Tips for Learning the Score Table

The big hurdle when it comes to learning how to score hands in Riichi is, of course, memorizing the score table. It seems like a lot to learn, but there are several useful tricks that cut down the amount you need to learn drastically.

First, we need a score table to learn from. My personal favourite is the one from the Japanese Mahjong Wiki, due to how concise and intuitively laid out it is for me. Here it is (click it for the full image):

The top half is the non-dealer scores, while the bottom half are the dealer scores. If you scan through the numbers, you can see quite a bit of duplication. To explain this, let me introduce the first rule: If you halve the fu, you can add one han to get the same score. So, for example, with a 2 han 80 fu hand, you can halve the fu to 40, and then add one han, to get 3 han 40 fu, and the score will be the same. You can verify this on the table. This also works in reverse. You can subtract one han, then double the fu. For instance, going from 2 han 25 fu to 1 han 50 fu will have the same score.

Using this strategy, you can derive the 20/40/80 fu scores if you know the 20/40 fu column. Likewise, the 30 and 60 fu columns have the same numbers, as well as the 25/50/100 columns. As a bonus, the dealer 20 fu column is the same as the non-dealer 30 fu column. Therefore, by learning non-dealer 20, 25, and 30 fu, and dealer 25 and 30 fu, which is five columns, you know the values for sixteen columns! In fact, reducing the non-dealer fu by two thirds gives you the dealer values, though this is only usable for 30, 60, and 90 fu.

As for learning the columns themselves, I found it easiest to just brute force memorize the numbers, for example, saying "10 20 39 77" to myself several times, then practising in the Maru-Jan Score Trainer. The non-dealer 20/40 fu column, as well as both 25/50 fu columns, are simple since you can double the ron values. The non-dealer 30 is "double, almost double, almost double," and the dealer 30 is "almost double, double, double." I'm not sure if that helps you, but it helped me. If you've played enough, you kind of get a feel for what sounds like a correct score, too.

For the tsumo values, the dealer payment will be one-half of the ron value, while the non-dealer payment will be one-quarter the ron value. For dealer scores, the tsumo payment is one-third of the ron value. Round all of these to the next hundred (so, 725 goes to 800). Looking through the score table, I am fairly sure this works for every cell. If you can handle the mental math, this can help alleviate some memorization.

All that's left is 70, 90, and 110 fu. For these, you have a couple options. You could just memorize them, but they don't come up very often, so it's likely you could forget. But, there is a way to derive them. Here's another useful rule: You can add two columns together, as long as one is the 50 fu column. So, for instance, the 110 fu column is the combination of the 50 fu and 60 fu columns. This works because the 50 fu column has no leftovers from the rounding step, so you can always add to it neatly. This works for both ron and tsumo values.

There's a slight hiccup where the 1 han 20 fu score isn't shown, so 1 han 70 fu can be difficult as non-dealer. The value is 700 (400/200), but if you're remembering that, you might as well just remember 1 han 70 fu instead. Another thing to note is that, as touched upon previously, the non-dealer 90 fu column is the same as the dealer 60 fu column, so that can be a useful shortcut instead of doing addition.

Using all of these together, you actually only need to remember five columns (non-dealer 20/25/30 and dealer 25/30), rather than twenty-two. That sounds a lot more doable, doesn't it? Here's a color-coded score table showing the similarities between columns:

I'll leave you with one final tip for going between columns. If you look at the 1 han values, you can see a pattern in the ron values. For non-dealer 1 han, going up 10 fu adds 300 points to the ron value, or 400 points if you're moving from a multiple of 50. If you remember that the 40 fu column doubles neatly, this can let you derive it if you only remember the 30 fu column. Similarly, for dealer 1 han, going up 10 fu adds 500 points, or 400 points if you're moving to a multiple of 50. Note the difference of "from a multiple of 50" in the non-dealer rule, and "to a multiple of 50" in the dealer rule.

I hope these rules help you! Practice a bunch, and you'll get there.