Sanma

Assessment

Confidence

catalogued listed in a variant catalogue with tile counts and hand sizes, but no rules text verified

Evidence

conflicting sources disagree materially, or one source contradicts itself

Cross-comparison

What each source was read to say, set side by side. The numbers are the sources above.

• [33] names sanma as the three-player counterpart to yonma and says there is a well-established modified version of the rules for it, but treats it as an accommodation for when four players are not available rather than a separate lineage. The same page also describes two-player and five-player variations, which the chart does not carry
• [34] Sloperama's catalogue has no separate Sanma entry, so no tile count or hand size is attributed to the name
• [1] Mahjong Soul's ranked mode only. Friend and tournament rooms may differ. The only abortive draws are 九種九牌 and 四槓散了, and the dealer keeps the deal for both. A win on the replacement tile after pulling a North counts as rinshan kaihou
• [35] The update of 16 July 2019 added three-player play to ranked and tournament modes, together with a three-player ranking. Three-player play has its own rank, separate from four-player
• [2] The manual lists only the differences from four-player ranked play. Its lobby ranking table records three-player ranked results separately
• [3] East-south games (東一局～南三局). No abortive draws. Busting allowed (0 points continues). No pao online
• [4] Maru-Jan says it chose its rules 'after a nationwide survey'. It compared nukidora (makes 小四喜 and 字一色 hard), guest wind without dora, value tile plus dora (too many instant mangan) and guest wind plus dora, and chose the last
• [5] The page's heading reads 日本プロ麻雀連盟公認 麻雀格闘倶楽部 豪華絢爛 (endorsed by JPML). A 1000-point minimum applies for riichi
• [6] Ron2 is JPML's official online site. Three-player play was added in April 2012 (see JPML column 2012-04-19)
• [7] States that it follows 'the ron2 standard Sanma rules' and lists how they differ from other platforms: no tsumo-loss, 600 honba, 3000 tenpai, no kita, no first-place minimum
• [8] Ron2 opened on 2004-08-01. Three-player play was given priority and added in April 2012. The implementation drew on advice from pros used to three-player play on Mahjong Fight Club (Takizawa, Yamai, Dump Ohashi). The author notes JPML now runs the Mahjong Triathlon and that 'Kansai means sanma'. Ron2 data (about 100 games) is given on how often yakuman come up
• [36] SDA began activity on 1 April 2017 (Heisei 29). It says three-player is mainstream in Kansai, yet as of 2017 no organisation was devoted to it. It aims at title and league play. Chairman: 長谷昌広
• [9] Extra yakuman include 四連刻 and 大車輪. A West round is played if no one reaches 40000
• [10] The governing document. The viewer rule page defers to it
• [37] Zan League founded April 2021. ThANM LLC formed April 2022. Branches: Shikoku and Hokkaido (2024-01), Tokai (2024-07), Kyushu (2025-07), Tohoku (2026-01). Became 株式会社ThANM in March 2026
• [11] Seats are drawn from East, South and West. Two dice throws decide the dealer, using only the red die
• [12] The Honshū section says the game is popular in western Honshu
• [13] There is no chii, to prevent fast wins, although Yokosuka mahjong allows it. There is no north seat, and an east-south game is 6 hands. History paragraph (unsourced): sanma began as a pastime when a fourth player was missing; three-player rules removing particular tiles existed in early Shōwa; after the war it flourished around Shikoku and spread via Kansai to Kantō. Named forms: 東天紅 (also called 関東三麻 or 東京三麻), 関西三麻, 京都三麻 (ポンリー: 108 tiles with no honours), 新三麻 (102 tiles, chii allowed, 'three-player yonma'). Specialist sanma parlours exist west of Chūkyō, and a few free sanma parlours in the capital region. The 2009 version of the article instead said free sanma parlours could not be run in Tokyo
• [14] In the article's early form, the bamboo 2-8 removal belongs to a 'Korean/Japanese' game described as based on the Korean version with a few Japanese elements, and is cited to mahjong.wikidot.com rules:three-player. The Japanese game is a separate one-line section linked to Hurley's site. The 'Honshū and other parts of Japan' section first appears in revision 833355606 of 31 March 2018, from an anonymous editor
• [15] One uncited sentence under 'Related versions': sanma removes all but the 1 and 9 of characters and removes the ability to call chii. The same section mentions a two-player 'San Hako Mahjong'
• [16] Three ways of treating north: guest wind, common value tile, or pulled-out bonus tile. Calls sanma a game derived from Japanese mahjong. Tagged {{onesource}} since January 2013; its one reference is Tenhou's statistics page
• [17] Played mainly in Kantō. Named after the former Akasaka parlour 「東天紅」 from which it spread. Always the East round; the previous winner deals next; no chii; the dead wall is drawn to the end. Cites 伊藤拓馬 2015 (pp. 119, 122-123)
• [18] Calls 北抜き a classic three-player rule with a lower average win than Tōtenkō. The previous winner deals next. Tagged as unsourced since November 2012
