Mahjong - What the hell is Furiten?

[JamieRose]

Furiten makes no sense. I mean it makes sense in that stops people from skipping a ron win when they could declare it. (Not that I've ever been in a situation where that would be a good idea.) What doesn't make sense is why I'm getting punished for a tile I discarded at the beginning of the game when the flow of the tiles gave me a hand that suddenly needs that tile.

It's a stupid rule.

[Naizakane]

Furiten is a simple enough rule: You cannot call ron if you have previously discarded a tile that would complete your hand, or passed up the opportunity to call ron. Be aware of what you've discarded, amd furiten can't sneak up on you from a first row discard.

[JamieRose]

Still feels like needless frustration give the game's exceedingly random nature.

[DrWho2010]

random is as random does. just gotta live with it. can't have everything work in your favour all the time.

[AshaStardust]

Furiten is very frustrating, what I have found to help alleviate some of the stress is if I dump certain tiles early, I just avoid making melds with them. You just chalk it up as a lost cause and bad luck if you could have made something with them, but I focus on making other melds and unless I draw that tile again, I avoid putting too much effort into setting up those melds

[Leonerdo]

I dunno if you actually want to know why it exists, or just vent (both are cool). But it exists because defensive play is built around it. That is, people trying not to deal into Ron can look at your discards to know what tiles are safe. Furiten guarantees that these are actually safe.

It's also a counter-balance to the strength of side-waits: waiting for one of two tiles on either side of 34 or 78 for instance. This is much better than waiting on a single tile to finish your hand, and thus players will try for it far more often. But Furiten will block both of those possible Rons, even if you only have one in your discard. This allows people to defend against side-waits more easily, and is a critical component of playing around Riichi (and Pinfu).