Make your next
decision count.

Favour shapes that complete from multiple draws. A two-sided sequence (4-5 waiting on 3 or 6) can be finished by up to 8 tiles; an edge wait (1-2 waiting on 3) by at most 4. Visible tiles and the rest of your hand can reduce the useful copies. Compare live improvements instead of counting shape alone.

Keep this

Completes on 3m or 6m — up to 8 tiles live.

Over this

Completes only on 3p — 4 tiles at best.

A lone 1, 9, wind or dragon builds almost nothing: honors only ever become pongs, and terminals join only one sequence (1-2-3 or 7-8-9). Discard them early — they are also the safest tiles you will ever release, because nobody's hand is ready yet. The exception: hold your seat wind and the round wind an extra beat — their pong is a tai.

You need exactly one pair. With two or three pair candidates, count them: every pair beyond the second is two tiles doing half a job each. Break the extra pairs toward sequences — or, if pairs keep arriving, commit the other way and hunt 碰碰胡: All Pongs is 4 tai, and three concealed pongs add 2 more.

There is no floor: a hand worth zero tai (屁胡) still declares and still collects the base stake from the discarder. Early in a hand, or when an opponent's exposures look expensive, the fastest shapeless win is a perfectly sound play — it banks the base, ends their build, and passes the deal. Speed is never wasted here the way it is under minimum-score rules.

Winning off a discard collects base + tai from ONE player; a self-draw collects that amount from ALL THREE. And a concealed self-draw (門清自摸) is 3 tai by itself. A modest concealed hand that self-draws routinely outearns a flashier hand won by discard — so once you are ready and concealed, think twice before claiming a tile that merely arrives one turn sooner: the claim breaks concealment, downgrades 3 tai to 1, and cuts your collection from three payers to one.

All Sequences is the everyday 2-tai hand: five chows, a simple pair, no flowers, no honors, a two-sided wait, won off a discard. Strictly, a self-draw BREAKS it (the self-draw tai arrives instead) — some tables relax that, and the switch is in the settings. Know which way your table plays before you shape the ending: on the strict reading, a 平胡 hand actually prefers the ron.

The single-possibility waits — edge (1-2 needing 3), closed (4-6 needing 5), lone pair — each pay 1 tai; the comfortable two-sided wait pays nothing. When a late draw lets you choose the shape of your final wait at no loss of live tiles, take the paying one. When the choice costs real outs, take the wide wait: one extra tai is worth about one unit per payer, and an unwon hand is worth nothing.

Two of the biggest tai in the game are DECLARATIONS, not tile patterns. Ready before your first discard is 天聽 (16 tai); ready within your first two discards, with no claims anywhere at the table, is 地聽 (8) — and both windows slam shut the moment anyone calls. The price: your hand LOCKS. You discard every draw untouched and can claim nothing but the win, so a declared wait you chose badly stays badly chosen forever. Declare on a wide, live wait and it is the best bet on the table; declare on a lone edge wait and you have volunteered to skip your own turns. One more instant win worth knowing exists: a single player completing FOUR kongs ends the hand on the spot (四槓牌, 8 tai — and no self-draw tai on top), and seven flowers let you rob the eighth (七搶一, 8).

The structure tai compound: All Pongs 4, three concealed pongs 2, four concealed pongs 5, five 8 — and a half flush adds 4, full flush 8. A pong-heavy deal in one suit is the classic big-hand route: 碰碰胡 + 混一色 + a wind or dragon pong reaches 9+ tai before the win-context tai even land. Commit early, claim pongs freely (concealed-pong tiers only count what you did NOT claim), and keep the pair simple.

Two or more exposed pongs in one suit, or exposed wind/dragon pongs, mean a hand that will hurt. If you are still four or more tiles from ready, stop building: your remaining draws are unlikely to win the race, and every loose discard risks paying base + their whole tai count alone.

An opponent’s past discards can help you read their choices, but their hand may have changed. They do not make a tile automatically safe in Taiwanese play. Three visible copies of a suited tile do not rule out the fourth completing a sequence. Consider the exposed sets, remaining copies and scoring possibilities together.

Perfect defence dodges only the discard win: a self-draw collects from all three of you no matter how safely you played. So against a big visible hand, safe discards are half the job — the other half is denying draws: claim tiles you would otherwise pass to break their turn rhythm, and shorten the hand toward the wall when you cannot win it.

A dealer who wins deals again, and every repeat adds 2 tai (連莊) to all their future wins — the dealer plays for raised stakes both ways, paying extra when they lose. Two things follow: break the streak even with a cheap win, and when you ARE ready, prefer the wait the dealer is likely to feed — a win off the dealer collects their raised leg.

A player throwing 4s, 5s and 6s in the opening turns is not building ordinary sequences — expect a one-suit hand, a pong hand, or terminals. Watch which suit they are NOT discarding: that is the suit to stop feeding.

Repeated dot and character discards, with few bamboo discards, may suggest a bamboo flush. Look for supporting evidence in exposed sets and later discards. The pattern is a clue to possible danger, not a complete picture of the hand.