After-kan win 嶺上開花 · rinshan kaihou
Win on the replacement tile you draw after declaring a kan — “blossom on the ridge.”
| Value | 1 han, open or closed |
|---|---|
| How often | rare |
The moment to watch for: the fourth copy of a tile arrives while you already hold the other three, or while they sit on the table as an earlier pon. Declaring the kan カン earns a replacement draw from the dead wall, and if that tile completes your hand, the win is rinshan kaihou. Since the win counts as a self-draw, a closed hand collects menzen tsumo as well, and everything else already in the hand stacks on top.
The real question is whether the kan deserves to happen at all. Every kan turns over a new dora ドラ indicator for the whole table, and if the replacement tile doesn't win, you still have to discard something — with an opponent's riichi out, that forced discard can be expensive. The classic mistake is calling kan just to fish for this yaku when the kan breaks a sequence or pulls the hand out of tenpai テンパイ (see riichi and tenpai). Call it when your hand stays tenpai and the new dora is at least as likely to help you as anyone else; treat the rinshan chance as a bonus, not the reason.
Key points
- Requires a kan first; the win comes from the dead-wall replacement draw
- Counts as a self-draw (tsumo) for scoring purposes
- Famous from anime and film, genuinely uncommon at the table
Related yaku
- Robbing a kan 搶槓 — Win by taking the tile an opponent adds to an existing pon to upgrade it into a kan.
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