• [38] The online game was tested from late December 1996 and launched on 18 June 1997. Its third free server was mainly for three-player: 450 three-player tables and red dora, as of August 2009. Closure at the end of March 2018 was announced in 2017
• [19] Sloper's way, 'taught by my Japanese friends': no North player, the deal always passes to the winner, always the East round. This matches the Tōtenkō/gari form (1-5-9 characters plus north as gari, winner deals). Robert Lozyniak (2007): in Japanese three-player you cannot chi from a discard except to win; Sloper replies that this is standard in most three-player variants. Points to Hurley's japanese-mahjong.com
• [20] Sanma was played before the war, by the first mahjong boom of Shōwa 3-4 (1928-29). It first began as a pastime and was then enjoyed for itself. Pre-war Type B allowed pon but not chi. Citing 村石利夫『麻雀101話』(1976), Shikoku sanma was said to have been devised around Shōwa 19 (1944) by 升田実 of Tokushima City, and Shikoku flourished first after the war and is still considered its home. Rules of Shikoku sanma c. Shōwa 50 (1975) per 麻雀101話: north as nukidora, no chi. 点サンマ was played in Kantō by about Shōwa 40 (1965). The Chagara game of the Metropolitan Police press club became Chagara sanma, and the parlour 東天紅 (opened in Shinjuku by 川田隆, then moved to Akasaka) made it its main game: 東天紅サンマ, which spread gari sanma
• [21] States that in Osaka 'mahjong' means sanma; four-player is called 四人打ち and rarely gets a table; Kansai parlour sanma differs greatly from the online sanma of Tenhou. Based on house-rule sheets of 麻雀ハウス ポン太 and 大天閣
• [22] Says in 2021 sanma was quietly booming, sanma parlours increasing, and events such as サンマ雀荘最強決定戦 were streamed
• [23] Final held 19 June 2017 at Hōō's Osaka showroom, won by 麻雀ピース (Tsukamoto); fifth edition with a record 50 parlours; Niconico broadcasts drew 1000+ viewers; only one finalist from Kantō (Saitama)
• [24] Reports a three-player healthy-mahjong class at ブッキング青葉 (Osaka); its owner 木下裕章, chairman of the Osaka mahjong union (大阪麻雀連合会), says many in Osaka and Shikoku learn three-player before four-player
• [25] Article 36 sets the game-fee standard required by Art. 19 of the Act. The rule offers two bases: per customer by time, or per table by time; the per-table cap is four times the per-customer cap. Nothing in the text refers to three-player tables; it does not mention per-game fees (the basis on which free parlours, including sanma parlours, charge)
• [26] Robbing a North set aside allowed but not chankan; win on the replacement tile counts as rinshan; no abortive draws for four riichi or four winds
• [27] Konoe says the game is properly for four but can be played by three or five, though with some loss of interest; with North removed the wall is never exhausted, so a strong hand is often beaten by someone else's win before its tiles come. He also gives a five-player method. He does not mention any restriction on chows in the three-player method
• [39] States that mahjong can be played by three or five, but four is the proper number, and three- and five-player games are less interesting than the four-player game; the book describes only the four-player game
• [28] Calls Sanma the 3-player variant of Japanese riichi mahjong, in which chii is replaced by kita; trained on 50,000 rounds of Tenhou sanma game records; claims to be the first sanma AI
• [29] Says sanma was devised because four players cannot always be gathered, that it is a less formal game whose rules vary more than four-player rules, and that there are also local forms: 關東三麻 (東天紅), 關西三麻 and 京都三麻, which it does not describe
• [30] The 1984 amending act renamed the law (風俗営業等の規制及び業務の適正化等に関する法律) and for the first time wrote a nationwide ban on prizes in mahjong parlours into the statute itself. Supplementary art. 3 deemed every parlour already licensed under the old law to be licensed under the new one; there is no transitional exemption from the prize ban, so it applied to all parlours from the commencement date (fixed by cabinet order as 13 February 1985, per the enforcement order and rule already read by g4). The act has no provision on the number of players, three-player games, or per-game charges
• [40] The minister says that under the old law the rules parlours had to obey were delegated to prefectural ordinances and so differed from prefecture to prefecture; the bill moves them into the statute. He names mahjong parlours among the businesses licensed by prefectural public safety commissions
• [31] In 1998 the third Tonpuso server ran three-player tables. Their rules differed from the four-player game only in the points listed. Yakuman won in sanma were not posted in the ranking site's yakuman list
• [32] The first official 天鳳サンマ杯 was announced for 2009-10-03, postponed, and held on 2009-11-07 from 18:00. The result was posted on 2009-11-08: the first 'サンマ大王' was janki, and the standings list runs to 233 entries. On 2009-10-29 the third sanma 天鳳位 (top rank) was reached, by くうた. In January 2010 sanma tournament lobbies could choose 赤喰速 freely, and planned cash-style (収支戦) lobbies would keep separate records for four- and three-player play

