World Riichi Championship 2014 - rules!

[Shirluban]

The World Riichi Rules are online!
See it at http://www.wrc2014.com/docs/wrc_rules.pdf

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Alas, it already needs an errata (my bad).

//Errata//
• In the yaku listing, the definition of tanyao is erroneous.
Open tanyao is allowed, so it actually should be:
"All Simples — Tanyao chū
Hand with no terminals nor honours. The hand can be open or closed."
• Swap-calling (kuikae) is NOT allowed.
The following text seems to be missing in §5.4:
"Swap-calling (kuikae) is not allowed.
Swap-calling is either:
- Calling a tile and immediately discarding the same tile (e.g.: calling 1s, melding 111s, and discarding 1s).
- Calling a tile for a shuntsu and immediately discarding the tile from the other side of the shuntsu (e.g.: calling 1s, melding 123s, and discarding 4s)."
• In the points table:
- Kazoe yakuman is not allowed, so the "sanbaiman line" should be labeled "11+".
- Non-East score for 5 han is 2000/4000 for tsumo, and 8000 for ron.

//Precisions//
• Renhō is cumulative with other yaku and dora.
• There is no daiminkan liability.
• "When there is several ways to score the hand, the highest-scoring possibility must always be chosen.”
The score can be corrected as long the hand is still intact or if all players agree.
• Penalties are applied to the overall score, not to the table's score.
The overall score is the sum of all sessions scores, which is the table score divided by 1000 (to be exact: sessions score = (table score - 30,000) / 1,000 + uma).
E.g. if a player ends the first hanchan with a table score of 40,000 points and is the best ranked at the table, his session score will be 25.
Since it's the first hanchan, his overall score will also be 25 for now.
He will starts the second hanchan with a table score of 30,000 points (new session) and an overall score of 25.
If he's calling with a dead hand, he gets a 20 points penalty to his overall score. After the penalty he will still have a table score of 30,000 points, but an overall score of only 5.
• §5.7, §5.7.6:
The wording "one or more players declaring a win" is confusing, since when several players declare a win only one player will effectively win.

//Typo//
• §4.1's title should be "Starting Points".
Also, the first line is not lined-up.
• On two occurrences, "chonbo" is written "chombo".
• "bellow" should be "below".

[Shirluban]

I've not listed all the changes here (others are mostly typos and precisions), but there are two change worth noticing:

• The penalty for not rotating the riichi tile applies only for the first tile.
So the rule becomes:
"Not rotating the first discard: Dead hand, the riichi declaration is voided.
[...]
In case the first tile is claimed by another player, forgetting to rotate the next discard is not penalized. The mistake must be corrected. If the tile to rotate is unknown, the earliest discarded tile among the supposed ones is chosen regarding furiten."

• Kiriage mangan ari. (Blame Ben)
So 30 fu 4 han and 60 fu 3 han will be scored as a mangan.
(That's a 100 to 400 points increase.)


The updated revision should be released soon.

[Senechal]

There seemed to be a bit of confusing text on the MN threads about atama-hane (head bumps).

I just want to confirm the status of that. As for the other two changes newly posted, they look nice.


Now, all I have to do is hope only a few Koreans or Chinese go to Paris. Are there any deadlines for manifesting interest that would result in reallocating quotas (before May 1) ? The KML site says March 1 for them but ... any authoritative position on that yet ?

[Shirluban]

Atama-hane ari: only one player per hand can win.

[Masa]

How about 3 players declare Ron same time, still atama-hane right ?
(Almost cases, 3 players Ron, the game is end without winner)

[Shirluban]

Yes, if three players ron, it's still atama-hane. The hand is not aborted.

[Shirluban]

As explained at 4.1 there is no bankruptcy system in place. I thought that most Japanese organisations have such a system and Europe is one of the exceptions to that, so I was wondering why it was decided to go without one?

AFAIK, the bankruptcy rule is common in parlors, but I have no info about it being used for competitions in Japan. I even have info that JPML does not use bankruptcy.

Follow up question to 1). If there is no bankruptcy why use starting points? If you can below zero and the starting points are deducted later either way, is there some kind of reason for using starting points at all?

Using stating points have several advantages:
- Consistency with other rule-sets (AFAIK, EMA is the world exception for not mentioning them).
- Organizers can use scoring sticks or score sheets transparently.
- When using score sheets, players have only to compute positive scores, which should be easier/faster than constantly juggling between positive and negative. (It's not uncommon to have scoring errors because of a negative score losing it's sign, or points being added instead or deduced.)
- Since the starting points are eventually deduced from the score, WRR scoring is fully compliant with EMA scoring (with a by1000 conversion).

Why was it decided to not use abortive draw at all?

To prepare the WRR, I've run a survey of tournament riichi rules around the world. It shows that abortive draws are not that common.
Also, the four classic abortive cases don't make much sense when you think about it:
• Nine different terminals and honors: There are worst hands to start with.
• Four kantsu: Nothing prevents the game to continue, the problem is only on the fifth kantsu. And even without aborting the hand, it prevents as well another player to get Sūkantsu.
• Same wind discarded: Pure superstition.
• Four riichi: Indeed, it down-scales the game to a roulette and that's not fun, so this abortive case makes sense. But that's only about convenience ; neglecting that different hands have different waits and thus different chances to win.

At 5.7.7. Tsumiboukaten are called continuance counters. As there was a really good explanation of the Japanese terms at the beginning of the rules I was wondering why a new term for Tsumiboukaten was invented instead of going with the Japanese Original as it the case for all groups?

I prefer to avoid using foreign words in a formal text if they already have a good equivalent in the said text's language.

