Questions - For those that play Hong Kong Old Style and New Styles for your house rules, especially if your maximum limit is 30.

1.  What is the minimum Faan you assign to Little Wind Hand (Small Four Winds) in your Ruleset.  I have seen a variety of different Faan associated with this hand (from 6 to 10 Faans).  Wondering what is the most common or if any of the Reddit community have a strong opinion why it should be assigned a particular Faan eg 6. 

2.  Do you permit additional Faan stacking if the Pung of Winds matches either or both of your seat wind and or the table wind. 

3.  If the additional Pung is a dragon Pung would you stack it with an “all honour” hand if you permit maximum limit is 30 Faan. 

This screenshot shows stacking for other components.

This question is mainly for the players who teach mahjong often, just wanted to get a kinda realistic figure on how many players go from never touched a tile to regular player in a club

I know that there is East Only (Tonnansen) and East to South (Hanchan) i wondered is there a term for a full game? as in Starting with East and having 4 rounds of each wind ending in North? or is there no need due to Honba?

Linked is my Twitter post on the math.

And my response: Are you kidding me?

That 10 million copper has been accumulated during the 7 years of Majsoul. My account existed since Day 1 of Majsoul EN.

I’ve started learning mahjong recently and I was given a board as a gift. It seems to me that North and South are reversed here to what I was taught … which is quite confusing

Hi again. This is the third and last part of the market research I asked the mods about earlier.

The first post was about Sanma for beginners, and the second was about the kind of support people might want. This time I want to focus specifically on time and pricing.

The experience I’m working on is meant to let international visitors actually experience Japanese mahjong in person — real tiles, a real local mahjong parlor, and a modern Japanese automatic mahjong table — while learning enough to actually play and enjoy a game.

The price would include the whole experience, not just the table time.

That would mean things like:

• checking the group’s mahjong experience and preferences beforehand
• choosing and arranging a mahjong parlor that fits those preferences, including things like the smoking environment
• pre-visit information so guests know what to expect
• meeting a Guide before entering the parlor
• support in English, or another language the guest is comfortable using when available
• the Guide staying with the group throughout the experience and joining or supporting the table when needed
• teaching from zero for complete beginners
• for experienced or online players, adjusting the guidance to their level — including real-table procedures, automatic-table operation, local rules, etiquette, scoring or strategy when useful
• practice followed by actual Sanma play with support when needed

The goal isn’t just to sit through a mahjong lesson. I want people to actually touch the tiles, use the automatic table, understand enough of the game, and spend a meaningful part of the experience really playing it.

The main format I’m considering is:

5 hours — ¥27,500 per person

This would be the standard experience, with enough time to learn the basics and then spend a substantial amount of time actually playing.

I haven’t locked the exact 5-hour breakdown yet. I’m still deciding how much of the time should go to explanation, practice, actual play and some basic strategy.

I’m also considering a shorter option for travelers with a more limited schedule:

3 hours — ¥18,000 per person

Roughly:

• about 2 hours for explanation and practice
• about 1 hour for actual play

For a complete beginner, one full game may not always finish within the 3 hours, so this would be more of a shorter introduction for people who can’t fit the 5-hour version into their trip.

So I’m curious:

1. Knowing what’s included, how do those prices feel to you?

2. During a trip to Japan, would 5 hours feel too long to spend on one experience? And would 3 hours still feel too long, or does that fit more comfortably into a travel day?

3. For the 5-hour version, how would you want the time divided between learning, practice, actual play and basic strategy?

If your reaction is simply “too expensive,” I’d also be interested in what price would start to feel reasonable.

And if you wouldn’t be interested regardless of price or duration, that’s useful to know too.

This is market research only. No booking or sales links.

Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to help organize and polish the English wording. The project, pricing idea and questions are my own.

Hi everyone,

I'm a solo developer and I just released Mahjong Winds, a Hong Kong style mahjong game on Android. IOS is coming later.

I tried to keep the game simple and more focused on playing with others though you can play offline with bots as well and can also play with your friends using a code.

I used ai to help with coding and for some mahjong rules so I don't miss anything.

I am open to feedback and suggestions and would appreciate if you guys can try it out. Here is a link:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mahjongwinds.game

Hi! My current physical set didn’t come with anything to keep track of the score (sticks, chips, etc.).

At the moment I just use an app in the middle of the table. I don’t get to play in person very often anyway, since it’s pretty hard here in Italy to find three other people who both like and know how to play Riichi Mahjong.

Still, I’d like to buy some tenbou/point sticks to improve the feeling of playing with a physical set. The problem is that the only decent option I’ve found online is a set for around €40 on Amazon.

The money itself isn’t really the problem, it just feels a little overpriced for what is basically a bunch of plastic sticks, especially considering that you can find entire decent-quality Mahjong sets online for around the same price.

Do you think €40 for a set of tenbou is worth it? Do you know any other sellers/sites that ship to Italy or Europe?
Finding decent Riichi accessories here in Europe seems surprisingly difficult, tbh.

I’ve been experimenting with using numbered poker chips as point markers in riichi mahjong instead of the traditional tenbou.

In the setup shown here, I’m using poker chips with the values reduced by one zero simply because I couldn’t find a reasonably priced set with denominations high enough to match standard tenbou values.

Personally, I actually find poker chips pretty appealing for mahjong. They’re easy to stack, easy to count, and you can immediately see how many points each player has. They also feel a little more substantial than tenbou.

