A (non)Comprehensive Guide to Scoring (and an introduction to figuring out your win conditions)

[crisp stream]

Scoring in Mahjong can be very complicated, and honestly you don't really need to know much past the very basics unless you're at an intermediate to high level . You don't really need to consider the intricacies of scoring most of the time, but this becomes vitally important during all last when trying to identify your (and your opponents') win conditions. In this guide, I hope to introduce to you the various ways you can gain points during the game, and I'd like to show a few case studies for when knowing these things actually matter.

(pic unrelated)

Part 1 - Points

1. Winning a Hand

Just win hands

• thunderxiv

As my good friend thunderxiv wrote in his award winning book, winning hands is going to be your main source of points. If you're reading this, I hope that that you know how to count han since I will not be going over this in the guide . Here's a quick rule of thumb you can use to get the approximate amount of points you'll win (dealer/non dealer):

  Han | Dealer | Non Dealer
------+--------+-----------
   1  |  1500  |   1000
   2  |  3000  |   2000
   3  |  6000  |   4000
  4-5 | 12000  |   8000
  6-7 | 18000  |  12000

-# Notice how that dealer earns 1.5 of non dealer, and non dealer starts at 1k and points double every han (up until 5)

If there's anything that you take away from this guide, I hope you can at least remember this rule of thumb.

--

Scoring in Mahjong is much more complicated than this unfortunately. The actual formula can be found on the riichi wiki, but the two most important factors are han and fu.

https://riichi.wiki/Japanese_mahjong_scoring_rules

‎

1.1 Fu

Calculating fu is confusing at a first glance.... and at a second, and at a third, ... Well, there's no getting around it! Here's how I think about it in 3 (not so) easy steps:

1. Start with base 20 fu
2. How did you win?

• +10 fu if you ron while having a closed hand
• +2 fu if you tsumo
• +0 fu if you ron on an open hand

3. What was your wait like?

• +2 fu if your wait is bad (tanki/penchan/kanchan)
• +0 fu if your wait is shanpon, but you score fu based on the triplet (section 4). ron is considered an open triplet, tsumo is considered a closed triplet

4. Add some fu from triplets!

• Triplets are base 2 fu
• x2 if it's closed
• x2 if it's terminal or honor
• x4 if it's a kan

Some other caveats:

• Pinfu Tsumo does not get any fu from tsumo
• Open Pinfu (i.e. open 20 han) is rounded up to 30 fu
• Chiitoi (7 pairs) is 25 fu
• +2 fu if your pair is yakuhai (seat/round wind, dragon)

One important thing to note is that during step 3, you must separate your wait in such a way that it'd give you the most points. For example, consider the shape and you tsumo on . If the rest of your hand had a pinfu shape (i.e. like ), then you'd score this as 2 han 20 fu (since you take your wait to be ). If it wasn't, you'd most likely score it as a tanki wait (since you'd take your wait to be ) for +2 fu.

‎

1.2 Honba

Honba is another way of gaining more points per round-to be more specific, you gain an extra 300 points per honba count. In Mahjong Soul, you can find it in the top left of the screen next to the . For example, if you win a 1 han 30 fu hand with 3 honbas, you get 1900 points instead! Although not usually important, this can affect the your win condition in all last, so make sure to keep it in mind!

The honba increases by 1 for every round the the dealer doesn't win. For example, if there's an ryuukyoku (exhaustive draw), then the honba increases by 1 even if the dealer isn't in tenpai.

1.3 Riichi Stick

When someone riichi's, they put a stick into the pot so whoever wins the hand gains an extra 1000. If there's a draw, then the stick stays in the pot until the next person wins a hand. One thing to note is that if you ron someone on the same turn that they declare riichi, you don't take their 1000 stick. This is important since gaining an extra 1000 stick can be a deciding factor in the point threshold that you need to hit.

1.4 Scoring

To actually score a hand, you can refer to one of the 2 attached charts to this message (don't forget to include honba!). I personally prefer using the table, but thinking about how different scores relates to each other is easier to memorize. Note that a x2 increase in fu is equivalent to a +1 increase in han, and vice versa. Hence, if you're trying to memorize score charts, then it's easier to just memorize 25/30/40 fu and the derive the rest from there.