Reading it

The game is real and widely played; the record of it was wrong, and so is the chart's place for it. The tiles: the earlier pass took English Wikipedia's 'vanilla' set (north and bamboo 2-8 removed) for Japanese sanma, but that set is the Korean-based game the article took from Mahjong Wiki in 2010; the article's own Japanese section, Japanese Wikipedia and every Japanese ruleset read remove characters 2-8 and allow no chii. Beyond that, the rulesets disagree on what define sanma elsewhere: north is a pulled-out bonus tile on Tenhou and Mahjong Soul, a value tile for everyone on SEGA MJ and in the SDA and Zan League rules, a guest wind elsewhere; self-draw pays less (tsumo loss) on Tenhou, Maru-Jan and Mahjong Soul but not on SEGA MJ, Mahjong Fight Club, or the JPML and WRC three-player rules; starting points run from 35,000 to 40,000. The history: the chart hangs sanma under Amano's 1967 modern rules, but two 1930 books already say three can play, Konoe with north removed, and Asami Ryō dates three-player play to 1928-29 and the modern form to the post-war Shikoku and Kansai game. The structure today: dedicated bodies since 2017 (SDA, Zan League, WW), JPML's three-player rules on Ron2 since 2012, an online WRC three-player league, Tonpūsō's three-player server from 1998, Tenhou's from at least 2007, Mahjong Soul's from 16 July 2019, and the Kansai parlours where three-player is the mainstream. The law licenses parlours and caps fees per player or per table; it says nothing of three-player play.

Known, not yet read

Sources that look worth having but could not be read for this entry. If you can reach one, it can be read and added. Every variant’s list is gathered on Missing sources.

