How do you declare Riichi in Mahjong?

[June-pie]

So after watching the anime Akagi, I got really interested in Mahjong, but I still have no clue how to play. I'm so glad that Yakuza 0 finally gives me a chance to learn. It's absurdly complicated, but I'm grasping it little by little.

That said, how do you riichi? I pored over the instruction and hit every button on the gamepad, can't figure it out.

[Annie T. Mood]

If you've watched Akagi, you oughta know what being in "tenpai" is, which is the state you need to be in first.

If you're in tenpai, you'll have the option to declare riichi if you press Square on a DS4 controller or X on an XBox controller; don't know what it is on keyboard. You're also able to bring up the list with Square/X if you want to do things like declare kong when you've got four identicals in your hand or tsuumo if you denied the prompt but changed your mind & wanted to activate it anyway.

[June-pie]

I've been in tenpai, I never got the chance to declare riichi.

[Annie T. Mood]

Can you recall the hand you had when you wanted to try declaring riichi on?

I'm not a major expert at the game myself, but I have run into situations where I thought I was in tenpai, but apparently the hand I had wasn't actually viable after doing some Googling as to why that may have been, so it didn't allow me to bring up the option to call riichi.

[Rekta]

i was pretty bad and still got all the CP I played advanced my last hand of the game on 0 and came away with 6.4 million got a blessed hand

[June-pie]

Ok, here is an example of a hand I was mystified on:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1499110175

I was on a single wait for the chi. the topmost player played it, but it just passed right on by without letting me declare ron, and I could never declare riichi. I was so confused, I was certain that this hand state counts as tenpai. but I guess I'm just dead wrong????????????????

[Annie T. Mood]

Originally posted by June-pie:

Ok, here is an example of a hand I was mystified on:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1499110175

I was on a single wait for the chi. the topmost player played it, but it just passed right on by without letting me declare ron, and I could never declare riichi. I was so confused, I was certain that this hand state counts as tenpai. but I guess I'm just dead wrong????????????????

I'd like an expert's take on that. I'm pretty curious.

[Lavatein]

You can't declare riichi if you've stolen tiles, which you've done 4 times in that hand.

E: also, chi is when stealing from the player immediately before you. Stealing from the person opposite is pon. Normally you can only steal in order to complete a set of three, but you can call ron to steal and make a double if it will complete your entire hand. To complete a hand though, you need at least 1 yaku, which It doesn't look like you have.

[Laivasse]

EDIT: deleted a reference to Lavatein's unedited post.

As said above, June-pie's problem is that they do not have a winning hand. Simply completing any 4 sets won't do it, particularly if you've used discards. You need to meet at least 1 winning condition ('yaku'). One example of a yaku is a Wind set that matches your seat or the wind in the middle of the table. The wind triplet in the screenshot is West, so it doesn't fulfil this - but if it had been North or East, then the player would have been able to successfully Ron that discarded Red dragon. Speaking of which, a dragon triplet is another easy yaku, however a pair does not qualify.

The other smart way to stay close to 1 yaku is to avoid using any discards - which, as someone else said, allows you to Riichi. Using discards is best avoided most of the time in general. It's usually only advisable if you've got a set of the aforementioned winds or dragons, or if you have another good hand in mind which is still worth 1 yaku regardless of not being concealed. One easier example might be the 'all simples' hand, which is any four sets constructed from numbered tiles 2-8, and doesn't need to be concealed. Many other hands still constitute 1 yaku if they're exposed, but they gain extra value if concealed.

When I was first learning mahjong (via Yakuza 0) I made a longer rundown which tries to cover some of the bigger beginner pitfalls like this:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/638970/discussions/0/1739964947816428243?
I haven't had time to touch it up with some of the new stuff I've learnt, but beginners should still find it useful if they have the time to read it. Also mentioned in that thread is 'furiten', which is the concept of being unable to win from a discarded tile, because you already discarded it yourself earlier.