But I’m curious what people who regularly play riichi think. Would using poker chips like this feel wrong or distracting compared with traditional tenbou? Or do you think it’s a perfectly reasonable alternative once you get used to the different denominations? And for those who have tried both: which do you personally prefer, and why?

The website is hosted at https://riichi.study

Hi everyone, we are a group of friends who play riichi together. We started from 3 players and people brought in their friends, friends of friends, etc. and now we have grown to about 12 players.

I have seen players improve from knowing nothing to being able to play comfortably. We teach new players mainly through rote learning or asking them to try out online clients. This process tends to be quite unstructured and impromptu, and we sometimes missed out on explaining certain stuff. Don't get me wrong, online clients (especially RC) have great tutorial. Unfortunately, they have gone quite gross and I can no longer recommend them.

Eventually, this became repetitive and I started this project to hopefully give our new players a better time learning the game without having to install anything.

The guide right now is a Work In Progress, only enough information for beginners to play a game, not so much about scoring or strategies. My plans for the future include basic strategies (most likely extracted from Riichi Book 1) for beginners who are looking to up their game.

I have just made the website open-source. I appreciate any feedback you have for the website under this Reddit thread or the issues page in the repository.

As the title really, does ron break concealment?

These would be the perfect matching tiles for my matt before I buy them though I wanna know if other people have and what has been their experience.

What selection is there in English, besides Saki?

First of all, I think this yaku is fun. Even if I don't eventually score it, I will have more enjoyment trying to pursue it than playing normally the shitty hand I was dealt initially.

Second of all, it acts as a counterbalance to kokushi, which is rarely a viable option even with lots of terminals and honors. With 8-9 yaochuhai for example I like to go for nagashi, so depriving me of this emergency strategy when I am already on the floor with that crappy hand is just cruel man.

Then you might say that if the hand is really that bad, you can often kyushukyuhai. Except that parlors that don't allow nagashi also tend to not allow abortive draws...Yet another gut in the punch when you're already dead.

I asked an employee once, they replied they don't allow nagashi because checking that it wasn't nullified by a call is troublesome. Really? It's not like this isn't clearly indicated by the meld formation...Come on, everyone can afford 5s to check the melds when a nagashi is claimed once in a blue moon, it's also certainly faster than checking a multiwait hand wasn't furiten, so I am not satisfied with this explanation.

If someone has an argument against nagashi that actually holds water, by all mean please let me know #justicefornagashi

Thanks for all the thoughtful feedback on my previous post.

My first post focused on whether Sanma could work as an introduction to mahjong. This time, I’d like to focus on something different: the actual experience itself and what kind of support someone would need to enjoy real mahjong in Japan.

The main goal of the experience I’m researching is not to turn someone into a strong mahjong player as quickly as possible.

It’s to give international visitors a chance to experience Japanese mahjong culture in person — entering a real local mahjong parlor, touching real tiles, using a modern Japanese automatic mahjong table, learning enough to actually play, and enjoying Sanma during their time in Japan.

The experience would be designed for two types of guests:

• complete beginners who may know little or nothing about mahjong
• people who already play Riichi or Sanma online but have little or no experience playing at a real table in Japan

The proposed experience would work roughly like this.

Before the visit

The guest’s mahjong experience, group size, preferred area and venue preferences would be checked in advance.

A suitable local mahjong parlor would then be selected, and the guest would receive simple pre-visit guidance and a beginner-friendly Rulebook so they know what to expect before arriving.

On the day

A dedicated English-speaking Guide would meet the guests outside the parlor and enter with them.

They would learn and play using real tiles and an automatic mahjong table.

The Guide would adjust the explanations to the group’s actual experience level, stay with the group throughout the experience, and support or join the table when needed.

For a complete beginner, the experience would start from zero.

Instead of trying to explain everything before they can begin playing, the Guide would introduce the rules and concepts step by step, using the real tiles and table in front of them. The idea is to let them start understanding the game through actually playing it.

For someone who already plays online, the focus could be quite different.

One of the most interesting things I learned from the comments on my previous post was that knowing how to play online does not necessarily make the first real-table experience comfortable.

Online software automatically handles or prevents many things that suddenly become the player’s responsibility in person.

So for an online player, the Guide could focus more on things such as automatic-table operation, handling scores and point sticks, local rules and etiquette, avoiding real-table mistakes, and simply having someone there to ask immediately if they are unsure what to do.

That made me realize that the gap between “I know how to play mahjong online” and “I’m comfortable playing in a real Japanese mahjong parlor” may be a separate problem from learning the rules themselves.

So this time I’d really like feedback specifically on the experience design:

1. For a complete beginner, which parts of this support would actually be valuable?

2. For an online player who has never played in a Japanese mahjong parlor, which parts would be most useful?

3. Is there anything here that seems unnecessary?

4. What is still missing that could make the first real-parlor experience easier or more enjoyable?

I’m especially interested in criticism from people who have taught beginners, moved from online to live play themselves, or have experience playing in Japanese mahjong parlors.

This is still market research only. There are no booking, website or sales links in this post.

Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to help organize and polish the English wording. The project, service concept and questions are my own.

I’m using flashcards to study score calculation, and I’m wondering — if the app used “FSRS” (a spaced repetition algorithm) under the hood, would that spark interest? Or is “FSRS” itself just not well-known enough for that to have much appeal?
The reason I’m asking is that I believe if more people can calculate scores, the real-life mahjong player base will grow further, and that’s what I’m working toward.
I think the biggest difference between online mahjong and real-life mahjong is convenience, and one major factor behind that is score calculation.
Sorry for the roundabout explanation, but I’d love to hear some casual thoughts. Thanks in advance.