to move to 1shanten are

ok, turns out its hard to formulate common 2shanten hands LOL so I shall stop here and move on to more important issue.

What do you need to know about shanten.
From the guides you might have read, they are usually at very theoretical level and explores from 5shanten to 1shanten hand shapes. But in reality, you really only need to identify 2shanten and 1shanten situations. 3shanten to 5 shanten are usually very complicated and knowing whether you are 3shanten or 4shanten or 5shanten doesn't help at all because it only tells you 1 thing - you are still far from Tenpai. Therefore, don't be overwhelmed if you cannot identify the number of shanten your hand is. You only know need to know 1shanten and 2shanten.

Importance of knowing your shanten
Shanten is 1 of the 3 main factors (other factors are hand shape and hand value) that helps you to make decision on offense and defense. For example, some guidebooks advise you that the average tenpai rate is between 9th to 10th turn. So the general rule they recommend you to follow is that at 9th/10th turn, if you are still at 3 shanten or worse, it is better to start defending (i.e start to keep safe tiles).

Knowing the number of shanten ensures your hand progress the right way. 95% of the time, there is no reason to move back from shanten. eg: 1shanten to 2shanten.



Discarding will give you a 1shanten hand shape, needed to tenpai. Some players may actually choose to discard which pushes this hand back to 2shanten, needing to 1shanten. The rationale of these players is that, they don't wish their hand to end up in a bad shape or due to over worshipping of a middle tile , they might be misunderstood into thinking that going for the 2shanten path is faster.

Another point which is on defence is that, to face of a Riichi, if your hand is 2shanten or worse, 100% defend.

There are no proper method to teach you how to count your number of shanten. You pretty much have to pick it up yourself like teaching a baby how to walk.

I hope the above is not too basic not too advance for you.