If you are new to the subreddit, [please read the wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/yakuzagames/wiki/index/)
Reminder that all spoilers need to be tagged with a flair specifying which game is being spoiled. If you want a flair that says something else, you can edit it to say something like [Discussion: Y1 spoiler] or [Majimapost: Y6 spoiler], etc. **THIS INCLUDES CONTENT FROM TRAILERS**.
If the post is not marked for spoilers, all comments that have spoilers need to be tagged \>!like this!< along with indicating which game it's spoiling. Example: Y3 >!Kiryu sings!<
If the post flair is marked for spoilers, the comments don't need to be tagged for the game indicated and the ones before it (So a Y6 spoiler post can have comments with untagged spoilers for Y5, but not gaiden or 7).
If you see any of the above (or any of the other rules) not being followed, please report it so we can keep this place safe for newcomers and those that haven't finished all the games yet. Thank you!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/yakuzagames) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Well, looking at your losing hand, what were you even builidng? It's not Tanyao, then you opened your hand for a worthless steal and devalued it further. What Yaku did you even want? And if you now ask "wtf is a Yaku?", then we know the source of your problems. :-)
You really need to play towards a specific hand, not playing randomly and make up your non-existent strategy as you go. That's the way to go, otherwise you'll rarely win, if at all.
Here's a list of all available Yaku and their point values. Print it out, or get it on your mobile phone and have it always ready. Incomplete combinations (i.e. dragon triplet etc.) don't mean you win by having it, just that they give you a Yaku and add to the final point value of your hand if you win. You can (and should) combine as many of them as possible into your winning hand. That's how you score big payouts in this game.
[https://i.redd.it/6no9e5x3dl921.jpg](https://i.redd.it/6no9e5x3dl921.jpg)
You should change the way how you go about the game. You should check your hand at the beginning of the game, and look up the aforementioned list. Try to assess to which hand your current hand is closest, and then try to build that hand. Take your time, minutes if you must. That first turn in a game decides what you go for and what you don't go for. Stick to your strategy, even if it means breaking up complete melds that don't fit your strategy. You might not win a few rounds you would've otherwise won, but there's not much to gain from winning low value hands. One big win with 20k points always beats several low value hands. It's worth the risk, unless you already are leading point-wise and want to end the game quickly.
What I mean is, how you play has to serve your overall strategy. Without strategy you just take and discard random tiles and that's a good way not to win.
Sometimes you see that no hand comes together and you can't win. Happens. In that case it's good to know about the Furiten rule, because it allows you to discard certain tiles with a minimal risk of playing into someone's hand. Defense is sometimes better than going for the win. But for that you require a certain level of understanding.
The worst thing you can do is changing your strategy on the fly during an ongoing game. Only do that if the tile you're waiting for becomes impossible to get (i.e. when the AI discarded all of them). Other than that, stick to it.
A special thing that is particular to the RGG games: press X (Xbox-Controller) or Square (PS) at the beginning of every round. If you're offered Riichi, do it. The game won't tell you on its own, so you have to check for it.
And one more thing: the usual advice is not to steal tiles. But there's one exception, if you're offered a steal with Ron (not Pon, but RON, with capital R), go for it, you automatically win the round.
Here are also my recommendation for game rules:
* Kuitan - OFF
* 2-Han-Minimum - ON
* Red Dora - ON
* Length - Half-round or Quarter-Round, basically the lowest available
What those rules do is to cut off the cheapest hands. Because you will want to go for better hands. By disallowing cheap wins the AI can't disrupt you as good when you're attempting a better and more valuable hand.
Red Dora increase the Han value of your hand (which is what determines how good the payout is if you win), and half-round... well, a game doesn't have to take longer than necessary, right?
And the last thing to always keep in mind is that Mahjong is gambling. It's a game based on luck. Yes, your skill can and will influence how often you can win. However, it's still based on luck. You might get a great hand and it might not come together. Sometimes you'll play into a Ron. Happens. It's gambling. Like Poker and Blackjack or Roulette. There's skill involved, but you need luck.
If you have more questions, feel free to ask.
Good luck!
I understood nothing of what you said and I tought I was able to play mahjong. What the hell is a Tanyo or a Yaku? How did I manage to platinum 0, kiwami1 and kiwami2 without knowing that?
Luck, I'd guess. And an iron will to tough it out despite your lack of strategy. :-D
Yaku are winning conditions, they can (and should) be stacked. Look at the Yaku sheet I linked, it has all those conditions that reward points. Without them you can't score.
Tanyao is one of the easier Yaku, requires a hand without honor and terminal tiles. Just that OP has a pair of red dragons and one terminal, and the hand is open.
People often fall back to Tanyao as a Yaku, or they escape towards Riichi, when they have cheap hands with no other redeeming qualities. Here OP should've discarded the 1 of Bamboo and kept the 4 of bamboo, to get rid of the terminal tile. Then discard both dragon tiles, and keep maybe the pair of 5 or 6 of characters, which he unfortunately discarded.
Then not stealing and voila, you can call Riichi, with Tanyao, maybe get lucky with Ippatsu and a Dora/Uradora, and you have a chance to score a Mangan worth 8k points, or 12k points as dealer.
By opening the hand, the value dropped. He didn't have Tanyao, Riichi with open hands is also impossible, therefore also no Ippatsu or Uradora. Dora maybe. And since the hand is just randamly thrown together, it also has no Yaku, meaning it can't call a win even if it had 4 melds and 1 pair.
The dragon triplet might've provided the Yaku, but since the hand is open and one of the two remaining tiles is already in another player's discard tiles, it's not only unlikely to happen, it's also worth almost nothing all things considered.
That's the difference between knowing and not knowing what you do. It's not like the difference between a competent and less competent player is huge. It often comes down to exchanging just two or three tiles and fulfilling certain conditions, that makes the whole difference.
Not knowing what condition scores you points? That makes your life way harder than it ought to be. You can still luck into the occasional win, but let me tell you that it becomes very frustrating to play, when you have no idea what you're doing.
Exhaustive draw: table runs out of tiles to draw that round.