‎

2. Ryuukyoku (Exhaustive Draw)

Ryuukyoku (rkk) is another way you can get points. This happens when there's no tiles left to draw, but no one has declared a win yet. When this happens, 1 is added to the honba count even if the dealer is not in tenpai. If there's 1 person in tenpai, then everyone pays that person 1000 points. If there's 2 people in tenpai, then each player pays one of the two 1500 points. If there's 3 people in tenpai, then the last person pays everyone 1000 points. Otherwise, no point exchanges will happen.

‎

Part 2 - Win Conditions

dn

• I don't even know why this is here

Understanding your (and your opponents') win conditions are important when jockeying for placements. Win conditions often come in the form of "need XX points to pass XX," but they can come in a variety forms. Hence, make sure to be aware of what you need! In this guide, we will focus on the win condition of needing XX points to pass XX.

When looking at this, there's 3 important scoring thresholds that you'll need to consider:

1. The minimum requirements for a direct hit ron (find the min score that gives > gap / 2)
2. The minimum requirements for a non direct hit ron (find the min score that gives > gap)
3. The minimum requirements for a tsumo (find the min score that gives score + their payment to you > gap)

Example 1

Consider this position here. As you can see, we are fighting kami for third as we'd need a direct hit haneman on toimen to get second. Thus, what would our win condition be?

||Our win condition is: "we need to win least 1300 points to pass kami" (since we win tie).||

Luckily, this isn't the worst to actually hit, as it's only 1300 points! Thus, thinking about what I said earlier, what are the 3 important score thresholds we need to hit?

1. ||Direct hit ron: 1 han 30 fu | 1000 > 1300 / 2 = 650||
2. ||Non-Direct hit ron: 1 han 40 fu or 2 han 20 fu | 1300 >(=) 1300||
3. ||Tsumo: 1 han 30 fu | ||
   -# ||yes I know 2 20 is only achievable by tsumo, this is just here to illustrate that anything 2 han or above should win||

||Effectively, this means that we just need to win a closed 1 han hand (good!), open 2 han hand (good!), or have a 1 han open good wait hand (not as good). Other ways of achieving this would be being tenpai at rkk, or having someone riiching and us winning, but these are out of our control so they are not that good to hope for. ||

||Thus, in these conditions I'd ideally like to try and keep my hand closed, and if I draw dora, then I can aggressively try to go for a tanyao. Riichi anything is also good, and you'd also want to be tenpai at rkk. Since our options are so diverse, and our hand isn't that bad, I'm happy to wait and hold off calling until I see what the wall wants us to do.||

Example 2

Consider this position here. As you can see, we are fighting kami for second as we'd need a direct hit haneman on toimen to get first. Thus, what would our win condition be?

||Our win condition is: "we need to win more than 700 points to pass kami" (since they win tie).||

||Luckily, this isn't the worst to hit either, since any win will bring us above kami! Hence, we should ideally try aiming to complete a fast hand to deny anyone else from winning and leaving us in third :c||

Example 3

Consider this position here. What would our win condition be?

||Since there is 1 riichi stick on the board, then we need to win 6600 points to pass kami and 7600 points to pass shimo.||

What are the 3 important scoring thresholds we need to hit?

1. ||Direct hit ron: 3 han 30 fu | 3900 > 6600 / 2 (kami), 3900 > 7600 / 2 (shimo)||
2. ||Non-Direct hit ron: 4 han 30 fu | 7700 > 6600,7600||
3. ||Tsumo: 3 han 40 fu | 5200 + 2600 > 6600, this will not pass shimo, but 4 han 30 will||

||Luckily, we already have 3 han in the bag! Double nan and aka 5s gives us enough to pass shimo or kami if we direct hit them. In addition, we also accept 3m dora which can give us 4 han 30 fu. If we draw that, we can win the entire round! Thus, I'm happy to start calling certain shapes and atozuke game.||

Example 4

Consider the position here. What would our win condition be?