Video Mahjong Cheat Sheet

[wavemotion]

The mix of languages in Pon, Chi and Quad is inconsistent.

Admittedly, I mix and match these in real life. I started with knowing Pung/Chow and later heard the words 'Pon' and 'Chi' in video games so switched to that (not knowing at the time that the word was in relation to the act of taking the tile rather than the set it made). Then, after listening to the Jongcasts, I'd hear numerous references to 'so the Dealer has a Pon of Dragons' or similar... so even Pros seem to sometimes use the term Pon/Chi to represent the Set (yes, I understand it's not correct).

But I should put a stick in the shifty sand and take a stand one way or the other. I'm less a fan of Pung/Chow now as those feel very un-Japanese.

Kotsu, Shuntsu and Kantsu just don't feel familar. I almost never see sets referred to this way.

Sequence, triplet and quad are probably my best bet.

The term "limit hand" is a slippery one. It's often used in English texts to refer only to the *top* limit hands (yakuman) since most other rule-sets don't have other/multiple limits.

Blame the EMA rulebook and Jelte's Great Mahjong Book where the term is applied to all hand values from Mangan on up to Yakuman.

Do you have two different fonts on your kanji? It looks a bit odd.

It's possible. I tend to grab Kana from an HTML table and Kanji from wherever I can find it. I don't know how to generate them on my old American keyboard

Thanks for the feedback. Hugely appreciated! I'll get those things corrected in short order.

[Shirluban]

In English it's common to use chi, pon and kan for whatever situation.
The problem is that their widely accepted meaning in English does not match with their original Japanese meaning.
It's up to you to speak in English or Japanese.

Do you have two different fonts on your kanji? It looks a bit odd.

It's possible. I tend to grab Kana from an HTML table and Kanji from wherever I can find it. I don't know how to generate them on my old American keyboard

It's done with an Input Method Editor.
An IME is quite easy to use, as long as you know the exact pronunciation or writing of the text you're looking.

"exact pronunciation" = knowing that in "Tokyo" both "o" are long (Tōkyō), and that in "Kyoto" only the first "o" is long (Kyōto).
"exact writing" = knowing how to write a kanji with the correct number of stokes, and their order and direction.
Don't worry, you can also search kanji by number of stokes and radical.

[igirisujin]

"I won't correct it because other people also use it wrongly" is so EMA-like and should be avoided, especially when aiming at newbies.

From my experience, (other?) English communities use "pon" and "chi" only when referring to koutsu/shuntsu that are open.

[wavemotion]

"I won't correct it because other people also use it wrongly" is so EMA-like and should be avoided, especially when aiming at newbies.

Oh, I'm definitely going to correct it. But there appears to be several possible ways to correct it.

I don't like mixing Pon/Chi/Kan (the act of calling) with Pung/Chow/Kong (terms I've heard when I first learned the game but not sure what origin they have)

I almost never hear the terms Kotsu, Shuntsu and Kantsu used but maybe I've not been looking in the right places and I should start using those terms. To the Japanese pros use these terms liberally?

Given that it is an English guide... Triplet/Sequence/Quad might be my best option (Pon/Chi/Kan for the act of calling and Trip/Seq/Quad for the sets formed both in-hand and called).

On second read, maybe you're referring to the use of 'Limit Hands' tables. What should those tables be called (if anything)? I don't care for the term 'Limit' in those tables either as they aren't limits at all (even Yakuman can, by some rulesets, be stacked).

[Barticle]

Junchan: "Terminal in each set + Terminal CHI" -> "+ terminal pair"

(Of course Junchan does also require at least one (ahem) chow to prevent it stacking with Honrōtō.)

Blame the EMA rulebook and Jelte's Great Mahjong Book where the term is applied to all hand values from Mangan on up to Yakuman.

I blame the EMA rulebook for many things.

In Jelte Rep's book he uses the term "limit" for Mangan, Haneman, etc. He also recognises that Mangan is the base limit and the others are multiples of it - "Baiman" actually means double Mangan, "Sanbaiman" means triple Mangan and a Yakuman is essentially a quadruple limit (I almost said "quad limit" which would've further confused the terminological mess that is mahjong).