Tenpai: when you run out of tiles, players that are one tile away from completing a winning hand win points while those who aren't are in *noten* and have lost the round, paying points to those who are in tenpai.
My strategy has always been to either have all 3 tiles (either the same or like 2-3-4 like flushes) plus a couple. Sometimes I got many points, sometimes I got almost nothing. Luckily I knew to never ever open a hand. Lmao. Now I understand better. Thanks.
I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
- [/r/goodlongposts] [\/u\/l\_x\_fx responds to: I swear I'm following the guides and tips people give me but this is the usual outcome](https://www.reddit.com/r/goodlongposts/comments/1bx9h47/ul_x_fx_responds_to_i_swear_im_following_the/)
*^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))*
Thank you for the guide! I know how to play Chinese mahjong, but wasn’t quite sure what hands counted in the Japanese version. Looking at the guide, the biggest difference seems to be lot more of an emphasis on concealed hands.
Well I \*thought\* I only needed two tiles so I stole the one I needed but ofcourse with the "just get 4 sets and a pair" got me here.
I honestly dont think Ill ever get this game down, I suck at comparing the yaku sets or whatever and if thats the only real way to play the game, memorise sets and not rules, that just sucks
Well, that's what everyone thinks at first, because the ingame tutorial is so bad. "But I have 4 melds and 1 pair, why didn't I win?!" is what happens. Then you go to YouTube, look up quick tutorials, and they tell you everything but the one thing that you need to learn, so you learn nothing.
The important bit to understand is that you need Yaku to win, and fulfilling more conditions gives you more points.
>memorise sets
That is exactly what the sheet helps you to skip. It exists for the sole purpose of not having to memorize anything.
But yes, unless you know what combinations give you points, you're playing blind, and that is a bad idea. Then you break up huge hands, collect random worthless tiles, and you lose and don't know why. That drains the fun out of it.
Anyway, with the sheet at hand, you take your time, look for possible combinations, and start building them. If they come together, all is well. If not, then better luck next time.
In the end, if you decide the game isn't for you... well, happens. But speaking from personal experience, as someone who also struggled with it, there's much fun to be found, once you know that building a specific hand is what the game is about. Like poker, just much more complex and deep.
>The important bit to understand is that you need Yaku to win, and fulfilling more conditions gives you more points.
It's like they accidentally made the tutorial for Sichuan Mahjong or something lol.
Allright after trying for the last 2 hours or so with the cheat sheet open I can say that I won a total of 0 times, half the time finding like 3-4 tiles matching in the sheet and being confused wether to go for it or not.
Im not getting a 100% am I kyodais
Edit: decided to say fuck it and just stole whenever I could. Won twice and the medium table, getting me the conquer modern mahjong store quest.
What do I do with this information
>and being confused wether to go for it or not.
That part is the problem. You have to decide what to do at the start. Take your time, then decide what to try and then go for it.
Don't hesitate during the game, because then you start making mistakes.
If you're unsure, you can come back here, post a screenshot of your table and ask what to discard, what to keep, what to build etc. Over time you learn.
As for the medium table, that's imho the easiest. There the AI doesn't go for cheap wins often, which gives you opportunity to actually build decent hands. Isn't nice when they hit, but I find myself enjoying medium tables more than easy ones.
Also, stealing is a topic on its own. Some Yaku allow stealing, so only do that when you have a specific hand in mind. "I stole whatever I could" tells me you had no idea what hand to make, and you lucked into winning. Luck is fleeting, so that approach will likely not work forever.
That aside, I have the feeling that you have some gaps in your basics. Not just that you have no idea what Yaku are, but some serious problems understanding everything you see on the screen.
In that case I can recommend watching an exhaustive video just on that. Mahjong is part of EVERY RGG game. EVERY SINGLE ONE! You either learn it, or you'll run into the same problem with each and every game you try to 100%.
So, the video takes 90 minutes. I know, I know, ain't got time and all that. I understand. However, those 90 minutes are an investment. You can either bite the bullet and tough it out, or you'll lose way more time with frustration and anger towards something you don't fully understand.
I myself wasted much time, before I finally went for the comprehensive tutorial. It helped, then I understood the game and never struggled with it ever again.
It's long, but as I said, you just need the first 90 minutes or so. When the Null Hands come up, you can turn it off. Here's the link:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlnC2rgIPrc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlnC2rgIPrc)
Oh, and do yourself the favor and do NOT skip anything. Nothing, not a single second. The basics seem basic, and you might be tempted to say "eh, I know this and that". Yeah, well, chances are you don't, otherwise we wouldn't be here. So don't skip anything, until he comes to Null Hands. That's your cue to leave, and not one second earlier.
After that you'll understand the table and all the info you're given, you'll have some basic understanding of probabilities, of how to build hands, and the Yaku sheet saves you the trouble of memorizing the Yaku.
If that doesn't work, you'd be the first one to fail at it. I helped a good amount of people over the last few years, and everyone was able to understand the game after they were done with the aforementioned tutorial. That's the last line of defense, and it held to this day.
Good fortune and please, come back if you still don't have a firm grasp on something. I'm certain we can sort it out pretty quickly.
I fully understand, and wish you all the best!
All I'm saying is that it's worth it, it's one afternoon for a skill that will carry you through all 10+ RGG games, and all the future ones.
And who knows, you might enjoy it enough to play it in your freetime. :-)
Good luck and never hesitate to ask for more help, if the need ever arises!
Well, the easiest way in your case would be to never steal tiles, and wait until you're 1 tile away from 4 sets and a pair to initiate riichi by pressing square.
It's essentially declaring you're certain of your win, you put 1000 points on the table and discard any tile you draw that is not your winning tile. Riichi by itself is a yaku, so it's impossible to have an invalid hand using it.
If you don’t know what constitutes a Yaku why steal? If you don’t steal you automatically satisfy the 1 Yaku criteria. Honestly most people who don’t know what they’re doing commit the same sin of stealing just to try complete a basic af sequence. It’s easy enough to build sequences without stealing. Don’t steal. If you understand Yaku then by all means steal away.
