Scoring Yakuman

The yakuman hands are some of the more difficult to attain in the game.

The key to scoring yakuman stems on the recognition of a decent chance of building it and then winning it.  Like with any hand, tenpai is not enough to score.  The hand must win.  But alas, plenty of times do these hands fail to manifest a win.

As they often say, if you do not try, you will not get it.  Kyuushuu kyuuhai this?  Absolutely not.  This haipai actually looks rather favorable: just 2-shanten for kokushi.

Plenty of hands look very good, only to not be scored.  Many players may get upset at the concept of  "what could have been".  However, that is the way of mahjong.

Nevertheless, chances and success do appear.  When they do happen, cherish it.

From here, how to score each yakuman?

• Kokushi musou.  Good starts begin with a ten-start unique honor/terminal types in the hand.  Per rule, a nine-start has the option to abort and reshuffle.  However, an attempt from nine can be fairly reasonable given the composition or the player's mood.  The eight-start hand is despairing, which usually has a horrid start composition to produce any tenpai let alone kokushi.  Sometimes, these can be developed into kokushi.  Finally, any start of seven or less can be attempted out of desperation or outright boldness.
• Suuankou and suuankou tanki.  This yakuman requires the straight collection of triplets in order to form.  The draws will have to cooperate in order to build this one.  Plus, ryanmen shapes must be discarded and compromise tile efficiency.
• Daisangen.  The easiest way to score requires a starting set of pairs of each dragon tile.  One triple makes it even easier.
• Shousuushii and daisuushii.  Given a collection of winds, players must have at least two triplets of the winds while on a shabo wait with the other two.  This is the easiest way to score shousuushii.
• Tsuuiisou.  This is just a straight collection of honor tiles.  With seven tile types to work with, this is a bit easier than chinroutou.  Plus, a combination with either daisangen, shousuushii, or daisuushii, this one produces the easiest path to scoring multiple yakuman.
• Chinroutou.  Working with just terminal tiles, three other yaku (chanta, junchan, and honroutou) provide a transition into the yakuman.  Possession of terminal pairs help; and the hand must possess five terminal types to even be viable.
• Ryuuiisou.  This yakuman is slightly easier than chinroutou, as they both work with six tile types.  The difference falls on the ability to form shuntsu with 2-3-4.  However, it has the pitfall of falling into furiten.
• Chuuren poutou.  This hand can be formed via a transition from honitsu and chinitsu.  The key sign for viability are the terminals.  The hand must have at least five out of the eight terminal (1, 9) to even have a chance.
• Suukantsu.  This is the holy grail of yakuman, where the conditions must be perfect in order to call kan four times.  Just one missing tile for any of the needed kan calls can ruin the attempt.  Even its lesser yaku, sankantsu, is difficult to attain tenpai.  To simply put, kan calls do not occur enough in regular frequency, let alone multiple kan calls in a hand.
• Tenhou and chiihou.  Only by playing in sheer numbers can one really even get a chance at scoring this one.  They are simply scored or not scored.  However, players may develop the habit of discarding a tile before shuffling.  Best be wary of that, when tiles appear to produce good composition.  The haipai might very well be tenpai.

For all of these, quantity is the general solution.  The greater quality of games played means an increase in the chances for any of the yakuman.  When chances come, try not to waste them, if possible.

Sometimes, it is necessary to drop 1-shanten in order to get them.  The trade off can be worth it at risk of not scoring at all.

If this is not enough, then feel free to look at some successes and derive some inspiration:

• Tenhou.net yakuman page
• Tsuno's Archive
• My own archive

And then there's YouTube.

Good luck.