九蓮宝燈

九蓮宝燈, literally, Nine Lotus Treasure, but translated into Nine Gates, is the least probable hand you can get in Mahjong, second to the Thirteen Orphans (Although some would contest that). Nine Gates is the one of two hands that, after many years of playing, I have yet to attain legitimately (The other being 緑一色, or All Green / Emerald Dragon, which in theory is much more probable than Nine Gates).

The Nine Gates hand is shown below:

Which is basically 1-1-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-9-9 of any suit; that would be your 13 tiles. Your wait would be any number of that suit, so 9 possible waits in total. This is also the hand with the largest number of possible waits, as most hands wait on either 1 or 2 tiles.

How do you win with any of the numbers? Let's go through them. For example, let's say your opponent discards 1 Man, or you draw 1 Man. Then your winning hand would be:

1 Man: 1-1-1, 1-2-3, 4-5-6, 7-8-9, 9-9 Eyes

We can show this for any other number, and if you observe carefully, a pattern forms.

2 Man: 1-1-1, 2-2 Eyes, 3-4-5, 6-7-8, 9-9-9

3 Man: 1-1 Eyes, 1-2-3, 3-4-5, 6-7-8, 9-9-9


4 Man: 1-1-1, 2-3-4, 4-5-6, 7-8-9, 9-9 Eyes

5 Man: 1-1-1, 2-3-4, 5-5 Eyes, 6-7-8, 9-9-9

6 Man: 1-1 Eyes, 1-2-3, 4-5-6, 6-7-8, 9-9-9


7 Man: 1-1-1, 2-3-4, 5-6-7, 7-8-9, 9-9 Eyes

8 Man: 1-1-1, 2-3-4, 5-6-7, 8-8 Eyes, 9-9-9

9 Man: 1-1 Eyes, 1-2-3, 4-5-6, 7-8-9, 9-9-9

If you observe the eyes in each hand, you will be able to see some symmetry; 1 Man results in 9 Eyes, while 9 Man results in 1 Eyes. It is a fallacy to think that the tile you win off of becomes the Eyes number; 3 and 7, as well as 4 and 6 Man wins result in 9 and 1 Eyes respectively.

Therefore, 1 and 9 acts the most as Eyes, with 3 hands, where the rest of the winning tiles act only act as 1 Eyes. Ironically, but not really since there is a logical pattern, the number of tiles of that certain number results in the number of possible winning hands that it is the eyes in.