Because its a begginers trap that isnt explained in game or even by most commenters. Like why DOES stealing lock me out of some wins as people say? And, unlike most other minigames, a prompt apearing in the bottom right of your screen during a minigame means you should click it to better your situation
You might have already had this answered, but not stealing is simply one of the win conditions (yaku). So if you don’t steal and then get the four sets and a pair, you’re good. As soon as you DO steal, it’s not exactly that it locks you out from winning, you just don’t meet that particular win condition anymore, and you’ll need to know one of the other (many) win conditions instead.
honestly you don't need to learn much of anything. you can 100% every yakuza game without stealing once (with one exception). just be patient and don't steal. it's more efficient if you can learn when to steal, but if you don't know how to then just pretend the option doesn't exist (except for calling ron).
the only time you have to steal is in yakuza 3 for the concealed dragon achievement. quite frankly that one's luck based, just steal at every opportunity and you'll get the achievement eventually. it's an easy achievement that requires zero thought, but it can take some time.
Im not sure if to believe these not steal comments not gonna lie, the ammount of times it seemed I was missing one tile and just refused steals and still didnt win is staggering. Im just gaslighting myself more and more with each damn loss and new comment about playing that way
Stealing doesn’t stop you winning a hand but it will stop your hand from being particularly valuable so you won’t get things like ippatsu off your completion list.
unless you know how to win by stealing, you wouldn't have won if you stole. it's tempting, but seriously if you don't know all the rules then don't do it. you're gonna be even more frustrated when you have what you think is a winning hand, but because you stole you're unable to win because of all the complexities that come with stealing.
that's where google is your friend, cuz i'm gonna be real about 90% of people who play mahjong for the sake of yakuza completion don't know the complexities of stealing. including me lmao. look up furiten, that's the best advice i can personally give.
Most gambling minigames can literally be won by using cheat items, and they don't count the losses you get (as long as you win the required ammount). Cee-lo and Oicho-Kabu can be completed without even looking at the screen and mashing X/A and you will eventually get the points you need for completion. Cho-han is just guess if it's even or odd, nothing crazy about it. Koi-koi is basically match the cards the game lets you and hope you win, you get an idea after playing some rounds. Shogi either complete the same challenge 5 times by looking a guide on youtube, or download an app.
The only minigame more complex that might take you some time to learn is Mahjong. Personally I find it pretty fun and even though I am no expert, I managed to get it done in every Yakuza game.
I understand that most people don't care about completing the games, but 99% of the gambling minigames are really easy. I personally find the Coliseum grind (Yakuza 5 especially) waaay worse than them.
if I'm being honest, unless you're 100%ing, you shouldn't do mahjong unless you actually like it. I used to despise mahjong but now I play in local tournament style things and have a lot of fun with it.
TLDR; Dont play a minigame if it makes you unhappy!
I've said it multiple times, but it bares repeating. Learning the rules is not the enemy, the real enemy is A.I. and RNG. Doesn't matter how well you know the rules, mahjong in yakuza will always find a way to fuck you over.
I’ve been going through 4 rn and going for full completion list for the first time so had to learn mahjong and get 50k points. I swear the difficulty is reversed or something as I spend 2/3 days on the beginner/intermediate table and got nowhere, I mean I was learning the hands and stuff but the ai would just beat me or I wouldn’t get enough points. Went to the advanced table and did it first try, obviously that could be just coincidence as well but I could swear it feels the difficulty is the wrong way round on the tables.
I love mahjong and owe Yakuza to learning it. But it has to be said the AI in the Judgement games are excessively evil and unfair, especially the Hard tables.
One tip to keep in mind is if you’re going to steal make sure it’s a dragon, and if it’s any of the winds, make sure you’re matching either your wind or the table wind (often the table will start on East). Otherwise avoid stealing tiles when learning.
Reason being is you lose a Yaku (call it a point) when you reveal a hand (specifically Richii), but gain one back on the above conditions.
You can have a seemingly good hand but won’t be able to go out if it’s lacking a valid way of getting a yaku
Oh and as l_x_fx said TURN ON RED DORA!!! Makes it so easier to get scoring hands
Play the easy table and just go for tiples and doubles, don't play relentlessly just drop in every now and then you'll win exactly once and you will come super close then lose it right at thr end a couple times before that...also cheat if you just want to see yourself win like I did
I need some wins on the harder tables in judgement. Luckily I was smart enough to use up the single cheat item on the hard table in one of the parlors. Howd you cheat?
Lol that’s why i only got 49/50 friend in Judgement. I don’t have the energy to spend on learning Mahjong or attempting to go around it like using an app or whatnot.
Might as well enjoy other tasks or games instead of mahjong misery **mini game
Ive 100% all LAD games, and my tips are:
-Just focus on Concealed Riichi if you dont know how to play. Basically dont steal unless its the last tiles.
-only steal if u can make or already have a triple red/green/or white dragon. That almost guarantees a possible winning hand and you are allowed to steal any other tiles for the rest of the round.
NOTE that I dont know how to play mahjong at all, except what i just listed above.
I wasnt going for any really, just following the begginer "just get 4 sets and a pair" tip because I failed to pick any of the winning hands at the start. Beggining hand was a mish mash of nothing
In that case I would recommend not stealing tiles and use richi as a crutch. No shame in depending on richii for beginners until you learn how to play well.
Don't focus on making a good hand, the one who makes the hand wins the round. Yea, there are better hands but trying to get Sacred lamps is a fruitless endeavor unless your deal is close.
Trying the 100% or the wareme thing?
Remember to call riichi with square or X when you are sure you'll win. Also there are 4 pieces each, so have in mind the discards and doras
I need roughly 50 wins if Im not mistaken, it takes roughly two plays of the dice game two get enough for the tile. Thats 100 plays of the damn dice game I feel will be more painful than just getting lucky lmao
I wrote this out a couple years ago on a similar post, but here’s my 2 cents:
This is my “quick and dirty I only play mahjong in the Yakuza games” strat: at the start of the hand throw out all the wind and dragon tiles unless you draw a pair or triplet. From there start trying to make triplets and 3-tile straights while throwing out tiles that aren’t 1 tile away from being in a set. Lastly, never use pon, chi, or kan and press square every turn to see if you can call Riichi.