• Official rules 日本三人打麻雀協会 (SDA). 「SDA公式ルール」 (SDA official rules). — SDA's general three-player rules, separate from its tournament rules. It would show which North and tsumo conventions the association itself endorses.
  Where: https://mahjong-sda.com/rule-official/. Tried: 2026-10-06 and 2026-10-07: HTTP 200 from the site, but the page body has no rule text (only menus and sidebar). The WordPress REST API (https://mahjong-sda.com/wp-json/wp/v2/pages?slug=rule-official) returned the hosting company's own 403 block page (XSERVER) on 2026-10-07. The refusal is the site host's.
• Official rules 日本プロ麻雀連盟. Three-player rules (「日本プロ麻雀連盟の三人麻雀ルール」), as referred to in the 2012 lesson column. — JPML says its three-player rules are used on Ron2, in the Mahjong Triathlon and on Mahjong Fight Club. A full text would fix the JPML strand (North as guest wind, equal tsumo payment) at source.
  Where: ma-jan.or.jp (JPML); or ask JPML directly. Tried: 2026-10-07: JPML 競技ルール page (https://www.ma-jan.or.jp/activity/game_rule.html) answers 200 but holds almost no rule text in its HTML. Site searches for 三人麻雀, 三麻 and トライアスロン ルール found only columns and reports. No three-player rulebook found.
• Commercial 天鳳 (Tenhou). The announcement that introduced three-player ranked play (c. 2006-2008). — Would date when the most influential online nukidora sanma began. The manual only shows that three-player ranked play existed before 2008-02-25.
  Where: blog.tenhou.net archives 2006-2008; tenhou.net. Tried: 2026-10-06/07: http://blog.tenhou.net/archives/200703-1.html (and other 2007 months) return the blog host's own 404 page ('リクエストされたページが見つかりません'). The blog's own archive navigation begins in 2016-02. The tenhou.net manual and ranking pages give no start date. web.archive.org not tried (known to drop connections from here).
• Commercial 東風荘 (Tonpūsō). Rules of the third server (三人麻雀), service 1997-2018. — Probably the earliest large online sanma service. Its rules would show the 1990s/2000s online convention.
  Where: http://mj.giganet.net/ (defunct). Tried: 2026-10-07: the domain 301-redirects to the unrelated https://giganet.net/ (the site's own redirect). The archive.org availability API answered 429 (archive.org's rate limit). web.archive.org not tried.
• Commercial 麻雀一番街 (Riichi City). Official three-player rules. — A current major app with ranked three-player play.
  Where: https://www.mahjong-jp.com/home (and in-app help). Tried: 2026-10-07: HTTP 200, but the page is a JavaScript-only app with no rule text in the HTML. The app bundles were not taken apart. Rules appear to be in-app only.
• Commercial KONAMI. Press release or operator notice for 麻雀格闘倶楽部5 (2006) adding national three-player play (全国三人打ち麻雀). — Would confirm, from Konami itself, the 2006 date that Japanese Wikipedia gives.
  Where: Konami press archive; 4Gamer / Game Watch 2006 news. Tried: Not tried in this pass (time).
• Encyclopedia Mahjong Wiki. "Three Player Mahjong" (rules:three-player), dated 2010-06-24 in en Wikipedia's citation — The source of en Wikipedia's 'Korean/Japanese' vanilla rules (bamboo 2-8 removed, seasons removed), which the repository attributed to sanma. Reading it would show exactly which game it described.
  Where: http://mahjong.wikidot.com/rules:three-player (live 404); Wayback captures. Tried: 2026-10-07: live page answered 404 (site's own). The archive.org availability API answered 429 (archive.org's rate limit). web.archive.org connections were reset and the tunnel closed mid-exchange (failure on this side, logged by the agent proxy). WebFetch refused web.archive.org.
• Guide David Hurley. "Japanese Three Player Mahjong" (japanese-mahjong.com/3pmjintro.html) and "Three Player Mahjong News 2004" (3pmjnews04.html) — The only source en Wikipedia gives for its Japanese sanma section; Sloperama FAQ 13C also points to it. An English 2000s account of Japanese sanma rules.
  Where: http://japanese-mahjong.com/3pmjintro.html; Wayback 20130921213152 and 20100406025253; http://www.japanese-mahjong.com/3pmjnews04.html (Wayback 20120305150555). Tried: 2026-10-07: the host name does not resolve (curl: could not resolve host; DNS failure, domain apparently gone). Wayback unreachable from here (connection reset, this side). WebFetch refused web.archive.org. archive.ph connection closed mid-exchange (this side).
• Historical 村石利夫 Muraishi Toshio. 『麻雀101話 : 東南西北ものしり事典』 光風社書店, 1976 (NDL R100000002-I000001304780; digitised as pid 14881802) — Asami's source for Shikoku sanma devised c. 1944 by 升田実 of Tokushima and for the c. 1975 Shikoku rules (north as nukidora, no chi). It is the earliest dated claim for modern sanma's origin.
  Where: National Diet Library; NDL Digital Collections pid 14881802 (viewable only on NDL premises; not in the individual transmission service). Tried: 2026-10-07: NDL Search record read; the IIIF manifest is not public (restricted).
