Mahjong experts here please tell me something

I was playing classic Mahjong 2 player by Nintendo and while I know the basics, I believe many times the game puts restrictions on the ending which doesn’t make any sense to me. For instance, I clearly had a winning draw here but the game said “dekimasen”. Can anyone please explain that to me?? Many thanks in advance

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I honestly never really got the hang of Japanese mahjong (I learnt it Chinese style myself… or maybe Hong Kong, I never can remember). Not even sure HOW you play it two-player. Hastily reading up on it on Wikipedia.

Am I to assume the money stick in the score bar means you went riichi? Because if you didn’t, you don’t have a yaku, and you need one to win.

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It says 0 sticks, though. OP doesn’t have a yaku

Yeah, I did see that, but I wasn’t too clear on exactly what it meant - i.e. does the money stick only appear when you declare riichi, and the 0本 refers to his bank, or something, or is the money stick always there, and the 0本 indicates how many you’ve thrown out.

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To be clear I did not declare riichi stick during that round

You need one of these to win

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I was about to post that, but then it suddenly ocurred to me that if the hand is entirely concealed, this could be a ツモ, which slightly deflates my theory. Think largely I’m having issues telling precisely what’s going on, because I have no idea how the interface works in this game. How does it display open sets for the player, for example?

Semi-experienced Riichi Mahjong player here (I at least know all the rules). In this hand, you do have a Yaku, but you are in Furiten because your opponent discarded a 3 sou into the pond and you didnt Ron it. Basically, if you pass up a chance to go out on a hand, Riichi Mahjong punishes you for it. It’s almost never worth it to pass up a chance to win the hand.

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OK this makes much more sense indeed as I really couldn’t find any sort of remotely logical answer so far. I will keep that in mind and play a few more times and see if the game always follows that pattern. Thanks for the tip and I will update this topic with results

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Ah, I noticed that rule while reading Wikipedia, but didn’t actually think to look over his discards.

Surely not taking his discard only prevents you from taking a later discard, not from winning off the wall?

I just started playing Mahjong and its very fun but I don’t know all the Yaku, sometimes I have a tenpai (ready hand) and I cant win because I have no Yaku, anyway I play Mahjong soul, it is good for beginners because it helps you play and It tells you I you have yaku or not. I highly recommend it, you can also add friends, Add me if you like, my ID is 114644462

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I also recommend this book if anyone here is seriously interested in Riichi Mahjong. It’s not the kind of book you read in one sitting or anything, but it’s great to read segments at a time when your not actually playing. Also check out this tile efficiency trainer, it even warns you of future furiten.

It’s nice to see others interested in Mahjong round’ here! :+1:

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Normally, yes, but this looks like the 2 player Mahjong variant, which I’m 99% sure works differently in this regard.

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Yes I’m still seriously confused how to play Japanese mahjong honestly. I played a computer version a while back, but it never explained anything. I’m just too used to (HK?) my home variant that I play with family.

It’s like triple triad regional rules… :roll_eyes:

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I love Riichi Mahjong, but I ever only played against an AI

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I’m going to mark this one as the solution as I was playing a round using save-states and once I had tenpai with man character sequence 3 + 4 and once I randomly got 5 I won. However when I discard that 5 and the opponent discards 2, I cannot take it, so it looks like it affects the whole sequence and it has to be changed to another one in order to win afterwards. Many thanks for the suggestion as these issues really bugged me forever and could never find any reason for it

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