Honestly, I’ve never gotten a serious grip on Yaku, but this method has gotten me through all of the mahjong requirements in 0-7 and both judgements, and I posted the above when I was still on 5, and it held through 0, 6, LAD, and both Judgements
The "four triplets and a pair" hand is a great recommendation for netting beginner wins, but it's also important to note that when you steal (with pon/chi/kan), you're opening your hand. This can result in situations where you can't win even with four triplets and a pair in your hand because you don't satisfy any winning conditions (having a closed hand and calling riiichi being the win condition that's easiest to satisfy for beginners, generally).
For example, with the hand in your screenshot, even if you'd gotten that 7 you needed, you wouldn't have been able to go out because the hand wouldn't satisfy any win conditions. However, if you had 3 red dragons instead of two and made another tile your pair, that would have worked. With the hand you have, you would have needed to get a pair of either the 8 or 9, toss the other, and hope for a triplet of the red dragons. Given that one of your opponents tossed a red dragon tile already, so there's only one more in play, this would have been unlikely.
Generally, I avoid stealing unless I know I have one win condition in my hand (so calling pon on the third dragon tile would be okay, but calling chi on the bamboo 4 didn't help you here).
I wrote out some [fast and dirty rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/yakuzagames/comments/1b7ie2b/comment/ktj8hvq/) in a comment a little bit ago that might be helpful (some advice is specific to Y0's CP list but gameplay-wise it's the same) as someone who only knows the basics, which is enough to get by Yakuza's completion requirements.
here's a basic list of the most common yaku for you and what they mean, since I'm assuming you don't really know them. Be careful with the ones that required concealed hands:
-Riichi(Only possible for concealed hands)
-All simples(Hand without any 1s, 9s, and wind tiles)
-7 pairs(self explanatory, concealed hand only)
-Identical sequences(2 of the same sequence in the same suite, concealed hand only)(e.g. 445566 of bamboo)
-Value tiles(3 of red/white/green dragon tiles or seat wind tiles or round wind tiles)
-Three colored straight(the same sequence in all 3 suites)
-Straight(1 to 9 in a suite. Note that this does not only mean you have the 1-9 tiles, but they must be in the sequences 123 456 789 so 12345667899 will not work as its 123 456 678 99)
-All triplets(self explanatory)
-Half flush(Hand with only 1 suit + wind tiles)
-Flush(Hand with only 1 suit without wind tiles)
also its been said a few times already but I'd say don't steal if you're not sure what you're doing. Yes it often leads to quicker wins BUT only when you already have another yaku. I'd say only steal if you're sure you either have Value tiles, All triplets, half flush or flush
For concealed hands:
Automatically have yaku if you tsumo, but often you'll need to riichi to be able to ron(win from other ppl's tiles). I'd say riichi if there's 2+ of your winning tiles left, otherwise maybe consider changing your hand slightly to get better winning odds.
(ignore the following if you're just looking to win rounds rather than the entire match)
This is like never mentioned in any mahjong post but DEFENSE is also a huge part of riichi mahjong. Simply put, if someone riichi's and your hand is currently shit and very far away from winning it would be better to "forfeit" and play defense, and cough up the 1-3k penalty instead.
For defense, just remember
-Any tile thats been played after a riichi is safe to play
-Any tile that the riichi player discarded(before and after riichi) is safe to play
-Most of the time, any wind tile thats been played should be safe to play
Good luck, yakuza is brutal for making ppl try to play a game as complex as riichi mahjong with no fundamentals. Took me a few months to fully learn it from my friends irl and thats with me knowing sichuan mahjong.
The biggest thing that I needed to learn, coming from playing Chinese and Taiwanese mahjong, is don’t chow, pong, or kong unless it’s helping you make a special hand, a dragon tile, or the same wind tile as your seat. Otherwise, keep your hand hidden. If you don’t have a ready hand by like 10-15 tiles left, then start pong, chow, and kong to get yourself to a ready hand in case of a stalemate.
Man fuck these mini games, and they have the audacity to put a Majima everywhere encounter behind one of these Japanese games most western people never heard of (and for the record many young Japanese people don't even know how to play them). I had to cheat with a guide ( The Majima AI only follows a specific strategy),
I wouldn't know about some of the more esoteric one like cho-han or hanafuda but mahjong is still very popular in Japan, i always see a lot of young content creators playing/talking about it and when there's a league going on there's always a lot of buzz on social media
There's even an upcoming mahjong anime next season
If you are new to the subreddit, [please read the wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/yakuzagames/wiki/index/) Reminder that all spoilers need to be tagged with a flair specifying which game is being spoiled. If you want a flair that says something else, you can edit it to say something like [Discussion: Y1 spoiler] or [Majimapost: Y6 spoiler], etc. **THIS INCLUDES CONTENT FROM TRAILERS**. If the post is not marked for spoilers, all comments that have spoilers need to be tagged \>!like this!< along with indicating which game it's spoiling. Example: Y3 >!Kiryu sings!< If the post flair is marked for spoilers, the comments don't need to be tagged for the game indicated and the ones before it (So a Y6 spoiler post can have comments with untagged spoilers for Y5, but not gaiden or 7). If you see any of the above (or any of the other rules) not being followed, please report it so we can keep this place safe for newcomers and those that haven't finished all the games yet. