Scoring Overview

Universal Concepts

Before diving into styles, some concepts appear everywhere:

Concept	Description
Meld / Set	A group of tiles: sequence (e.g., 1-2-3) or triplet/quad (e.g., 3-3-3)
Open vs. Closed	Open = took a tile from another player’s discard. Closed = all self-drawn tiles. Closed hands are worth more in most styles.
Self-draw (Tsumo)	Winning by drawing the tile yourself from the wall
Discard win (Ron/Hu)	Winning by claiming another player’s discard
Terminal	Tiles numbered 1 or 9
Honor	Wind tiles (East/South/West/North) and Dragon tiles (Red/Green/White)
Simple	Tiles numbered 2-8 (not terminals, not honors)

Feature	Riichi	HK	MCR	American	Taiwanese	Sichuan
Hand size	13	13	13	13	16	13
Total tiles	136	144	144	152	144	108
Scoring unit	Han/Fu	Faan	Points	Card value	Tai	Multiplier
Min to win	1 yaku	~3 faan	8 points	Card match	1 tai	Valid hand
Flowers	No	Yes	Yes	Jokers	Yes	No
Honors	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Open penalty	Lose yaku	Lose faan	-	Restrictions	Lose tai	Lose bonus
Multiple winners	No (head bump)	Sometimes	Varies	No	Sometimes	Yes
Complexity	High	Medium	Very high	Unique	Medium	Low
Avg game length	~45 min	~30 min	~60 min	~90 min	~40 min	~20 min