![The best free riichi mahjong tools in English [2026]](/_next/image?url=%2Fimg%2Fposts%2Friichi-mahjong-tools%2Fmahjong-tools.png&w=3840&q=75&dpl=dpl_BPhvzfqZZEv55VNQtBzbccwfEg5N)
Free mahjong tools in English used to be scarce. Now there are plenty. Knowing which ones are good is the hard part.
I've played for 17 years and spent the last 10 as a pro in Japan. Every section below starts with the free tool built on this site. Under it you'll find the best free resources other people made, because no single site has everything.
What's included:
- Online play: Tenhou and Mahjong Soul, with a rank calculator for each
- Learning: the glossary, a 3-hour video tutorial, the best English strategy book and the wiki
- Practice: tile efficiency, wait reading and full games against the computer
- Table play: a score calculator, a printable cheat sheet and a score tracker
- Decisions: five tools built on Tenhou Houou statistics
- Community: Discord and Facebook groups
Selection criteria:
- Free
- In English
- Best of its genre
Only the best: free and in English.
Whether you're learning to play or aiming to go pro, these tools will speed up your progress.
Still picking a client? Where to play riichi mahjong online compares Mahjong Soul, Riichi City, and Tenhou, including which Tenhou rooms are free.
Online play: Tenhou
Built here: the Tenhou rank calculator. Enter your dan, points, room and placement rates. It shows points per game, games to promote, your stable dan, your demotion odds and where your R is heading.
The best online mahjong server isn't originally English. It's tenhou.net.
tenhou.net
You don't need much Japanese to navigate it. There's an English interface available.
Tenhou in English
I helped translate the official HD version, which Tenhou now titles Desktop 4K: tenhou.net/4
Change language via the dropdown in the top right. Available in English, Chinese, Korean, Russian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Italian, German, and more.
Desktop 4K is free only in the general room (ippan). Joukyuu and tokujou are free on the standard web client and the app. Houou is paid on every client.
Note: names stay in Japanese by design. Keep the glossary open in another tab and you'll learn them fast.
Tenhou is the most competitive online riichi mahjong hub.
The ranking system separates beginners, intermediates and experts. For serious competition, nothing else comes close. Other servers work fine for casual play. Use Tenhou to face stronger and stronger opponents. (Word of warning though.)
Watching a Tenhou replay is free. Saving the replay file takes a paid account. A replay is what a stronger player needs for a game review. (I offer this service.)
Want your numbers next to everyone else's? Nodocchi looks up any Tenhou account's rank history and placement rates. Feed those rates into the rank calculator above.
Non-HD Tenhou English patch
Can't run the HD version? Add an English UI to the standard web client. On Chrome, use Tenhou English UI. On Firefox, use the Tenhou English UI add-on for Firefox, a separate add-on by another author.
This add-on also adds numeric indices to tiles.
Online play: Mahjong Soul
Built here: the Mahjong Soul rank calculator. Enter your placement rates and it simulates hundreds of games, so you see where you'll land and how long the climb takes. It runs the Riichi City ladder too.
Mahjong Soul is the client I point new players to. It has an English interface, apps, and a ranked ladder.
Available in English via web and app stores.
What you get:
- Built-in mahjong tutorial (in English)
- Mobile and desktop support
- Polished 3D interface
- Online and offline play
- Ranking system and events
- Achievements, items, characters
- Shareable game logs
Pro players display a golden badge (paw or P) next to their name.
My account
Mahjong Soul has its own English Discord where Japanese and western players talk. For game log reviews, request one here or submit through my Patreon.
Learn the rules and the words
Built here: the NPMahjong Glossary. It holds 179 terms with Japanese, romaji, English and what each one means in play.
Filter by category (tiles, yaku, gameplay, scoring, etiquette, slang) or search any term. Entries include usage examples where relevant. Read it start to finish once, then come back whenever a term trips you up.
New to the table? Start with what tsumo, ron, and tenpai mean, then the eight terms to learn before your first game.
Every yaku, with its closed and open, is on the riichi yaku list.
Barticle's Japanese Mahjong Glossary is the classic PDF. If you meet an unfamiliar term, it's probably there too.
Video tutorial: zero to hero
For beginners learning rules and yaku, this tutorial is excellent.
Warning: it's 3 hours long.
Worth the time. It's engaging, detailed, and takes you from complete beginner to competent player.
Best strategy book: Riichi Book I
You know the rules. Now you need strategy.