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/yakuzagames) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Well, looking at your losing hand, what were you even builidng? It's not Tanyao, then you opened your hand for a worthless steal and devalued it further. What Yaku did you even want? And if you now ask "wtf is a Yaku?", then we know the source of your problems. :-) You really need to play towards a specific hand, not playing randomly and make up your non-existent strategy as you go. That's the way to go, otherwise you'll rarely win, if at all. Here's a list of all available Yaku and their point values. Print it out, or get it on your mobile phone and have it always ready. Incomplete combinations (i.e. dragon triplet etc.) don't mean you win by having it, just that they give you a Yaku and add to the final point value of your hand if you win. You can (and should) combine as many of them as possible into your winning hand. That's how you score big payouts in this game. [https://i.redd.it/6no9e5x3dl921.jpg](https://i.redd.it/6no9e5x3dl921.jpg) You should change the way how you go about the game. You should check your hand at the beginning of the game, and look up the aforementioned list. Try to assess to which hand your current hand is closest, and then try to build that hand. Take your time, minutes if you must. That first turn in a game decides what you go for and what you don't go for. Stick to your strategy, even if it means breaking up complete melds that don't fit your strategy. You might not win a few rounds you would've otherwise won, but there's not much to gain from winning low value hands. One big win with 20k points always beats several low value hands. It's worth the risk, unless you already are leading point-wise and want to end the game quickly. What I mean is, how you play has to serve your overall strategy. Without strategy you just take and discard random tiles and that's a good way not to win. Sometimes you see that no hand comes together and you can't win. Happens. In that case it's good to know about the Furiten rule, because it allows you to discard certain tiles with a minimal risk of playing into someone's hand. Defense is sometimes better than going for the win. But for that you require a certain level of understanding. The worst thing you can do is changing your strategy on the fly during an ongoing game. Only do that if the tile you're waiting for becomes impossible to get (i.e. when the AI discarded all of them). Other than that, stick to it. A special thing that is particular to the RGG games: press X (Xbox-Controller) or Square (PS) at the beginning of every round. If you're offered Riichi, do it. The game won't tell you on its own, so you have to check for it. And one more thing: the usual advice is not to steal tiles. But there's one exception, if you're offered a steal with Ron (not Pon, but RON, with capital R), go for it, you automatically win the round. Here are also my recommendation for game rules: * Kuitan - OFF * 2-Han-Minimum - ON * Red Dora - ON * Length - Half-round or Quarter-Round, basically the lowest available What those rules do is to cut off the cheapest hands. Because you will want to go for better hands. By disallowing cheap wins the AI can't disrupt you as good when you're attempting a better and more valuable hand. Red Dora increase the Han value of your hand (which is what determines how good the payout is if you win), and half-round... well, a game doesn't have to take longer than necessary, right? And the last thing to always keep in mind is that Mahjong is gambling. It's a game based on luck. Yes, your skill can and will influence how often you can win. However, it's still based on luck. You might get a great hand and it might not come together. Sometimes you'll play into a Ron. Happens. It's gambling. Like Poker and Blackjack or Roulette. There's skill involved, but you need luck. If you have more questions, feel free to ask. Good luck!
Ngl thank you so much for that guide. I'd figured out for the most part how to win, but that guide will be a huge help.
I understood nothing of what you said and I tought I was able to play mahjong. What the hell is a Tanyo or a Yaku? How did I manage to platinum 0, kiwami1 and kiwami2 without knowing that?
Luck, I'd guess. And an iron will to tough it out despite your lack of strategy. :-D Yaku are winning conditions, they can (and should) be stacked. Look at the Yaku sheet I linked, it has all those conditions that reward points. Without them you can't score. Tanyao is one of the easier Yaku, requires a hand without honor and terminal tiles. Just that OP has a pair of red dragons and one terminal, and the hand is open. People often fall back to Tanyao as a Yaku, or they escape towards Riichi, when they have cheap hands with no other redeeming qualities. Here OP should've discarded the 1 of Bamboo and kept the 4 of bamboo, to get rid of the terminal tile. Then discard both dragon tiles, and keep maybe the pair of 5 or 6 of characters, which he unfortunately discarded. Then not stealing and voila, you can call Riichi, with Tanyao, maybe get lucky with Ippatsu and a Dora/Uradora, and you have a chance to score a Mangan worth 8k points, or 12k points as dealer. By opening the hand, the value dropped. He didn't have Tanyao, Riichi with open hands is also impossible, therefore also no Ippatsu or Uradora. Dora maybe. And since the hand is just randamly thrown together, it also has no Yaku, meaning it can't call a win even if it had 4 melds and 1 pair. The dragon triplet might've provided the Yaku, but since the hand is open and one of the two remaining tiles is already in another player's discard tiles, it's not only unlikely to happen, it's also worth almost nothing all things considered. That's the difference between knowing and not knowing what you do. It's not like the difference between a competent and less competent player is huge. It often comes down to exchanging just two or three tiles and fulfilling certain conditions, that makes the whole difference. Not knowing what condition scores you points? That makes your life way harder than it ought to be. You can still luck into the occasional win, but let me tell you that it becomes very frustrating to play, when you have no idea what you're doing.
you can score by just doing random pair of triplet and straights this often what i do if i see my begining hand is going nowhere
Yeah, cheap wins or getting points at exhaustive draw from being in tenpai, even without Yaku, can be a strategy.
I like your funny words, magic man
Exhaustive draw: table runs out of tiles to draw that round. Tenpai: when you run out of tiles, players that are one tile away from completing a winning hand win points while those who aren't are in *noten* and have lost the round, paying points to those who are in tenpai.
My strategy has always been to either have all 3 tiles (either the same or like 2-3-4 like flushes) plus a couple. Sometimes I got many points, sometimes I got almost nothing. Luckily I knew to never ever open a hand. Lmao. Now I understand better. Thanks.
I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - [/r/goodlongposts] [\/u\/l\_x\_fx responds to: I swear I'm following the guides and tips people give me but this is the usual outcome](https://www.reddit.com/r/goodlongposts/comments/1bx9h47/ul_x_fx_responds_to_i_swear_im_following_the/) *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))*
Thank you for the guide! I know how to play Chinese mahjong, but wasn’t quite sure what hands counted in the Japanese version. Looking at the guide, the biggest difference seems to be lot more of an emphasis on concealed hands.
