Nine gates 九蓮宝燈 · chuuren poutou
1112345678999 in a single suit plus one more tile of that suit — closed only.
| Value | Yakuman (closed hands only) |
|---|---|
| How often | very rare |
Almost every chuuren attempt starts life as a full flush. The signal worth watching for is a triplet of 1s or 9s in your long suit early on, with the rest of the tiles spread across the middle. If both terminal triplets are within reach, reshaping the hand can be worth it. If not, take the chinitsu and be content — it is 6 han on its own, and breaking a live tenpai テンパイ to chase nine gates is the classic way to turn a big hand into nothing.
The hand must stay closed, so a single chii or pon ends the attempt for good and leaves you with an ordinary flush. Plan around your own draws and nothing else. Watch furiten フリテン closely too: flush hands carry wide, tangled waits, and it is easy to have already discarded a tile that now completes your hand — check your own row before calling ron, and see how furiten works if that rule is new to you. Land the pure form, with all nine waits live on the final tile, and many rulesets score a double yakuman; WRC scores every yakuman as single.
Key points
- Closed hand only — calling even once breaks it (the hand becomes mere chinitsu)
- The pure version (winning on the fourteenth tile with all nine waits open) is a double yakuman in many rules
- Folklore says completing it brings misfortune — treat that as a compliment to its rarity
Pure nine-wait double yakuman: common in Japanese rules; WRC scores all yakuman as single.
Related yaku
- Full flush 清一色 — The entire hand is one suit — the highest-value regular yaku in the game.
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