Table Flow and Turn Structure

3.1 Match Structure: Hanchan and Tonpuusen

A standard riichi mahjong match is called a hanchan (半荘, literally "half-game"). A hanchan consists of a minimum of eight hands, divided into two wind rounds: the East round (東場, tonba) and the South round (南場, nanba). Each wind round contains four hands—one for each player serving as dealer. The less common tonpuusen (東風戦, "East-wind match") consists of only the East round (minimum four hands) and is faster but provides fewer opportunities for comeback.

At the start of the match, players are assigned seat positions and initial wind assignments. The player in the East seat (東家, toncha) is the dealer (親, oya) for the first hand. After each hand, the dealer position rotates counter-clockwise (from the perspective of looking down at the table), unless the current dealer wins the hand or is tenpai at a draw, in which case the dealer repeats (連荘, renchan). This dealer-repeat mechanic is strategically significant: the dealer receives 50% more points when winning, making consecutive dealer wins potentially devastating for the other players.

3.2 Seating and Wind Assignments

The four players sit at fixed positions around a square table. Each player is assigned a seat wind (自風, jikaze) that changes with each hand. In the first hand of the East round (East 1, or 東1局), the four seat winds are distributed as follows, going counter-clockwise from the dealer: East (dealer), South, West, North. After the dealer rotates, the seat winds shift accordingly.

The round wind (場風, bakaze) is shared by all players and corresponds to the current round: East wind during the East round, South wind during the South round. Both the round wind and seat wind matter for yaku purposes: a triplet of tiles matching either your seat wind or the round wind counts as a yakuhai (役牌). If both coincidentally match (for example, the East player during the East round holds a triplet of East), both count, giving double wind (ダブ東, dabuton) worth two han.

3.3 Dealing (配牌, Haipai)

At the start of each hand, the wall of 136 tiles is formed into a square. After rolling dice to determine the break point, tiles are dealt to each player: the dealer receives 14 tiles and each non-dealer receives 13 tiles. The dealer's extra tile means they begin their first turn already having drawn—they simply discard to start play. The last 14 tiles of the wall (7 stacks of 2) are set aside as the dead wall (王牌, wanpai), from which kan replacement draws and dora indicators come. The top tile of the third stack from the end of the dead wall is flipped face-up as the dora indicator (ドラ表示牌).

3.4 Turn Flow Within a Hand

After the deal, play proceeds in counter-clockwise order. Each turn follows this basic pattern:

When a tile is discarded, other players have a brief opportunity to call that tile. Call priority follows a strict hierarchy: ron (win claim) takes absolute priority. Pon and kan take priority over chi. Chi can only be called by the player to the discarder's right (the next player in turn order). These call mechanics are covered in full in Module 05.

3.5 Discard Pool (河, Kawa)

Each player's discards are placed face-up in front of them in rows, typically six tiles per row, in the order they were discarded. This discard pool is public information and is critically important for defense and hand-reading. The arrangement of discards preserves the order of discarding, which reveals information about the player's hand development. A tile discarded sideways (横向き) indicates that the player declared riichi on that turn. The discard pool is the primary source of information for reading opponents' hands (Module 20) and for determining safe tiles during defense (Module 17).

3.6 The Wall and Dead Wall

The live wall (山, yama) is drawn from sequentially. When the wall is depleted to the point where only the dead wall remains (14 tiles), the hand ends in an exhaustive draw (流局, ryuukyoku) if no one has won. After an exhaustive draw, players who are tenpai (ready to win) receive points from players who are not tenpai. This tenpai/noten payment system creates an incentive to reach tenpai even when winning seems unlikely.

The dead wall (王牌, wanpai) always maintains 14 tiles. It contains the dora indicators (up to 5, revealed as kans occur) and provides replacement draws after kan declarations. The dead wall is not drawn from during normal play.

3.7 Round Progression and Renchan

After each hand resolves (either by a win or a draw), the game checks whether the dealer retains their position:

The honba counter (本場) tracks consecutive hands without a dealer rotation (or consecutive draws, depending on ruleset). Each honba adds 300 points to the payment for a winning hand (100 per player for tsumo). This makes winning increasingly lucrative during long renchan streaks, which is why a dealer on a winning streak can be extremely dangerous.

