

In riichi mahjong, the first player to win each hand is the only one to get points. It’s not a reliable source of value, but it is often easier to get ura-dora from riichi to increase value than it is to try and incorporate another yaku and still reach tenpai quickly. In particular, riichi can be an easy way to make an utterly rubbish hand suddenly worth a scary amount of points – hands like riichi tsumo ura-dora 2 go from 1000 points to a mangan with riichi. Riichi is worth 1 han, but actually we can usually consider it to be around 1.5 han on average, due to the chance for ippatsu and ura-dora. Riichi dora 3 is just as easy to go for as tanyao dora 3 if the tiles in the hand don’t suit tanyao. This is especially important for hands where we start with a number of dora tiles and no obvious yaku to push for. For any hand, so long as you can get to tenpai while it is closed, then riichi will allow you to win. For hands below 4 han this doubles your score, and allows you to win. The biggest and instant benefit of riichi is that you gain a yaku worth 1 han. Let’s look at some of the upsides and downsides to riichi: Benefits of Riichi Positive 1: It is a yaku Riichi is unique, and different to all of the other yaku in the game, because of the nature of making a riichi bet, and all of the other rules around it. In this article we’ll look at the single most important yaku in riichi mahjong: riichi.
