Pinfu Requirements in Mahjong: Basics of Closed Hands

When first learning mahjong, pinfu is one of the essential yaku that everyone hears about. Even so, many beginners find themselves puzzled when they assemble their hand yet cannot declare a win. Meeting the requirements for pinfu requires keeping your hand closed (never calling on an opponent's discard) and satisfying specific wait conditions, alongside several other precise rules.

Although pinfu is only a 1-han yaku, it creates a clean hand shape that naturally stacks with riichi and other yaku. First, let us organize and memorize the 4 essential conditions needed to form it.

The 4 Basic Conditions for Pinfu

This diagram shows a pinfu tenpai (a shape needing just 1 more tile to win) waiting on the 3 of characters and 6 of characters. The 4 and 5 of characters form a two-sided wait taatsu (a 2-tile proto-sequence), meaning a sequence will be completed whether a 3 or 6 of characters arrives.

The requirements for pinfu can be broken down into the following 4 rules:

• Must be a closed hand: You cannot make any calls like chii or pon; you must build your hand solely with tiles you draw yourself.
• All 4 sets must be sequences: You cannot use triplets of identical tiles; all sets must be formed from numerical sequences.
• The pair must not be yakuhai: The pair of 2 matching tiles cannot be the dragons (White, Green, or Red), nor the round wind or your seat wind. Use simple number tiles or non-scoring guest winds.
• The final wait must be a two-sided wait: Middle waits (kanchan), edge waits (penchan), and pair waits (tanki) do not qualify.

True to its name, which signifies a flat win with no extra points, pinfu eliminates all elements that award fu, such as triplets and yakuhai.

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The quickest way to master these concepts is to practice them in play. You can play at your own pace against a computer without an internet connection.

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Waits and Pairs: Common Pitfalls for Beginners

Common mistakes when pursuing pinfu involve misunderstandings about the final wait shape and pair selection. Even if you assemble 4 sequences and maintain a closed hand, you will not qualify for pinfu if your final wait is not a two-sided wait.

Care is also required when choosing the tile for your pair. Any number tile works for a pinfu pair, but honor tiles require caution. White, Green, and Red dragons award 1 han and cannot be used as the pair. During an East hand in an East-only game, the East tile and your seat wind also count as yakuhai, disqualifying them as the pair for pinfu.

When you want to calmly get the hang of building such hands, an environment where you can play alone without worrying about turn timers is useful. For example, in a 4-player computer match game like Jankokushi, you can set the discard timer to "none" in the settings, allowing you to examine tile shapes thoroughly as you practice Pinfu.

Closed-Hand Companions: Stacking with Iipeikou and Menzen Tsumo

This diagram shows a tenpai featuring iipeikou, using 2 identical sequences of 2, 3, and 4 of circles. It forms a two-sided wait on the 4 of bamboo and 7 of bamboo; winning completes both pinfu and iipeikou.

Like pinfu, the 1-han yaku iipeikou and menzen tsumo require keeping your hand closed.

• Iipeikou (1 han): Formed by collecting 2 identical sequences in the exact same suit. Because it is strictly closed, calling chii nullifies the yaku.
• Menzen Tsumo (1 han): A yaku earned by maintaining a closed hand without calling and winning on your own self-drawn tile.

By building a pinfu hand while closed, winning by tsumo adds menzen tsumo, while declaring riichi adds the riichi yaku. It also combines naturally with All Simples (using only numbers 2 through 8) and iipeikou, serving as a dependable foundation to raise your hand value.

As the baseline for closed-hand progression without calling, master the exact pinfu conditions and practice preserving tiles that build two-sided waits.

Play in the app

Why not test the yaku you have learned and riichi in "Jankokushi", a mahjong RPG where you sit at the table with Three Kingdoms figures and journey toward realm-wide supremacy?

Free to play. Contains ads. No in-app purchases.