Japanese Mahjong Scoring Rules - Counters

Counters

When there are counter sticks (honba) on the table, winners get bonus points calculated by multiplying 300 by the number of those counters. Honba (本場) is a unit of continuous dealer wins and draws, and to be exact, hon (本) is a unit of numbers of some bars and so on, and ba (場) means a scene or a situation.

The dealer keeps count of the number of continuous dealer wins and draws by placing point sticks on the table. While point sticks are usually used for scoring, here they are used merely as counters, a visual aid. The initial count is zero. The number of counters increases by one when:

• (1) the dealer wins a hand
• (2) a hand is a draw (ryūkyoku, 流局)
• (3) an abortive draw happens.

In the case of (1) or (3), the dealer remains the same. In the case of (2), when the dealer cannot declare tenpai, the dealer changes, but the number of counters increases regardless of whether the dealer declares tenpai. In all other cases, namely when only a non-dealer wins, the count is reset to zero.

Renchan (連荘) is a situation in which a player successively plays the dealer, and is often only caused by dealer's win or tenpai; therefore, draws are not always renchan. On the other hand, the number of honba always increases when a draw or a dealer's win occurs. If the dealer changes, it is called rinchan (輪荘) instead of renchan, and happens for example by their nōten in the case of a draw.

In a state of n counters (suppose n is a number), when a player wins a hand by self-draw (tsumo), the player gets a bonus of n × 100 points from each of other three players for a total of n × 300, and when a player wins by claiming a discard (ron, 栄), the player gets a bonus of n × 300 from the discarder.

There is a rule in which players must have two han or more from yaku when the count is five or more, which is called ryanhan-shibari (二飜縛り; literally "two-han binding").

There may be some variation of the rules.

Example: It's the East round, 4th rotation with 0 counters (東4局0本場). The dealer (East) wins the hand. The dealer remains the dealer and puts 1 counter on the table. The seat winds don't rotate and it's now the East round, 4th rotation with 1 counter (東4局1本場). The next hand is a draw with the dealer not declaring tenpai. The player to the right becomes the new dealer, the former dealer retrieves the 1 counter and the new dealer places 2 counters. The seat winds rotate and it's now the South round, 1st rotation with 2 counters (南1局2本場). Later, North wins by ron (claiming a discard), getting a bonus of 600 points from the discarder. The dealer changes and the former dealer retrieves the 2 counters. The seat winds rotate and it's the South round, 2nd rotation with 0 counters (南2局0本場).