The term "continuance counter" was already used by EMA rule and doesn't lead to any ambiguity, also I've never heard anyone saying "Tsumiboukaten" in a tournament, so I didn't see any need to do otherwise.
On the other side of the spectrum, using Japanese terms like "chii" and "pon" inaccurately would be a big problem during an event where ~40% of players are native Japanese ("concealed pon" = "concealed exposed triplet" = "WTF"). So something must be done.

Edit: No, in EMA they are just called "counters", not "continuance counters". That doesn't change much the reasoning anyway.

Why was Renhou reduced to Mangan from Yakuman, while Tenhou and Chihou are still Yakuman hands?

My survey or competition rules around the world shows that Tenhō and Chihō are widely used and scored yakuman, while Renhō is a mixed case: some score it yakuman, others give mangan or 4 han, and other others give nothing.
On this point, WRR is kinda mid-path world's custom.

Why are Shôsûshi and Daisûshi both worth the same (namely one yakuman)? One hand is slightly harder to get (as also the name suggest) but still gives the same reward?

While it makes sense to score Daisūshi more than Shōsūshi, EMA and Mahjong Montréal are the world exceptions about it. According to my survey, every other competition rule score both Shōsūshi and Daisūshi single yakuman (to be confirmed for 101, Mu and NPM).
Also, allowing a double yakuman while not allowing to stack two yakuman makes a clumsy scoring system.

Why was the EMA system for the time limit abolished? The 15 minute rule had great success and worked out much better than the 90 minute cut-off rule in my experience so I was wondering about this decision

I have a quite different experience.
While EMA system have it's feats, it also have some flaws. For once, playing up to two hands should be way quicker that 15 minutes, and it is: it's not exceptional to end a game before the end of the hanchan while there is still time left. But, ideally, the whole hanchan should be played to ensure each player have the same chance to be East.
Also, note that WRR system is different than EMA 2008's system: in WRR the game is not cut at 90min, but continues to finish the current hand.
I don't claim the WRR system to be perfect, but it's simpler and maximize the number of hands played.

[Kyuu]

Atama-hane ari: only one player per hand can win.

But which one? Player closest to the discarder or player farthest to the discarder?

[Shirluban]

Atama-hane ari: only one player per hand can win.

But which one? Player closest to the discarder or player farthest to the discarder?

The player closer to the discarder (in turn order) wins.

[Ozball]

Why are Shôsûshi and Daisûshi both worth the same (namely one yakuman)? One hand is slightly harder to get (as also the name suggest) but still gives the same reward?

While it makes sense to score Daisūshi more than Shōsūshi, EMA and Mahjong Montréal are the world exceptions about it. According to my survey, every other competition rule score both Shōsūshi and Daisūshi single yakuman (to be confirmed for 101, Mu and NPM).
Also, allowing a double yakuman while not allowing to stack two yakuman makes a clumsy scoring system

I asked on of the Mu (assuming this is the Japanese Mu and not another) pros at the parlour I go to last night and he confirmed that the score them both as single Yakuman. Unfortunately as I was feeling a bit unwell and forgot to ask the kyoukai (assuming NPM is Nihon Professional Mahjong) guys at the same time :/ will ask them tomorrow or Friday depending when I'm next in.

[Gnom]

Didn't see it mention but one of the arguments I've heard about not rewarding daisuushii with a double yakuman (in games that allow more than one yakuman) is that it is much more likely to get tsuuiisou since you already have four jihai koutsu, you "just" need a pair of dragons. So it kind of is a reward in itself to be able to aim for a second yakuman more easily...

[Shirluban]

I asked on of the Mu (assuming this is the Japanese Mu and not another) pros at the parlour I go to last night and he confirmed that the score them both as single Yakuman. Unfortunately as I was feeling a bit unwell and forgot to ask the kyoukai (assuming NPM is Nihon Professional Mahjong) guys at the same time :/ will ask them tomorrow or Friday depending when I'm next in.

You're assuming right.

While you're at it, there are other points I don't know about Mu Mahjpong and NPM rules.
May I ask you to point them to --> this xls spreadsheet <-- and report me the missing points/errors?
Thanks!

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Here is the list of organizations I'm referring to:
EMA = European Mahjong Association (mahjong-europe.org)
101 = １０１競技規定 (101fed.com)
JPML = Japan Professional Mahjong League = 日本プロ麻雀連盟 (ma-jan.or.jp)
KML = Korean Mahjong League (kml.or.kr)
Mu = Mu Mahjong = µ! 麻将連合 (mu-mahjong.jp)
NPM = Nihon Pro Mahjong = 日本プロ麻雀協会公 (npm2001.com)
RMU = Real Mahjong Unit (rmu.jp)
Saikouisen = 戦日本プロ麻雀協会 (saikouisen.com)
USPML = United States Professional Mahjong League (uspml.com)
Manhjong Montréal (mah-jong.dfdanse.com)

[Senechal]

By the way, Mah-jong Montréal has been dead for 15 months. The site exists but the previous club leader is still AWOL.

Please, prettyplease, use "Club Riichi de Montréal" or "Riichi Canada" in its stead. We do have the riichi.ca domain but it only has a brief intro page at the moment, and we still meet every2 weeks.

[Shirluban]

Does the "Club Riichi de Montréal" use the same rules than the dead "Mahjong Montréal"?

[Senechal]

We nuked the stupid "West Round" rule that was in place by the previous administration. Since I'm the new club's TD (not president or spokesperson though), I made it happen. Rest is more or less the same. Fully cumulable yakuman, etc... but we should not be viewed as trying to influence that for a global standard, as it is not actively used in a tournament setting. Yet. Gotta plan on running one for late this or start next year, and I might end up switching it to match the world anyways.

We have to contact the French Fed and a couple other people who still have us marked as part of the old club soon.