Daburu Riichi

Conditions

• You must declare riichi on your very first discard of the hand
• Your hand must be tenpai (one tile away from winning) after drawing your first tile
• No player may have made an open call (chi, pon, or kan) before your riichi declaration
• You must place the standard 1000-point riichi bet
• If you are not the dealer, all players who discard before you must not have had their tiles called
• All other standard riichi rules apply (closed hand, cannot change tiles afterward)

Strategy Tips

• Daburu riichi is almost entirely luck — you need to be dealt 13 tiles that are already tenpai or become tenpai after your first draw. It’s worth 2 han instead of the normal 1 han for riichi, so it’s a significant boost when it happens.
• Always check your starting hand for tenpai. Beginners sometimes miss that their hand is already one tile away from winning. Count your tiles carefully before your first discard — you don’t want to miss a daburu riichi opportunity.
• Daburu riichi stacks with ippatsu just like regular riichi does. If you win within one turn cycle of declaring daburu riichi, you get daburu riichi (2 han) + ippatsu (1 han), plus potential ura-dora. This combination can produce surprisingly large scores from a seemingly ordinary hand.