Common Hand-Building Plans

24.1 Recognizing Hand Shapes

Experienced players recognize common hand development patterns and steer toward them based on their starting tiles. Having a "plan" for your hand—even a flexible one—is more effective than pure reactive play. The most common hand plans are: pinfu, tanyao, yakuhai speed, honitsu, toitoi, and chinitsu. Each has characteristic starting shapes and development paths.

24.2 Pinfu Plan

Pinfu (平和) requires: all sequences, ryanmen wait, non-yakuhai pair, closed hand. A hand heading toward pinfu typically has many sequential connections (two-sided partials) and avoids triplets. Pinfu is the "default" good hand—tile efficiency naturally leads toward pinfu-like structures because sequences are more efficiently formed than triplets. Starting hands with many connected suited tiles and no strong honor tile pairs are pinfu candidates.

24.3 Tanyao Plan

Tanyao (断幺九) requires: all simples (2-8, no terminals or honors). Tanyao hands avoid 1s, 9s, and all honor tiles. Under kuitan ari rules, tanyao can be achieved with an open hand, making it one of the fastest possible hands. A starting hand rich in middle tiles (3-7 range) with few terminals and honors is a strong tanyao candidate. Tanyao combines naturally with pinfu for a reliable 2-han closed hand.

24.4 Yakuhai Speed Plan

When your starting hand has a pair of yakuhai tiles (dragons or relevant winds), a fast open hand using pon of the yakuhai plus chi calls for speed is often the best plan. This sacrifices hand value and flexibility for speed. It is especially effective when you need a quick cheap win (to end an opponents renchan, to reach tenpai for draw payments, or to secure a placement in the endgame).

24.5 Honitsu Plan

Honitsu (混一色) uses one suit plus honors. When your starting hand has 6+ tiles in one suit plus honor tiles, honitsu may be the most efficient plan. Honitsu is 3 han closed (2 open) and combines well with yakuhai for high-value hands. The trade-off is that opponents can read honitsu easily from your discards (you discard the other two suits heavily).

24.6 Toitoi Plan

Toitoi (対々和) requires all triplets. This plan emerges when your starting hand has many pairs and potential triplets but few sequential connections. Toitoi usually requires an open hand (pon calls) and combines with yakuhai, honroutou, or san ankou for higher value. The downside is that triplet-based hands are slower than sequence-based hands.

24.7 Chinitsu Plan

Chinitsu (清一色) uses only one suit. This requires extreme concentration in a single suit and is the highest non-yakuman yaku (6 han closed, 5 open). Chinitsu hands are rare but devastating. They are most viable when your starting hand has 8+ tiles in one suit. The major risk is that opponents will read your chinitsu from the discards and play maximum defense.

24.8 The "Men-Tan-Pin" Ideal

The combination of menzen tsumo + tanyao + pinfu (門前清自摸 + 断幺九 + 平和), abbreviated as "メンタンピン" (men-tan-pin), represents the ideal efficient hand in Japanese mahjong. It is a closed hand of all sequences using only simples (2-8) with a ryanmen wait and a non-yakuhai pair, won by self-draw. This gives 3 han at 20 fu — a solid base that becomes mangan with any two dora.

Men-tan-pin is considered the "default hand plan" in the analytical school of Japanese mahjong. Totsugeki Touhoku's (とつげき東北) framework establishes that unless your hand has a clear alternative plan (honor-heavy → honitsu, pair-heavy → chiitoitsu/toitoi, one-suit heavy → chinitsu), you should steer toward men-tan-pin because it maximizes both tile efficiency and value simultaneously. The sequences-only structure is the most tile-efficient, and the combination of three yaku (plus riichi if declared = 4 han) provides strong value.

24.9 Recognizing Plan Changes Mid-Hand

Sometimes your initial hand plan becomes untenable as the hand develops. A key skill is recognizing when to switch plans. For example, you start building toward tanyao-pinfu, but you draw two copies of hatsu (6z), giving you a yakuhai pair that could become a triplet. Should you switch from tanyao to a yakuhai-based plan?

The answer depends on your current shanten and the specific hand. If you are already at 1-shanten with a strong tanyao structure, abandoning it for an uncertain yakuhai plan is usually wrong. If you are at 3-shanten with a mediocre tanyao shape and the hatsu pair gives you an easy fallback yaku path, switching may be correct. This flexibility is what Hirasawa Genki (平澤元気) calls "プランの柔軟性" (puran no juunansei, "plan flexibility") — the ability to maintain multiple development paths and commit to one only when the hand makes the choice clear.