Proto-mahjong › Chinese classical › Japanese classical / arushiiaru › Houchi rules › Tokyo rules › Modern rules › Sanma
Sanma
3-player riichi
Sources
The documents this entry rests on, as published. Each can be opened and checked; nothing in this part is anybody’s reading of them.
Wikipedia. "Three-player mahjong." cross-check checked 2026-09-18
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-player_mahjong
AI summary The Korean and Japanese three-player game in detail: which tiles are removed, the prohibition on melding chows from a discard, and the sacred-discard rule.
Also cited on: Korean traditional · bibliography #56
Japanese Mahjong Wiki. "Japanese Mahjong." riichi.wiki. cross-check checked 2026-09-18
https://riichi.wiki/index.php?title=Japanese_mahjong
chart’s note Arrival in Japan in 1909; the post-1969 popularity surge; Tenhou.net in 2007.
Also cited on: Japanese classical / arushiiaru, Houchi rules, Modern riichi / yonma · bibliography #11
Sloper, Tom. "FAQ 2b: Identifying a Mah-Jongg Variant." Sloperama. supporting checked 2026-09-18
https://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq02b.html
chart’s note Tile counts, hand sizes, flower handling and scoring for roughly 50 named variants. Primary source for most leaf nodes in this chart.
Also cited on: Chinese archaic, Late Qing style, Chinese pre-classical, Chinese classical, Shanghai / Hong Kong new style, Hong Kong old style and 44 more · bibliography #1
Wikipedia. "Japanese Mahjong." canonical checked 2026-09-18
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_mahjong
chart’s note The riichi declaration, dora, furiten and ordered discards.
Also cited on: Japanese classical / arushiiaru, Modern riichi / yonma · bibliography #12
Analysis
Written by an AI model from the sources above. It is a reading of them, not a source in its own right: every figure in it points back to a numbered source, and where the two disagree, the source is right.
Assessment
- Confidence
- catalogued listed in a variant catalogue with tile counts and hand sizes, but no rules text verified
- Evidence
- corroborated two or more independent sources agree on the facts that define this variant
Cross-comparison
What each source was read to say, set side by side. The numbers are the sources above.
| Source | Tiles | Hand | Flowers | Scoring | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | a standard set with the north wind removed, 2 to 8 of bamboo removed and the four seasons removed, keeping the four flowers and no jokers | 13 | — | — | — |
- [2] names sanma as the three-player counterpart to yonma and says there is a well-established modified version of the rules for it, but treats it as an accommodation for when four players are not available rather than a separate lineage. The same page also describes two-player and five-player variations, which the chart does not carry
- [3] Sloperama's catalogue has no separate Sanma entry, so no tile count or hand size is attributed to the name
- [4] three-player variants are described in the Wikipedia article on Japanese mahjong
- [1] states the three-player game is not a mere adaptation of the four-player game but has its own rules: chows cannot be melded from a discard, discards are placed in front of the player, and a player cannot win on a discard they themselves previously discarded, the sacred discard
Reading it
Now properly sourced. Wikipedia gives the exact tile reduction and three rules of its own, and states explicitly that the three-player game is not a mere adaptation but has its own idiosyncrasies, which strengthens the chart's decision to give it a node. That cuts against riichi.wiki's framing of three-player play as an accommodation for a missing fourth. Both are describing real practice; the chart's node is better supported than the previous pass concluded.
In the tree
Descends from Modern rules, as the source chart draws it.