Riichi Mahjong in 10 Minutes: The Rules You Must Know
2026-11-07 · 8 min read · by OpenMahjong Team
The skeleton
Four players, 136 tiles (no flowers). Each player starts with 13 tiles and takes turns drawing one and discarding one. You win by completing a hand of four sets (chows, pungs or kongs) plus one pair — but only if the hand also contains at least one yaku, a defined scoring pattern.
That yaku requirement is the variant's spine. Without one, fast trivial wins would dominate; with one, you commit to a direction early and steer every draw toward it.
The yaku you'll actually use
Start with five: riichi (declare when your closed hand is tenpai), tanyao (all simples — no 1s, 9s or honors), yakuhai (a dragon pung or seat/round wind pung), pinfu (a valueless-looking run hand, the most common 'quiet' yaku), and menzen tsumo (win on self-draw while closed).
Between these five, a beginner can reach legal wins in most games. The full yaku list is long, but nobody memorizes it in one sitting.
Riichi, dora and the 1,000-point bet
When your closed hand is one tile from winning, you may declare riichi: announce it, flip a 1,000-point stick onto the table, and your discards are locked. In exchange you gain a yaku, one bonus dora immediately, and more hidden dora chances as kongs happen.
Dora are bonus tiles indicated by revealed marker tiles — holding a dora adds han (value) to any winning hand, but dora alone never satisfies the yaku requirement.
Furiten: the trap beginners hit first
If the tile you're waiting on is visible in your own discard pond, you are furiten — you cannot win off anyone's discard until the state clears. Passing on a winning tile after declaring riichi triggers it permanently for that hand.
This is the number-one "why didn't I win?!" moment at beginner tables. Track your own pond, not just your hand.
Defense is half the game
You lose points by dealing into others' hands, so reading discards matters as much as building yours. Beginners should internalize one habit: when an opponent declares riichi, discard tiles they cannot use — middle-of-pond tiles, honors already passed, tiles adjacent to their recent discards.
That's genuinely most of riichi at entry level. Play ten games on Mahjong Soul with this guide open, and the rest of the vocabulary will attach itself to real situations.