• The most recent discard can be claimed by any of the other players, provided they can complete a winning hand, a pung or a kong. A claimed pung or kong may result in players losing their turn, as play continues from the claiming player, not from the discarding player.
• The player about to begin his turn can claim the most recent discard for a chow. If the player doesn’t want to claim the discard, he begins his turn by picking the next tile from the wall.
When claiming a tile for a chow, pung or kong, the player first clearly calls “chii”, “pon” or “kan” respectively. Secondly, the player reveals the matching tiles from his hand. And thirdly, he discards a tile from his hand and takes the tile called for. For the third step the order of the two actions is not important: the player can take the claimed tile first and then discard, or the other way round.
Errors in the order above when claiming tiles should be pointed out to the player, but not penalized.
The player should take the claimed tile before the next two players have made a discard. Failing to take the claimed tile in a timely manner results in a dead hand, since the player will have a false group.
Swap-calling (kuikae) is not allowed. It is forbidden to:
- Call a tile and immediately discard the same tile.
(E.g.: calling , melding , and discarding .)
- Call a tile for a chow and immediately discard the tile from the other side of the chow.
(E.g.: calling , melding , and discarding .)