[June-pie]

Thanks Laivasse, I didn't understand the rule about dragon and wind tiles being necessary to complete an unconcealed hand, I just thought those were extra valuable tiles that boost up your hand. I'm actually winning hands more consistently rather then blathering around wondering why I won at some times and lost at others.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1499288728

Though I had a question about this one. It's obvious an unconcealed hand with no wind or dragon tiles, but I got a sick haneman off it, and I don't know why. Is it because of the Kan? or because of the 4 dora?

[Laivasse]

All Triplets! It's a specific hand worth 2 han (exposed), quite a nice exposed one to go for with discards, if you can. Although it is indeed the dora that is giving you all the extra value, from that 4 bamboo Kan.

I'm can't remember how much more, if anything, All Triplets is worth if you keep it concealed. It's probably very tough to get. There's another concealed hand which people tend to arrive at instead, which is Three Concealed Triplets - you only need to get 3 triplets as opposed to 4, but ofc you have to deal with the extra limitation of concealment. As for the dragons and the wind, there's nothing essential about trying to get them in every hand, they're just the easiest way to 1 yaku. Any listed hand in the in game booklet will get you there also.

There's a ton of basic stuff I still don't know about the game tbh, still feeling my way in the dark (albeit with the in-game list of hands). In fact your screenshot raises some questions in my head, because I thought all triplets wasn't possible if you Kan one of them. I had the same hand the other day but wasn't able to win with it, and I assumed it was because I had 1 Kan. Evidently that's not a problem, so I must have missed something else there.

[June-pie]

Do you know what the changeable rules are? I know that quarter game to half game is a longer game. I imagine the 2 han limit rule refers to the limit for a only being able to ron with a good enough hand. The k-word I can't remember off the top of my head and don't want to start up the game just to check. And red dora, I've no clue what that is.

Thanks again Laivasse.

[Laivasse]

Red dora's like a free dora bonus if you manage to complete a hand with any of the red 5s in there. That rule is on by default in the ranking mode, so you'll start to see the red doras dropping there if you play that. It can be an easy way to inflate the value of your hand (but also an easy way to lose harder on the money tables, if the AI Rons off you with red 5s in their hand).

2 han limit is like you say - just having 1 yaku doesn't cut it any more, you need even more. Sounds very difficult and I haven't tried it (although your all triplets hand would have qualified).

As for the game lengths that's just something that's still over my head, I still don't really have a clear idea of how long a round goes on or what brings it to an end.

[June-pie]

I had 2 han limit on by default, doesn't seem to work as I've had plenty of hands that only had 1 han.

I'm still struggling against the beginner table, Just getting into tenpai seems impossible sometimes, and I feel stupid cause there probably was a way to turn a garbage hand into a good, playable hand and I just didn't see it.

It's an extremely addicting, if very complex game. Too bad noone in America plays it.

[Fukuyasu]

Originally posted by Laivasse:

.

As for the game lengths that's just something that's still over my head, I still don't really have a clear idea of how long a round goes on or what brings it to an end.

A round is when all players become dealer twice. Yakuza 0's default rule is half round though. So each player will become dealer once before the game ends.

A player retain his dealer status if he wins the current hand. If another player aside from the dealer wins, then the player to the right of the dealer becoes the next dealer.

In the case of a draw, where no one wins the hand, the dealer will retain his dealer status if he's in tenpai.

PS : A dealer is always the player who's the east wind.

[Laivasse]

Originally posted by Fukuyasu:

Originally posted by Laivasse:

.

As for the game lengths that's just something that's still over my head, I still don't really have a clear idea of how long a round goes on or what brings it to an end.

A round is when all players become dealer twice. Yakuza 0's default rule is half round though. So each player will become dealer once before the game ends.

A player retain his dealer status if he wins the current hand. If another player aside from the dealer wins, then the player to the right of the dealer becoes the next dealer.

In the case of a draw, where no one wins the hand, the dealer will retain his dealer status if he's in tenpai.

PS : A dealer is always the player who's the east wind.

Thanks, at least now I don't have to keep wondering how long I have to catch up on points.