Chuuren Poutou

Conditions

• The hand must contain the base pattern 1-1-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-9-9 all in a single suit
• The 14th tile must be any tile of that same suit (1 through 9), which determines the final hand structure
• The hand must be closed — no open calls allowed
• All tiles must be from a single suit (the hand is inherently also a chinitsu, but the yakuman supersedes)
• Some rulesets award double yakuman for a “pure” nine gates: when the hand is the exact 1-1-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-9-9 pattern waiting on any of the nine tiles (a 9-sided wait)

Strategy Tips

• Chuuren poutou requires a very specific distribution of tiles in one suit. Look for it when your starting hand has large clusters of one suit including multiple 1s and 9s alongside a spread of middle tiles. If you have 10 or more tiles of one suit including terminals, it may be worth pursuing.
• Because chuuren poutou must be closed, you cannot call chi or pon to accelerate it. This means you are entirely dependent on self-draws, making it one of the hardest yakuman to complete.
• Even if you don’t complete the exact chuuren poutou pattern, a hand heading in this direction is likely to achieve chinitsu (6 han closed), which is still an excellent result. Treat chinitsu as your fallback and chuuren poutou as the dream outcome.