Wind

Winds are four of the seven honor tiles, representing the four directions: East (ton), South (nan), West (sha), and North (pei). Like dragons they have no number and cannot form sequences, so they are used only as pairs, pungs, or kongs. Their importance comes from the way they tie scoring to the structure of the game itself.

Unlike dragons, which always score, a wind triplet is only a value set (yakuhai) when it matches either your seat wind or the prevailing round wind. Each player is assigned a seat wind starting from East and rotating, and the round wind changes as play moves from the East round to the South round and beyond. So the same tile, say West, scores for the West-seated player but is worthless to the others, and may also score for everyone if it is the round wind. A triplet that matches both your seat and the round (a 'double wind') scores twice in many rule sets.

This seat-and-round mechanic also shapes prestige hands such as little four winds and big four winds, and all honors hands. East has extra significance as the dealer's seat: the dealer scores more and a dealer win or draw can extend their turn as dealer.

Defensively, a guest wind (one that is neither your seat nor the round wind) is among the safest tiles to discard late, since no opponent can use it for a value triplet. For example, in an East round the East-seated dealer who collects East-East-East earns a double yakuhai, while a North-seated player collecting North-North-North in that same round scores nothing for it, because North is neither their... rather is their seat but not the round wind, giving only a single yakuhai.