Riyan-Kan and Continuity of Tiles (The Basics pt06)

Check Mahjong No Jan-Ryu for the original article. 

*Translation of the original article start below*

Now let’s look at a Riyan-Kan (double Kan-Chan) situation.

"Same Amount of Uke-Ire Tiles as Riyan-Men"

As a basic Mahjong strategy, a Riyan-Men has 2 types and 8 tiles as your Uke-Ire, but the Riyal-Kan that we will introduce this time will also have the same 2 types and 8 tiles as your Use-Ire. (Since you have 2 Kan-Chans, so that is why it is called Riyan-Kan)

[Riyan-Kan] Uke-Ire Tiles are 2 Type, 8 Tiles

1P 3P 5P … Wait is 2P and 4P
2P 4P 6P … Wait is 3P and 5P
3P 5P 7P … Wait is 4P and 6P
4P 6P 8P … Wait is 5P and 7P
5P 7P 9P … Wait is 6P and 8P

A Riyan-Men uses 2 tiles and “2 types and 8 tiles“, and a Riyan-Kan uses 3 tiles and “2 types and 8 tiles”, so a Riyan-Men is more efficient, but it is important to understand that the Riyal-Kan wait also has a good Uke-Ire. Let’s try to remember that.


"Be Conscious of the Continuity of Tiles"

As seen in the image below, be conscious of a Riyan-Kan material made out of “4 skipping” tiles. 

If a Ko-Ritsu-Hai is like this (ex “2 and 6” or “3 and 7” ) which is skipping 4 tiles in between, are considered as Riyan-Kan materials.

6M has the most Uke-Ire, and 2M 2P and 8S has the same value as an individual tile.
But 2M can be come 2M 4M 6M, so keep it if you have a choice!

So as you can see, it is important to be conscious of the continuity of tiles and not just the Uke-Ire tiles of an individual tile in Mahjong. If we look at a tile’s continuity in a different example…

If you compare the 4 Ko-Ritsu-Hai…
4M has the most Uke-Ire. 1M 9P 1S has the same value as an individual tile.
If you discard 1M and draw 2M or 3M, this will be considered as Ura-Meh (backfire), but if you have the 4M, you can still work around it. So in theory, discarding from 1 and 9 will be the best thing to do since you have a Suji tile.

This also comes up in a game fairly often, so let’s try to remember this.

※ At the moment, this is all we have for this series. If you want us to make more, please feel free to message us here.

We are planning to upload more once we have enough demand ^^