Ippatsu 一発 · ippatsu
Win within one go-around of your riichi declaration, with no calls in between.
| Value | 1 han — closed hands only |
|---|---|
| How often | common |
You can't plan for ippatsu directly; it either lands or it doesn't. What you can do is improve its odds before declaring. A two-sided wait has more winning tiles live than a single-tile wait, so the same habits that make a good riichi — wide waits, earlier tenpai テンパイ — also make ippatsu show up more often.
Know exactly when the window closes. Ippatsu lives from your riichi discard until your next draw: ron on any discard in that stretch, or tsumo on the draw itself, and the extra han counts. Any chii, pon, or kan ends it on the spot, including your own kan, and experienced players sometimes call a tile they barely need just to break it. If that happens, your riichi is unaffected; only the bonus dies.
The payoff is bigger than one han suggests. Riichi, ippatsu, and tsumo already stack to three han before you count dora or ura dora 裏ドラ, and each han moves the payment up the score table. That jump is a big part of why the table goes quiet the turn after someone declares.
Key points
- Only exists together with riichi — it is a bonus han, not a standalone yaku
- Any call (chii, pon, kan) by any player cancels it
- Counts on your own draw or on a discard before your next draw
Related yaku
- Riichi 立直 — Declare that you are one tile from winning, with a closed hand, by betting a 1,000-point stick.
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