Quick Guide on When to Call Tiles
When you play a game of Mahjong Soul, within the first hand, you will see those Chi and Pon buttons show up. Choosing to click or skip these can make a huge difference in the outcome of each hand. A hand that includes called tiles is called an open hand, and a hand with no called tiles is a closed hand. This piece will break down the reasons for and against calling tiles.
Pros
The main reason to call tiles is to win the hand faster. If a tile you need to improve your hand is discarded, you guarantee that your hand will be closer to winning if you call that tile. More importantly, this can allow you to win a hand before the other 3 players.
The other main reason to call tiles is to take tiles from other players. If you don’t call tiles, other players can discard valuable tiles like Dora, 2-8 tiles, and undiscarded tiles with less caution. If other players are discarding valuable tiles, calling tiles allows you to take advantage of that to get to Tenpai (ready to win) and win faster. This is especially important with Pon, as being able to take Pon tiles from any player allows you more chances to add tiles to your hand.
The left player looks like they’re aiming for a Pinzu [Half Flush], so they will drop many Man and Sou tiles for you to call here. If you don’t call them, you miss many extra chances for valuable tiles and they make their [Half Flush] more easily!
Lastly, you can scare other players. When a player calls a Pon of Dora, other players naturally are a lot more careful with what they discard, and might give up on their hand to avoid dealing in. As well, calling tiles of the same suit can make other players scared of a flush and prevent them from discarding tiles in that suit. Then, they will be slower to make Tenpai if they have these tiles and you can win faster than them! Sometimes, even bluffing that you have an expensive hand will make other players fold their hand.
Cons
The main reason against calling tiles is the reduced value of hands that include called tiles. Many Yaku such as Flushes are worth fewer Han when the hand is open. Open hands score fewer fu, too. Riichi mahjong scoring tends to punish open hands.
More importantly, a lot of Yaku in Riichi Mahjong cannot be included at all with an open hand. Chief among these Yaku are Riichi, Pinfu, and Fully Concealed Hand. When you call tiles, you must make sure that you have a Yaku that is valid with an open hand, unless you’re doing a bluff, which you should do sparingly. Even if you do have a Yaku, the flexibility of making these other Yaku in combination for more points should be taken into account when deciding to call tiles.
Riichi in particular can add Yaku to any closed hand, allowing you to win. By opening, you lose Riichi, Ippatsu, and Ura Dora, which means that the value lost might be much more than 1 Han. In addition, a Riichi can scare players much more than some open calls can, as players have no idea what you have in your hand.
This leads to another downside of calling tiles, which is that the more tiles you call, the more you reveal to your opponents. For example, if you call a 789s, your opponents know you cannot make All Simples to win the hand.
On the defensive side, called tiles can never be discarded from your hand, which means you have less safety. Especially when calling Honor Pons, which can often be safe tiles, losing these safe tiles can mean dealing into other players if they get to Tenpai before you! When your hand is too slow or the opponents’ hands are too fast, it can be best to skip calls and keep safe tiles to avoid dealing in.
Example Situations
Now that the reasons have been laid out, let’s try to apply them. Each situation is different, but using our criteria, we can make informed decisions. Many other factors like the current point totals, the tiles in your hand and the discard piles, whether opponents have called, and what round it is all can change your decision, but that would take many more articles to cover fully. It’s best to explain the reasoning with some examples.
This opening hand is quite a few tiles away from Tenpai, and so it could benefit from a speed increase. However, in order to open your hand, you need Yaku! If you call this tile, the only Yaku you are looking at is [Green Dragon], and you only have one! This will make the hand slower in the end and remove Yaku like Riichi or Pinfu, so you should skip this call.
While this hand can much more easily make [All Simples], a lot of value is lost if you call. The hand is only one tile from Tenpai, and there are many tiles that can improve the hand, so the speed improvement, while it exists, is not that important here. If you only need 1000 points in [All Last], only the speed matters, but otherwise calling tiles will make the hand lose Riichi (and [Ippatsu]/[Ura Dora] maybe!) and possibly Pinfu and [Fully Concealed Hand], causing its value to be much lower. This is also an example where you should skip the call.
This hand has a ton of value! There are 4 Dora here, and you have a Haneman or better even when the hand is open with that extra Dora from the third West tile. You even get a guaranteed Yaku with West, your seat wind. When the hand is already this valuable, speed matters a lot more, and so it’s vital to finish the hand as quickly as possible. You should call the tile to win ASAP.
Here’s a secret: even the best players will disagree on whether a tile should be called or not. Calling West will improve the speed of the hand which has 2 Dora, but not enough for an open Mangan. Some players call this tile for the speed, while others prefer to wait for more closed Yaku, especially Riichi. Develop your own playstyle and express yourself through these decisions. You might even disagree on the other examples, but I hope you understand the positives and negatives of calling tiles!
I hope you found this helpful!
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