Riichi Book I by Daina Chiba is the answer.
Free, in English, and it covers every fundamental strategic concept. It's the best English-language resource for becoming a solid player.
Download it. Ask me if you have questions about the content.
The wiki
The Japanese Mahjong Wiki moved from arcturus.su to riichi.wiki. Same wiki, new address. Read it, use it, contribute to it.
Practice offline
Tile efficiency trainer
Built here: the tile efficiency trainer deals a random 1- to 3-shanten hand. You pick a discard. Then it shows every discard ranked by tile acceptance, with the widest cut tagged next to yours. Score and streak stay in your browser.
Stuck on a hand from your own games? Type it into the hand analyzer. It ranks every discard, subtracts the tiles you've already seen, and gives you a link to share the hand.
Caveat: Both tools measure pure tile acceptance, not hand value or . For EV training, use this Japanese tool instead. But don't underestimate experience.
Short on time? The daily discard problem is one hand a day, new at midnight Japan time. Pick your discard, then see how many tiles each choice accepts.
Want trainers made by other people too? Riichi mahjong trainers maps what each free trainer scores.
Wait reading trainer
Built here: lost in a hand? The wait quiz will fix that. It deals hands in one suit or across suits. You mark every winning tile, and the answer splits the hand once per wait so you see why each tile wins.
Hard mode goes up to nine-sided waits like this one:
Do ten hands a day. Complex waits stop looking complex within weeks.
Full games against the computer
Sometimes you want quick games at your own pace, with no other humans.
- RiichiMahjong.com runs in your browser against AI opponents. No account and no download: it saves your progress in the browser.
- R Mahjong is a free Android app with strong AI opponents and a training mode with hints.
- Mahjong Soul (above) also offers AI opponents.
GameDesign's Flash mahjong used to sit in this spot. When I started playing, I spent countless hours against this CPU, sometimes all night. Today, 17 years later, I'm a pro in Japan. Offline practice matters.
Score a real table
Built here: the NPMahjong Cheat Sheet. It has both score tables, limit hands, fu counting, every yaku with its closed and open han, and the table calls. It prints on 2 pages, A4 or Letter.
Keep it at hand during play. To check one hand, use the score calculator: enter han and fu, and it shows who pays what.
Want to know where those numbers come from? The scoring guide walks through han, fu, the limit hands and both score tables. Then count fu on random winning hands in the fu quiz, which explains every fu line by line.
No automatic scoring table at home? The score tracker logs , tsumo, draws and . It handles riichi sticks, and at the end, and keeps your game history in the browser.
Decide with Houou data
Built here: five tools that answer one question each, using Tenhou Houou logs.
- Wait win rate: how often your riichi wait wins, by the outs you can see.
- Push or fold: someone declared riichi. Pick your hand, the turn and the tile, and get the chart's call.
- Is the open hand tenpai?: tenpai odds by calls, turn, hand type and tell.
- Dora danger: how often a riichi or an open hand waits on the , compared with a plain tile.
- All Last 4th chance: your odds of finishing 4th by score gap and seat.
The All Last calculator tells you the exact hand you need to finish 1st, 2nd or out of 4th. All of these sit on one page: Riichi by the numbers.
The numbers come from other people's work, and they deserve the credit. Wait win rates come from Path of Houou. The push/fold chart comes from simulations by epsilon69399. The tenpai, dora and All Last numbers come from chienshyong's fork of Euophrys/houou-analysis, run on Tenhou Houou logs from 2016 to 2020. Each tool page credits its source and explains what the numbers count.
Community
I founded the Osamuko Facebook group, now one of the biggest mahjong communities on the platform. Join us for discussion, club promotion, and mutual improvement.
For Discord users, join the server. It has over 5,000 members.
I'm not always active there, but the mods and members are excellent.
Quick summary
- Learn: the glossary, the 3-hour YouTube tutorial, Riichi Book I and the wiki
- Practice: the efficiency trainer, wait quiz and hand analyzer, plus RiichiMahjong.com for full games against AI
- Play: Tenhou (with the English UI) for competition, Mahjong Soul for casual games, and the cheat sheet and score calculator at a real table
- Track: the Tenhou rank calculator, the Mahjong Soul rank calculator and the score tracker
- Decide: wait win rate, push or fold, open hand tenpai, dora danger and All Last, all on one page
Want a pro to look at your own games? Book coaching or a game review. You can also back the site on Patreon, which keeps these English-language resources growing.
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