Types of mahjong: six games that aren't riichi
Chinese Official, Hong Kong, Sichuan, Taiwanese, American, and Singapore mahjong share the tiles and little else. Here's one strange rule from each, with its source, and what it tells a riichi player.
攻略・FAQ
Guides & FAQs
Riichi mahjong guides from a pro in Japan: furiten, dora, tenpai, suji, sanma, the glossary, and the free tools that teach you the rules.
The American mahjong card changes every year
The National Mah Jongg League mails out a new card every spring, and only the hands printed on it win. Here's how the card, its jokers, and the Charleston work, seen from a riichi table.
Mahjong means sparrow and it's younger than the telegraph
Mahjong's name comes from máquè, the Chinese word for sparrow, and the game took shape in the second half of the 19th century, decades after the first commercial telegraph line. The sources all put it in the 1800s, and none of them back the Confucius story.
Can't read the tiles yet? Turn on indexed tiles
Indexed tiles print the number or letter in the corner of every tile you read here, so you can follow a hand before you know the faces. The same Display menu holds the Paper reading mode, an Auto theme, and eight tile sets, six of them new.
Who invented riichi? Nobody knows. A newspaper wrote it down
Riichi has no inventor anyone can name: it began as a first-discard rule said to come from northeast China. A 1952 newspaper rulebook set down riichi as it's played today, and dora, red fives, ura dora, and ippatsu grew up around it.
Automatic mahjong tables don't shuffle well
The tile you cut keeps coming back, and it isn't the flow. Automatic tables stack the wall in the order tiles fall into the drum. Here's the bias, what Maru-Jan says to do about it, and why the honest label is plausible, unmeasured.
How to play mahjong in Osaka: a visitor's parlor guide
Osaka has dozens of mahjong parlors and almost nothing written about them in English. Here's where a visitor can sit down without gambling, how Kansai three-player mahjong works, and what to say at the door.
Mahjong trainer: efficiency, scoring, waits, and defense
A mahjong efficiency trainer, a riichi scoring trainer, and chinitsu wait drills. What each one grades.
Inside a Japanese mahjong parlor: an ex-staffer's guide
I worked the floor of an Osaka mahjong parlor as a member. Here's what the job looks like from behind the counter, how a jansou makes money on every game, and why the smart way to play is no-rate.
One-third rule: a mahjong study plan you'll keep
Split your mahjong study time in three. Drills, play plus a review of every log, and one weak area for the month. A chess grandmaster's rule, translated to riichi, with a 3-hour and a 6-hour weekly plan.
Sanma: 3-player riichi mahjong rules, scoring, and strategy
Three players, 108 tiles, and no chii. On Tenhou and Mahjong Soul, North is a dora you set aside and a tsumo pays less than a ron. The two pay honba differently.
Suji in mahjong: safe tiles, kabe, genbutsu, and suji traps
A suji tile can't deal into a two-sided wait. A kanchan, penchan, tanki, or shanpon still can. How to read suji, kabe, and genbutsu, and where the traps sit.
Shuhari: which mahjong rules to obey, break, and leave
Riichi every tenpai, fold every riichi, call nothing without a yaku. Those rules are right at one rank and wrong two ranks later. Here's the rule-by-rule ladder, with the number that says when you've earned the exception.
Kansousen: how pros review mahjong games in 15 minutes
Shogi pros replay the game they lost before they leave the board. Mahjong players close the app and queue again. Here's a 15-minute kansousen routine for one hanchan a day, with two hands, five whys, and Mortal opened last.
Mahjong dora: indicator, ura dora, red fives, and kan dora
Dora are bonus tiles worth 1 han each, not a yaku. How to read the indicator, when ura and kan dora count, and how many red fives each ruleset plays.
Seven everyday Japanese words that came from mahjong
Japanese people say テンパる, リーチ, and チョンボ every day without touching a tile. Here are seven words that walked out of the mahjong parlor into ordinary Japanese, what each meant at the table, and what it means now.
Every mahjong hand has two invisible han
A riichi pinfu ron pays 2,000 because the scoring formula adds two han nobody announces. Here's where that pair of doubles came from, the full 30-fu column worked by hand, and why the limit hands have the names they do.
Tenpai in mahjong: what it means, waits, and noten payments
Tenpai means your hand is one tile from a win. How to read and count your wait, what tenpai pays when the wall runs out, and when a tenpai hand still counts as noten.
Furiten in mahjong: why you can't ron, and the three kinds
Furiten blocks ron once you've discarded a winning tile, after you pass a win, or for the rest of the hand in riichi. Tsumo still wins.
China banned mahjong for 36 years and now wants the Olympics
The country that invented mahjong banned it with gambling in 1949 and made it legal again in 1985. Thirty years later it had a federation in Lausanne, a seat beside chess at the mind sports table, and a format built to remove luck. Here's the story, and what it means for riichi.
Riichi mahjong terms: what tsumo, ron, and tenpai mean
Tsumo, ron, and tenpai in a line each, the eight terms to learn first, and a searchable glossary of 216 riichi mahjong terms.
Mahjong table size, dimensions and buying guide [2026]
From DIY builds to $1,000+ automatic shufflers, mahjong tables range wildly in price and functionality. Before you buy, understand the options. I'll cover every type with their ideal use cases, dimensions, pros, and cons so you pick the right one for your situation.
The best free riichi mahjong tools in English [2026]
Free riichi mahjong tools in English, most of them built here. I've played for 17 years and spent the last 10 as a pro in Japan. Here are the calculators, trainers and stats tools on this site, and the best free resources other people made. No affiliates, no fluff.
What's a professional mahjong player and how can you be one?
Professional mahjong players pay hundreds to thousands of dollars yearly to keep their title. Most of them don't make a living from the game. So why do they do it? Here's an insider's look at what being a pro means and how you can become one if you're serious.
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