All Honors

What is All Honors in Japanese Mahjong

All Honors is a yakuman yaku requiring the player to form a hand entirely of honor tiles, which include wind tiles (East, South, West, North) and dragon tiles (White, Green, Red). The hand must be composed of four sets (triplets or quads) of these honor tiles and one pair. Since it’s a yakuman, All Honors offers the maximum score and is extremely rare due to the difficulty of drawing all the necessary honor tiles. Completing this hand requires both luck and patience, making it one of the most prestigious hands in Riichi Mahjong.

How to Achieve All Honors？

All Honor Tiles: The hand must consist of only honor tiles, which include:

• Wind tiles: East, South, West, and North.
• Dragon tiles: White, Green, and Red.

The hand must be entirely made up of these honor tiles, meaning no number tiles (1–9) from any suit (Pin, Sou, Man) can be used in the hand.

Four Sets and a Pai: The hand must contain four sets (either triplets/pung or quads/kong) and one pair. The four sets must be made using honor tiles, and the pair can also be an honor tile.

No Sequences: Unlike most hands in Riichi Mahjong, sequences (chow) are not allowed in All Honors. Only sets of three identical tiles (pung) or four identical tiles (kong) are used.

Yakuman Tier: All Honors is considered a yakuman (the highest-scoring hand), meaning it grants the maximum points in a game. It typically results in a payout of 32,000 points for the dealer and 48,000 points for a non-dealer.

What is the Strategy and Risk of All Honors?

Very Rare Hand: All Honors is one of the rarest hands in Riichi Mahjong because it requires the player to collect only the honor tiles (winds and dragons) and complete the hand with the correct combinations. It’s especially rare because honor tiles don’t appear as frequently in the wall compared to number tiles, and you need to draw them in the right sequence to complete the required sets and pairs.

No Sequences, Only Triplets: Since All Honors does not use sequences (chow), the hand relies entirely on triplets (pung) or quads (kong). This means that the player needs to draw the correct honor tiles to complete the sets, making the hand particularly difficult to assemble. For example, if you need to form triplets, you need to draw three identical tiles of a specific wind or dragon.

Patience: is also critical. You must wait for the honor tiles to come up in the wall, and you have to be strategic about discarding other non-honor tiles to avoid cluttering your hand.