Editing Mahjong (section)

==Into the types of Mahjong==
Like all card games, there's more than one way to play Mahjong. Here are the most played variations.

*Japanese Riichi: Arguably, the most popular form of Mahjong (at least on 4chan). Mainly due to its [[manga|mango]] influence. This variation is very clinical compared to the other versions. For example: Whereas in Chinese mahjong, where the discard pile is shared among players, and tiles are simply tossed in, in Japanese mahjong, due to the addition of the furiten rule and it's importance in the game, each player has their own neatly arranged discard pile.

There is also the 'dora', or a bonus tile which gives an extra point per each you have in your winning hand. The dora is one number after the dora indicator, which is flipped in the dead wall. 4 pin for the dora indicator means 5 pin for the dora, so on.

The main difference between other forms and riichi is the "riichi rule". Riichi (Or "reach" for amerifats) is when a player is one tile away from winning the round, has not called any tile (closed hand), and decides to place a bet of 1000 points on the table, while slamming a tile on the table and proclaiming loudly: 'Riichi'. The player cannot alter his hand any further after this. You don't have to do this; but keep in mind that a hand has to adhere to specific criteria in order for it to be a qualified hand, and riichi satisfies all of them.

If you think declaring your ass Riichi sounds too risky; the easiest qualified hands are: A triplet of dragons, your seat wind or east wind. With these, you only need to collect a set of the non-numbered tiles and not worry about what your other runs look like.

Both furiten and riichi are especially important since with the exception of self draw wins, the one who feeds the winner pays in full, and thus 'defending' or 'folding' by playing tiles that you know the opponent cannot win on is an essential part of the game. Riichi'd players are easier to defend against due to the fact that you know they're about to win, and they can't change their waits.

*Washizu: This is a variation riichi from the [[Manga|Arawak indian stick and pantomime theatre show]] Akagi, which uses a special Washizu set of mahjong tiles. What makes it special is the fact that 3/4 of the tiles are transparent, so players are able to see each-others' hands. Because of this transparency, walls are not made but, instead, tiles are drawn from a pouch, while wearing leather gloves so the players are unable to feel the tile value. Whether you want to play this with the blood machine or not is up to the group.

*Hong Kong: Tiles are tossed in the center willy-nilly and the furiten rule is absent. Everyone pays even if they are not the one to feed the winner, which means being passive will lead you to bleeding out. Having a hand that actually scores points is optional for declaring a win. It can also be played with straight discards.

*American: Same as classic, but contains flower as well as "joker tiles". Joker tiles act as wild cards, because "muh poker". Was a huge, huge hit in the 1920s (the fact that the post-deal tile passing -- similar to Hearts -- is called a "Charleston" should tell you something). This form of mahjong, due to the joker tiles, contains all kinds of madness like quints and sextuplets as well as moronic combinations based on American culture i.e. "Civil War": 18611865 NNN SSS. Due to some odd twist of fate, most American Mahjong players are old Jewish women. I'm not even joking.

*Jankiryuu: Sakurai Shouichi's custom set of house rules for Japanese Riichi, meant to create strong flow players. It emphasizes [[Fist of the North Star|manly]] and exciting games where upsets are plenty, people hate pussying out more than dealing in, and everyone gets to have fun regardless of final placement. Thus, to improve your flow intuition, the ruleset encourages you to make the game harder for yourself and always aggressively push, even for far-away hands and yaku. The man himself admits that adhering to these rules in normal play will make you lose if you're the only flow player at the table. The main rules are:

 * You cannot discard dora unless you are in/near tenpai
 * You cannot discard an honor tile on the first turn; let others get their yakuhai if they want to
 * You cannot betaori (completely folding by discarding safe tiles)
 * Do not break the rhythm of the game (instant discards, don't spend more than a second on your turn)
 * No suji-cut riichi (135p shape, throw out 5p to wait on 2p); traps are for cowards
 * No hell wait riichi (waiting in tanki on a tile of which 2 are already discarded)
 * No tanki riichi except for chiitoitsu (7 pairs)
 * Play according to the situation.

*Shanghai: The Solitaire/Patience equivalent: basically unplayable with real tiles (as opposed to a computer - this mode is named after the video game released in 1986) since you know where the pairs are as you are building the tower. If you bought a damn tile set just to play this, then you are [[Blam|beyond saving and must be dealt with accordingly]]. A great way to render a mahjong player into a raging, blood-crazed lunatic is by uttering the following: "How do you play mahjong with other people? I thought it was a single player game on Windows." A nice time-killer, but do at least try to branch out and give the other modes a spin, for fuck's sake.

===Mahjong clients===
*[http://tenhou.net/3/ Tenhou]: The standard Riichi client for decades; there's an [https://gitlab.com/zefiris/tenhou-english-ui english UI mod] in the high likelihood that you're not fluent in Japanese. Played by everyone from salarymen to tourneyfags, so don't be surprised if you get your ass kicked at first. Has slightly different rules from standard Riichi due to the interface, most notably that you cannot chombo yourself. The English-speaking community uses lobby code 7447 to meet each other. There's an [https://tenhou.net/4/ HD web client] and [https://riichi.wiki/Tenhou.net_client a desktop client] with 3D graphics, if you care about that sort of thing, but getting out of the low-rank lobby with them requires a subscription. They only accept yen.
*[https://mahjongsoul.game.yo-star.com/ Mahjong Soul]: a Chinese mahjong client with a full English translation and the kind of "entry-level weeb" presentation sure to appeal to <strike>the widest possible audience</strike> addictive personalities, and an absolutely hellish gacha system for cosmetics. It's still a good and polished client, and if you can stop yourself from obsessing over rolling the perfect waifu or whatever you can ignore the gacha entirely, as just playing mahjong is free. Notably the English region is quarantined from China and Japan at low ranks, so compared to tenhou you're much less likely to get your ass beaten out of the gate by some eleven who's been playing every weekend for 40 years.
*[http://www.ron2.jp/ Ron2]: The official client of the Japan Professional Mahjong League. If you want to play with the tryhards but don't want to get your fingers chopped off with a box cutter, this is it. Free players are restricted to one ranked match per day. [https://worldriichi.org/ron2 English guide here.]
*[[Final Fantasy]] XIV, believe it or not, there were people who signed up for the unlimited free trial of the game just to play Mahjong because a decent online client had not existed before Mahjong Soul came into the picture.

===Strategy Guides===
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20190214211235/http://riichi.dynaman.net/RiichiBooks/RiichiBook1.pdf Riichi Book 1]. A Riichi strategy guide, written by a Japanese guy who emigrated to Europe and wanted to help his gaijin friends get better. Lots of interesting tidbits if you want to get into the real meat of the game.
*[https://repo.riichi.moe/guides/newfren-readme.html#howplay /vg/ newfaggot pastebin]: contains lots of video tutorials, guides and training tools.

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