I've seen "limit hand" used to refer only to the Yakuman hands (or their foreign equivalents) too many times to be comfortable with broader uses.

I tend to grab Kana from an HTML table and Kanji from wherever I can find it.

I use the IME but more often I copy/paste from various sources. Mostly I just copy from my own guide now.

Thanks for the feedback. Hugely appreciated!

No problemo. It's nice to have my innate pedantry appreciated sometimes.

On second read, maybe you're referring to the use of 'Limit Hands' tables.

Yup.

What should those tables be called (if anything)? I don't care for the term 'Limit' in those tables either as they aren't limits at all (even Yakuman can, by some rulesets, be stacked).

Mathematically you could think of these as a series of "local" limits, but really they're multiples of the base limit at which you stop calculating (adding and doubling) the points. In classical Chinese rules it would be a true, single, absolute limit but in modern Japanese rules we have far more potential for earning/combining Han and these are recognised by awarding these multiples. (It would suck if your sweet Dora 5 flush was capped at Mangan!)

I'd simply call them limits.

[Shirluban]

"I won't correct it because other people also use it wrongly" is so EMA-like and should be avoided, especially when aiming at newbies.

Oh! I forgot to say that chi/pon/kan are not correct English words since they are not English words in the first place.
Sequence/triplet/quad are correct English terms for shuntsu/koutsu/kantsu.

koutsu/shuntsu that are open.

<naughty>You mean minkou/minjun. If you want to enforce the correct Japanese words, you'd better use them yourself.</naughty>

[igirisujin]

"I won't correct it because other people also use it wrongly" is so EMA-like and should be avoided, especially when aiming at newbies.

Oh! I forgot to say that chi/pon/kan are not correct English words since they are not English words in the first place.
Sequence/triplet/quad are correct English terms for shuntsu/koutsu/kantsu.

koutsu/shuntsu that are open.

<naughty>You mean minkou/minjun. If you want to enforce the correct Japanese words, you'd better use them yourself.</naughty>

At the time typing "minkou/minjun, koutsu/shuuntsu that are open" was too long and confusing.

By the way, what's with the aggression? Did I say/do something that upset you, Mr. Mod?

[Shirluban]

By the way, what's with the aggression? Did I say/do something that upset you, Mr. Mod?

No, you hadn't.
In the first part I only made my words clearer, there is no aggression here. I really had forgotten to put these two lines (or something close) in my original post.
For the second part, the <naughty></naughty> tags was supposed to smoothen the tone, making it not looks like an aggression. But I obviously failed to express it the way I wanted. My bad.

[wavemotion]

Discussion in online forums are notorious for not conveying intent very well.

Take me for example. Online I come across as a complete idiot whereas in real life I'm merely dim-witted.

[Barticle]

Quick update on a few topics here...

The "ou" in Kaihou* and the "ō" in Hōtei are two different ways of showing the same thing - a long "Oh" sound.

Of those two forms, the "ou" is obviously easier to type but it can be misleading in terms of pronunciation and lead to bad habits if you're new to the language. For example a mahjong parlour is a "jansou" which looks like it should rhyme with the English word "you" but it's actually that extended "Oh" sound at the end.

the EMA rulebook

The early 2012 revision made a lot of good improvements. They eliminated numerous instances of their long-standing han/yaku confusion but they also added several new ones in the scoring examples, e.g. "2 yaku for All Pungs" etc.

Further to the extended vowels thing, the "ou" form is used on the Yakuman names on the final reference sheet, which is fine except they forgot to add it to "Tenho", "Chiho" and "Renho" (and there should be two I's in Chiihou).

I've seen "limit hand" used to refer only to the Yakuman hands (or their foreign equivalents) too many times to be comfortable with broader uses.

To clarify, I see "limit" and "limit hand" as quite separate terms. I'm happy to refer to Mangan, Haneman, etc as limits but to refer only to Yakuman as limit hands.

As I see it, a Mangan hand is a hand that scores a limit, but not a limit hand.