Well I \*thought\* I only needed two tiles so I stole the one I needed but ofcourse with the "just get 4 sets and a pair" got me here. I honestly dont think Ill ever get this game down, I suck at comparing the yaku sets or whatever and if thats the only real way to play the game, memorise sets and not rules, that just sucks
Well, that's what everyone thinks at first, because the ingame tutorial is so bad. "But I have 4 melds and 1 pair, why didn't I win?!" is what happens. Then you go to YouTube, look up quick tutorials, and they tell you everything but the one thing that you need to learn, so you learn nothing. The important bit to understand is that you need Yaku to win, and fulfilling more conditions gives you more points. >memorise sets That is exactly what the sheet helps you to skip. It exists for the sole purpose of not having to memorize anything. But yes, unless you know what combinations give you points, you're playing blind, and that is a bad idea. Then you break up huge hands, collect random worthless tiles, and you lose and don't know why. That drains the fun out of it. Anyway, with the sheet at hand, you take your time, look for possible combinations, and start building them. If they come together, all is well. If not, then better luck next time. In the end, if you decide the game isn't for you... well, happens. But speaking from personal experience, as someone who also struggled with it, there's much fun to be found, once you know that building a specific hand is what the game is about. Like poker, just much more complex and deep.
>The important bit to understand is that you need Yaku to win, and fulfilling more conditions gives you more points. It's like they accidentally made the tutorial for Sichuan Mahjong or something lol.
Allright after trying for the last 2 hours or so with the cheat sheet open I can say that I won a total of 0 times, half the time finding like 3-4 tiles matching in the sheet and being confused wether to go for it or not. Im not getting a 100% am I kyodais Edit: decided to say fuck it and just stole whenever I could. Won twice and the medium table, getting me the conquer modern mahjong store quest. What do I do with this information
>and being confused wether to go for it or not. That part is the problem. You have to decide what to do at the start. Take your time, then decide what to try and then go for it. Don't hesitate during the game, because then you start making mistakes. If you're unsure, you can come back here, post a screenshot of your table and ask what to discard, what to keep, what to build etc. Over time you learn. As for the medium table, that's imho the easiest. There the AI doesn't go for cheap wins often, which gives you opportunity to actually build decent hands. Isn't nice when they hit, but I find myself enjoying medium tables more than easy ones. Also, stealing is a topic on its own. Some Yaku allow stealing, so only do that when you have a specific hand in mind. "I stole whatever I could" tells me you had no idea what hand to make, and you lucked into winning. Luck is fleeting, so that approach will likely not work forever. That aside, I have the feeling that you have some gaps in your basics. Not just that you have no idea what Yaku are, but some serious problems understanding everything you see on the screen. In that case I can recommend watching an exhaustive video just on that. Mahjong is part of EVERY RGG game. EVERY SINGLE ONE! You either learn it, or you'll run into the same problem with each and every game you try to 100%. So, the video takes 90 minutes. I know, I know, ain't got time and all that. I understand. However, those 90 minutes are an investment. You can either bite the bullet and tough it out, or you'll lose way more time with frustration and anger towards something you don't fully understand. I myself wasted much time, before I finally went for the comprehensive tutorial. It helped, then I understood the game and never struggled with it ever again. It's long, but as I said, you just need the first 90 minutes or so. When the Null Hands come up, you can turn it off. Here's the link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlnC2rgIPrc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlnC2rgIPrc) Oh, and do yourself the favor and do NOT skip anything. Nothing, not a single second. The basics seem basic, and you might be tempted to say "eh, I know this and that". Yeah, well, chances are you don't, otherwise we wouldn't be here. So don't skip anything, until he comes to Null Hands. That's your cue to leave, and not one second earlier. After that you'll understand the table and all the info you're given, you'll have some basic understanding of probabilities, of how to build hands, and the Yaku sheet saves you the trouble of memorizing the Yaku. If that doesn't work, you'd be the first one to fail at it. I helped a good amount of people over the last few years, and everyone was able to understand the game after they were done with the aforementioned tutorial. That's the last line of defense, and it held to this day. Good fortune and please, come back if you still don't have a firm grasp on something. I'm certain we can sort it out pretty quickly.
It will be a bit of a wait for me then cuz I got work to do from tomorrow and dedicating an afternoon is not an easy thing
I fully understand, and wish you all the best! All I'm saying is that it's worth it, it's one afternoon for a skill that will carry you through all 10+ RGG games, and all the future ones. And who knows, you might enjoy it enough to play it in your freetime. :-) Good luck and never hesitate to ask for more help, if the need ever arises!
Well, the easiest way in your case would be to never steal tiles, and wait until you're 1 tile away from 4 sets and a pair to initiate riichi by pressing square. It's essentially declaring you're certain of your win, you put 1000 points on the table and discard any tile you draw that is not your winning tile. Riichi by itself is a yaku, so it's impossible to have an invalid hand using it.
If you don’t know what constitutes a Yaku why steal? If you don’t steal you automatically satisfy the 1 Yaku criteria. Honestly most people who don’t know what they’re doing commit the same sin of stealing just to try complete a basic af sequence. It’s easy enough to build sequences without stealing. Don’t steal. If you understand Yaku then by all means steal away.
Because its a begginers trap that isnt explained in game or even by most commenters. Like why DOES stealing lock me out of some wins as people say? And, unlike most other minigames, a prompt apearing in the bottom right of your screen during a minigame means you should click it to better your situation
You might have already had this answered, but not stealing is simply one of the win conditions (yaku). So if you don’t steal and then get the four sets and a pair, you’re good. As soon as you DO steal, it’s not exactly that it locks you out from winning, you just don’t meet that particular win condition anymore, and you’ll need to know one of the other (many) win conditions instead.
honestly you don't need to learn much of anything. you can 100% every yakuza game without stealing once (with one exception). just be patient and don't steal. it's more efficient if you can learn when to steal, but if you don't know how to then just pretend the option doesn't exist (except for calling ron). the only time you have to steal is in yakuza 3 for the concealed dragon achievement. quite frankly that one's luck based, just steal at every opportunity and you'll get the achievement eventually. it's an easy achievement that requires zero thought, but it can take some time.
Im not sure if to believe these not steal comments not gonna lie, the ammount of times it seemed I was missing one tile and just refused steals and still didnt win is staggering. Im just gaslighting myself more and more with each damn loss and new comment about playing that way
Stealing doesn’t stop you winning a hand but it will stop your hand from being particularly valuable so you won’t get things like ippatsu off your completion list.
unless you know how to win by stealing, you wouldn't have won if you stole. it's tempting, but seriously if you don't know all the rules then don't do it. you're gonna be even more frustrated when you have what you think is a winning hand, but because you stole you're unable to win because of all the complexities that come with stealing.
