3-03

Master the Fully Concealed Hand

Some players, in their rush to make ready, will meld sets without much of an idea of where their hand is heading. For example, a player might make the mistake of claiming tiles with the hand in Figure 1, just for the sake of making ready.

Figure 1

More experienced players realize the value of keeping a hand concealed. Self-drawing a tile only scores 1 point after claiming one or more tiles, but 4 when the hand is concealed. The difference is a precious 3 points.

Figure 2

Consider Figure 2. You cannot go out using an opponent's discard. If you draw or , you may be tempted to discard and go for Pure Straight. However, let's take a closer look. Picking or yourself will give you 8 or 9 points: Fully Concealed Hand (4 pts.) + Dragon Pung (2 pts.) + Short Straight (1 pt.) + Voided Suit (1 pt.), and an extra point for Mixed Double Chow when is drawn.

When you're going for a fully concealed hand, you should focus on how to earn the 4 remaining points. First, consider your possibilities for All Chows (2 pts.). If you can complete those two hands, you have already guaranteed 6 points. And since All Chows is full of chows, you can easily earn another couple of points by building some combination of Mixed Double Chow, Pure Double Chow, Voided Suit, Two Terminal Chows, or one of the 1-chance waits.

Figure 3

All Chows + Fully Concealed Hand combos with sufficient points

Figure 3 shows hands that will score at least 8 points if you pick your tile.But there are cases when you cannot earn the needed points.

Figure 4

All Chows + Fully Concealed Hand combo that lacks needed points

Figure 4 shows a hand that has no additional points. In order to complete this hand, you will have to add a Mixed Double Chow and change to a single wait. As you can see, mastering the 1-point hands is key to mastering the Fully Concealed Hand.