Of course that's all jargon to the layperson. So here's a short post on what 本場 is.
本場 (Honba, literally meaning counting a situation with bars) are point sticks that are used to keep track of how long the current round. Don't confuse them with the Riichi sticks; those are red, while Honba are black.
Consider this my first post on the scoring system of Japanese style Mahjong. We start with the currency of the game; point sticks. There are 4 different kinds, which correspond to different amounts:
- 100 points is the black dots stick (The number of black dots on the stick tends to vary from set to set; mine for example has 1 black dot, the iPhone game I play with has 6 black dots, and another set uses 10). These are the sticks used to count Honba.
- 1000 points is the 1 red dot stick, these are the sticks that are most familiar, the Riichi sticks.
- 5000 points is, appropriately, the 5 red dot stick.
- 10000 points is the really fancy looking one, for a lack of a better description.
The amount of sticks in a set tend to vary. For a standard 25,000 point initial game, each player would get 1 10000 point stick (10000), 2 5000 point sticks (10000), 4 1000 point sticks (4000) and 10 100 point sticks (1000).
Honba is basically bonus points for making a round last longer. Let me introduce some conventional terms so that we understand each other:
- A hand is basically one game within a round.
- A round encompasses all hands before changing winds; so a round = a wind.
- A round ends after a full rotation of winds (So, 4 rounds).
For a round to continue after a hand, one of the following conditions must be true:
- The dealer wins the hand
- In a drawn hand, the dealer is in tenpai
- The hand was drawn due to a special condition (Will do a post on this eventually).
Therefore, for a round to rotate, AKA rotate winds, anyone other than the dealer must win.
If a round continues after the first hand, the dealer must place one 100 point stick on the table; this is referred to Honba. Each time after that, they still must put one 100 point stick for every continuing round. For example, the dealer wins the first hand of the round, so he must put a 100 point stick. The next hand is drawn, with dealer in tenpai. He puts another 100 point stick so now there are two. He wins the next hand, and puts another 100 point stick so that there are three.
Take not now that the dealer's Honba are for use as indicators only, not for payment. So when the round finally ends, the dealer takes back all his sticks.
I mentioned before that Honba are bonus points. This is basically how they work:
Suppose there are n Honba, where n is an integer. When calculating the points of a winning hand, after the hand portion of the calculation, you add this total to the Honba portion.
For a Ron, the formula is "n * 300"; the player who dealt into the hand pays this amount.
For a Tsumo, the formula is "n * 100"; all players pay this amount.
So for the first hand of a round, either formula would result in multiplication of zero, so nothing is added onto the raw hand score.
I end this post by mentioning that some variants use the 二飜縛り rule. The 二飜縛り (ryanhan shibari, literally two han binding), is in effect after Honba reaches 5, and the rule prevents anyone from winning unless their hand has two or more han.
Hence the opening sentence; I managed to make a round last for 10 Honba, and thought maybe that the 二飜縛り would go to 三飜縛り (3 han); in other words, +1 Han every 5 Honba.