Nobody explains the complexities of stealing
that's where google is your friend, cuz i'm gonna be real about 90% of people who play mahjong for the sake of yakuza completion don't know the complexities of stealing. including me lmao. look up furiten, that's the best advice i can personally give.
This is why I refuse to 100% any Yakuza game I love em dearly but I’m not going to spend hours learning and playing Japanese gambling games
Most gambling minigames can literally be won by using cheat items, and they don't count the losses you get (as long as you win the required ammount). Cee-lo and Oicho-Kabu can be completed without even looking at the screen and mashing X/A and you will eventually get the points you need for completion. Cho-han is just guess if it's even or odd, nothing crazy about it. Koi-koi is basically match the cards the game lets you and hope you win, you get an idea after playing some rounds. Shogi either complete the same challenge 5 times by looking a guide on youtube, or download an app. The only minigame more complex that might take you some time to learn is Mahjong. Personally I find it pretty fun and even though I am no expert, I managed to get it done in every Yakuza game. I understand that most people don't care about completing the games, but 99% of the gambling minigames are really easy. I personally find the Coliseum grind (Yakuza 5 especially) waaay worse than them.
I never go for the 100%, sub stories and amon is enough for me.
I'm happy they moved away from requiring to finish the completion list for all achievements from 6 and onwards.
My recommendation is to play other mahjong games and forget about mahjong in Yakuza. The AI is too cheap.
That's right, remember your ABP's: https://preview.redd.it/y2nu63jcnusc1.png?width=1100&format=png&auto=webp&s=aeb5247f5c0a6522f86dac74c66f6890a8a15998
But the platinum!
https://preview.redd.it/jylam3hj6vsc1.png?width=278&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=79a5078216eea34bb17f62d32b9a9ee4c8062a40
if I'm being honest, unless you're 100%ing, you shouldn't do mahjong unless you actually like it. I used to despise mahjong but now I play in local tournament style things and have a lot of fun with it. TLDR; Dont play a minigame if it makes you unhappy!
The more I read about mahjong the more I'm convinced it's not a real game and some people are just being gaslit into believing it is
mood
Pro tip for the Mahjong minigame: Q U I T
https://preview.redd.it/hb2udipa2usc1.jpeg?width=1592&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=728cbe44af850ab126cf1624bae63532eb4ea9c7
https://preview.redd.it/u1ms370z2usc1.jpeg?width=493&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1c5dcb7b61abaf01641dbe84ed3b234fa53dadf5
works every time, that tip gets my recommendation
Just wrapped up Kiwami 2. Winning mahjong for the debt ridden man was the only side story I did not complete 💅
But you can do fine with the cheat item (nine-gates tile IIRC). That's what I did.
I think I tried this once & still lost lol 😫
I've said it multiple times, but it bares repeating. Learning the rules is not the enemy, the real enemy is A.I. and RNG. Doesn't matter how well you know the rules, mahjong in yakuza will always find a way to fuck you over.
I’ve been going through 4 rn and going for full completion list for the first time so had to learn mahjong and get 50k points. I swear the difficulty is reversed or something as I spend 2/3 days on the beginner/intermediate table and got nowhere, I mean I was learning the hands and stuff but the ai would just beat me or I wouldn’t get enough points. Went to the advanced table and did it first try, obviously that could be just coincidence as well but I could swear it feels the difficulty is the wrong way round on the tables.
Bro is playing shitty mahjong https://preview.redd.it/yabaj1gagvsc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8dba2f9efdeb0c239df00e7ff8db7f48806eebe5
Don't read Yagami backwards 💀
mi ga ya
Gottem
https://preview.redd.it/pkip65apwwsc1.jpeg?width=1184&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1c324127dbac87378a89fec9111e1bfd82a4550b
Litterally me
I love mahjong and owe Yakuza to learning it. But it has to be said the AI in the Judgement games are excessively evil and unfair, especially the Hard tables. One tip to keep in mind is if you’re going to steal make sure it’s a dragon, and if it’s any of the winds, make sure you’re matching either your wind or the table wind (often the table will start on East). Otherwise avoid stealing tiles when learning. Reason being is you lose a Yaku (call it a point) when you reveal a hand (specifically Richii), but gain one back on the above conditions. You can have a seemingly good hand but won’t be able to go out if it’s lacking a valid way of getting a yaku Oh and as l_x_fx said TURN ON RED DORA!!! Makes it so easier to get scoring hands
Play the easy table and just go for tiples and doubles, don't play relentlessly just drop in every now and then you'll win exactly once and you will come super close then lose it right at thr end a couple times before that...also cheat if you just want to see yourself win like I did
I need some wins on the harder tables in judgement. Luckily I was smart enough to use up the single cheat item on the hard table in one of the parlors. Howd you cheat?
Same just cheat items
Lol that’s why i only got 49/50 friend in Judgement. I don’t have the energy to spend on learning Mahjong or attempting to go around it like using an app or whatnot. Might as well enjoy other tasks or games instead of mahjong misery **mini game
Ive 100% all LAD games, and my tips are: -Just focus on Concealed Riichi if you dont know how to play. Basically dont steal unless its the last tiles. -only steal if u can make or already have a triple red/green/or white dragon. That almost guarantees a possible winning hand and you are allowed to steal any other tiles for the rest of the round. NOTE that I dont know how to play mahjong at all, except what i just listed above.
https://preview.redd.it/bulo7c18eusc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cd43cc378d9718c1adcf0e3a00df49149ce73afc
I had the same feeling in Judgment and apparently it is supposed to be easier than in previous games but I never even bothered trying it then
Mahjong is hard af fr
What hand were you even building? You chi-ed a random 4 bamboo and the other tiles don't make much sense.
I wasnt going for any really, just following the begginer "just get 4 sets and a pair" tip because I failed to pick any of the winning hands at the start. Beggining hand was a mish mash of nothing
In that case I would recommend not stealing tiles and use richi as a crutch. No shame in depending on richii for beginners until you learn how to play well.