3.8 End-of-Match Conditions

A hanchan typically ends after the completion of the South round (南場). However, special conditions can extend or shorten the game:

Enchousen (延長戦): If no player has 30,000 or more points at the end of the South round, some rulesets allow the game to continue into a West round. This is ruleset-dependent.

Tobi (飛び/トビ): If a player's score drops below zero, the game may end immediately. This "bankruptcy" rule applies in most online platforms but may be handled differently in some tournament settings.

Agari-yame (和了止め): If the dealer wins the final hand of the South round and is in first place, they may choose to end the game rather than continuing with renchan. This is optional and not available in all rulesets.

3.9 Beginner's First Hand — Turn Flow in Practice

To make turn flow tangible, walk through the first hand of a beginner's game. The dice are rolled, the wall is broken, and tiles are dealt. You receive 13 tiles (you are South seat, a non-dealer). The dora indicator is flipped — it shows 4p, meaning 5p is dora. You scan your hand for any 5p tiles and find one: a small but meaningful bonus if you can include it in your winning hand.

The dealer (East) discards first, placing a 3z (West wind) face-up in their discard area. No one calls. Play passes counter-clockwise to you (South). You draw from the wall, receiving a 2m. You evaluate your hand, find that 9s is isolated with no connections, and discard it. No one calls. Play passes to West, who draws and discards. Then North draws and discards. This completes the first full cycle.

On the third cycle, North discards a 5z (haku). You hold two copies of 5z in your hand. You must decide: call pon (claiming the haku to form an open triplet, guaranteeing yakuhai yaku) or pass (keeping your hand closed for potential riichi/pinfu). This decision — seemingly simple — involves weighing speed against value, a tradeoff that pervades all of mahjong strategy. For a beginner, calling pon here is often correct: it guarantees yaku, speeds up the hand, and lets you focus on completing the remaining groups. As your skill develops, you will learn situations where passing is better.

3.10 Understanding Renchan Through Example

Consider a game where the dealer wins East 1 with a riichi tsumo hand worth 3,900 points (each non-dealer pays 1,300). Because the dealer won, renchan activates: the same player remains dealer for the next hand, now called "East 1, 1-honba" (東1局1本場). The honba counter is now 1, meaning the next winning hand pays an additional 300 points (100 per player for tsumo). If the dealer wins again, we move to "East 1, 2-honba," and so on.

Renchan is one of the most impactful dynamics in riichi mahjong. Tada Arata (多田あらた), a professional player and commentator, has noted in M-League commentary that long dealer streaks (3+ consecutive wins) are among the most decisive moments in competitive matches. The dealer receives 50% more points than a non-dealer for equivalent hands, so each consecutive dealer win compounds the advantage. A dealer who wins three consecutive hands at 2,000-4,000 points each can accumulate 10,000+ points of lead, enough to shift placements dramatically.

From a non-dealer's perspective, stopping the dealer's renchan becomes a priority. Even a cheap non-dealer win (1,000 points) that rotates the dealer can be strategically more valuable than a larger win that doesn't end the streak. This is why Japanese strategy texts frequently discuss "親落とし" (oya-otoshi, "dropping the dealer") as a deliberate tactical goal.

3.11 The Dead Wall and Information It Provides

The dead wall (王牌) maintains 14 tiles throughout the hand. Its structure is specifically defined: it consists of 7 stacks of 2 tiles each, with the dora indicator(s) displayed on the upper tiles of specific stacks. The dead wall is positioned separately from the live wall and is not drawn from during normal turns — only for kan replacement draws (rinshan tsumo).

An important detail that beginners often overlook: the dead wall means that the live wall contains only 122 tiles at the start (136 − 14 dead wall), and after dealing 52 tiles to the four players, only 70 tiles remain in the live wall. Each player gets at most about 18 draws during a hand (70 ÷ 4 ≈ 17-18), though this varies because calls skip turns and kans consume dead wall tiles. This limited number of draws creates natural time pressure — you cannot wait indefinitely for perfect tiles. The "race to tenpai" aspect of the game is a direct consequence of the finite wall, a structural element emphasized in Kitami Takashi's (北見尚之) instructional guides as fundamental to understanding hand speed requirements.