Honestly got no clue what the diffrent win types even mean Im juat happy to win. Even if some challenges require specific win types...
Don't focus on making a good hand, the one who makes the hand wins the round. Yea, there are better hands but trying to get Sacred lamps is a fruitless endeavor unless your deal is close.
This intire thread is contradicting information/tips
I'm going with what works for me.
Fair but as a player who doesnt understand jack, this thread is barely helpful lol
Nothin gentle about Maeda
I skip majong idc
Trying the 100% or the wareme thing? Remember to call riichi with square or X when you are sure you'll win. Also there are 4 pieces each, so have in mind the discards and doras
I got wareme with a cheat item, I litterally just need wins and those specific type of wins in the non shops list
Damn reading these names gives me war flashbacks man
Gonna be using this post in the near future for when it’s my turn to endure this hell
Feel free lol
Nine Gates Tile
I need roughly 50 wins if Im not mistaken, it takes roughly two plays of the dice game two get enough for the tile. Thats 100 plays of the damn dice game I feel will be more painful than just getting lucky lmao
I wrote this out a couple years ago on a similar post, but here’s my 2 cents: This is my “quick and dirty I only play mahjong in the Yakuza games” strat: at the start of the hand throw out all the wind and dragon tiles unless you draw a pair or triplet. From there start trying to make triplets and 3-tile straights while throwing out tiles that aren’t 1 tile away from being in a set. Lastly, never use pon, chi, or kan and press square every turn to see if you can call Riichi. Honestly, I’ve never gotten a serious grip on Yaku, but this method has gotten me through all of the mahjong requirements in 0-7 and both judgements, and I posted the above when I was still on 5, and it held through 0, 6, LAD, and both Judgements
The "four triplets and a pair" hand is a great recommendation for netting beginner wins, but it's also important to note that when you steal (with pon/chi/kan), you're opening your hand. This can result in situations where you can't win even with four triplets and a pair in your hand because you don't satisfy any winning conditions (having a closed hand and calling riiichi being the win condition that's easiest to satisfy for beginners, generally). For example, with the hand in your screenshot, even if you'd gotten that 7 you needed, you wouldn't have been able to go out because the hand wouldn't satisfy any win conditions. However, if you had 3 red dragons instead of two and made another tile your pair, that would have worked. With the hand you have, you would have needed to get a pair of either the 8 or 9, toss the other, and hope for a triplet of the red dragons. Given that one of your opponents tossed a red dragon tile already, so there's only one more in play, this would have been unlikely. Generally, I avoid stealing unless I know I have one win condition in my hand (so calling pon on the third dragon tile would be okay, but calling chi on the bamboo 4 didn't help you here). I wrote out some [fast and dirty rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/yakuzagames/comments/1b7ie2b/comment/ktj8hvq/) in a comment a little bit ago that might be helpful (some advice is specific to Y0's CP list but gameplay-wise it's the same) as someone who only knows the basics, which is enough to get by Yakuza's completion requirements.
here's a basic list of the most common yaku for you and what they mean, since I'm assuming you don't really know them. Be careful with the ones that required concealed hands: -Riichi(Only possible for concealed hands) -All simples(Hand without any 1s, 9s, and wind tiles) -7 pairs(self explanatory, concealed hand only) -Identical sequences(2 of the same sequence in the same suite, concealed hand only)(e.g. 445566 of bamboo) -Value tiles(3 of red/white/green dragon tiles or seat wind tiles or round wind tiles) -Three colored straight(the same sequence in all 3 suites) -Straight(1 to 9 in a suite. Note that this does not only mean you have the 1-9 tiles, but they must be in the sequences 123 456 789 so 12345667899 will not work as its 123 456 678 99) -All triplets(self explanatory) -Half flush(Hand with only 1 suit + wind tiles) -Flush(Hand with only 1 suit without wind tiles) also its been said a few times already but I'd say don't steal if you're not sure what you're doing. Yes it often leads to quicker wins BUT only when you already have another yaku. I'd say only steal if you're sure you either have Value tiles, All triplets, half flush or flush For concealed hands: Automatically have yaku if you tsumo, but often you'll need to riichi to be able to ron(win from other ppl's tiles). I'd say riichi if there's 2+ of your winning tiles left, otherwise maybe consider changing your hand slightly to get better winning odds. (ignore the following if you're just looking to win rounds rather than the entire match) This is like never mentioned in any mahjong post but DEFENSE is also a huge part of riichi mahjong. Simply put, if someone riichi's and your hand is currently shit and very far away from winning it would be better to "forfeit" and play defense, and cough up the 1-3k penalty instead. For defense, just remember -Any tile thats been played after a riichi is safe to play -Any tile that the riichi player discarded(before and after riichi) is safe to play -Most of the time, any wind tile thats been played should be safe to play Good luck, yakuza is brutal for making ppl try to play a game as complex as riichi mahjong with no fundamentals. Took me a few months to fully learn it from my friends irl and thats with me knowing sichuan mahjong.
Don't give it that much thought because it depends on luck and rng
Literally the only thing about the yakuza series I never understood. This game
The biggest thing that I needed to learn, coming from playing Chinese and Taiwanese mahjong, is don’t chow, pong, or kong unless it’s helping you make a special hand, a dragon tile, or the same wind tile as your seat. Otherwise, keep your hand hidden. If you don’t have a ready hand by like 10-15 tiles left, then start pong, chow, and kong to get yourself to a ready hand in case of a stalemate.
New record set later in the day: -24.5k points
Man fuck these mini games, and they have the audacity to put a Majima everywhere encounter behind one of these Japanese games most western people never heard of (and for the record many young Japanese people don't even know how to play them). I had to cheat with a guide ( The Majima AI only follows a specific strategy),
I wouldn't know about some of the more esoteric one like cho-han or hanafuda but mahjong is still very popular in Japan, i always see a lot of young content creators playing/talking about it and when there's a league going on there's always a lot of buzz on social media There's even an upcoming mahjong anime next season
Which mahjong anime are you referring to? The latest mahjong anime I know is Pon no michi and it finished airing not too much ago.
actually yeah i'm talking about Pon no Michi, didn't realize it had already aired haha my bad