• Historical 日本競技(麻雀)倶楽部. 『麻雀の競技法と其秘訣』 岡村書店 (Asami gives 1 June 1930; an NDL Search record from a prefectural library gives 1936.10: R100000001-I23211001010080903) — Asami's source for the two pre-war three-player rule types (A: north removed; B: one suit and winds removed, six flowers added, pon but no chi). It would date the no-chi rule to 1930.
  Where: Prefectural library holding per NDL Search; NDL Digital not found. Tried: 2026-10-07: NDL OpenSearch title search found only this regional record; not digitised publicly.
• Historical 米沢章 Yonezawa Akira. 『標準麻雀競技法とその作戦』 朝日新聞社 (NDL editions 昭和2 and 昭和3; Asami cites S4/11); and 柳河卓人『麻雀実戦妙技法』盛陽堂 1930 — Cited by Asami as pre-war books that mention three-player rules.
  Where: NDL Digital Collections (Yonezawa pids 1027927/1029998: library/individual transmission only); Yanagawa not found in NDL. Tried: 2026-10-07: NDL Search records read; IIIF manifests restricted ('checkResult NG'); NDL lab API answered 500 (not public). 柳河卓人 and 麻雀実戦妙技法 returned 0 results in NDL OpenSearch.
• Rulebook 伊藤拓馬 Itō Takuma. 『賭けずに楽しむ日本の賭博ゲーム』 立東舎 (ja Wikipedia gives 立東社), 2015, ISBN 9784845625918, pp. 119, 122-123 — The only printed source ja Wikipedia's 東天紅 article cites, for the Akasaka parlour origin and the 112-tile and red-five variants.
  Where: NDL R100000002-I026353160; bookshops. Tried: 2026-10-07: NDL OpenSearch record found; no online text.
• Rulebook Jelte Rep. The Great Mahjong Book: History, Lore, and Play. Tuttle, 2007. ISBN 9780804837194 — Cited by en Wikipedia for the Korean/Japanese three-player game and the claim that three-player has its own rules.
  Where: Libraries; Open Library lists it. Tried: 2026-10-07: Open Library search found the record; Google Books not tried (shared-quota 429 known); no full text.
• Rulebook Amy Lo. The Book of Mah Jong: An Illustrated Guide. Tuttle, 2001. ISBN 9780804833028 — Cited by en Wikipedia for whole suits being removed in some three-player variants.
  Where: Libraries. Tried: 2026-10-07: Open Library record found; no full text.
• Rulebook Eleanor Noss Whitney. A Mah Jong Handbook: How to Play, Score, and Win. Tuttle, 1964 — Cited by en Wikipedia for three-player table rules. An early English book on Japanese mahjong.
  Where: Internet Archive lending copies mahjonghandbookh00whit (1964) and later editions. Tried: 2026-10-07: archive.org metadata says access-restricted-item true (lending, login required).
• Rulebook Shozo Kanai and Margaret Farrell. Mah Jong for Beginners, based on the rules and regulations of the Mah Jong Association of Japan. Tuttle, 1952/1955 — Probably the 'Mah Jong for Beginners' en Wikipedia cites. A 1950s English account of Japanese rules that may give a three-player method.
  Where: Internet Archive lending copies mahjongforbeginn0000unse (1955) and mahjongforbeginn0000shoz (1958). Tried: 2026-10-07: archive.org metadata says access-restricted-item true (login required).
• Guide Sammaniax (サンマニアックス), a three-player mahjong website with a 分布図 (distribution map) of sanma rule variants — Cited by Asami Ryō (his16) and by 雀のお宿 as the main study of regional sanma rules, and credited with spreading the name 'サンマ'.
  Where: Unknown URL (probably a dead personal site). Tried: 2026-10-07: WebSearch (extended) for 'Sammaniax サンマ 分布図 三人麻雀' found nothing.
• Encyclopedia ニコニコ大百科 「三人麻雀」 (Wikidata P6900) — An encyclopedia entry linked from the Wikidata item.
  Where: https://dic.nicovideo.jp/a/%E4%B8%89%E4%BA%BA%E9%BA%BB%E9%9B%80. Tried: 2026-10-07: 403 from CloudFront ('The request could not be satisfied'), the site's own refusal.
• Encyclopedia ピクシブ百科事典 「三人麻雀」 — Encyclopedia entry surfaced by search.
  Where: https://dic.pixiv.net/a/%E4%B8%89%E4%BA%BA%E9%BA%BB%E9%9B%80. Tried: 2026-10-07: 403 with server cloudflare, the site's own refusal.
• Encyclopedia riichi.wiki 'Sanma' — The English riichi wiki's page on three-player play (the existing riichi-wiki observation is from its Japanese mahjong page).
  Where: https://riichi.wiki/Sanma. Tried: 2026-10-07: 403, the site's own refusal of automated readers.
• Guide Nanette Pasquarello, 'Nan's Mah Jong Notes' (homepage.mac.com/zenblaster/mj/mah_how.html, Wayback 2003) and chevroncars.com 'The history of mahjong' (Wayback 2012) — Minor references of en Wikipedia's three-player article (point systems; suit removal).
  Where: web.archive.org captures 20030626202552 and 20120429074008. Tried: 2026-10-07: not attempted individually after web.archive.org connections were reset repeatedly from this side.
• Guide Reach Mahjong (Garthe Nelson?) blog, "Osaka 3-Player Mahjong" — English first-hand account of Osaka parlour sanma (35,000/40,000, no 100/500 sticks, Osaka rules compared with Tokyo Tōtenkō), per search lead.
  Where: https://reachmahjong.com/osaka-3-player-mahjong/. Tried: 2026-10-07: curl failed TLS (site serves a self-signed certificate; earlier fetch of the forum got a DreamHost 'Site not found' page) — site-side; did not bypass TLS. WebFetch returned HTTP 503 from the site.
• Encyclopedia 麻雀ローカルルールWiki (atwiki): 関西三麻 (pages/4311) and 三麻の北風牌の扱い (pages/310) — Community wiki pages on Kansai sanma and regional handling of North (e.g. North as flower in northern Kantō, common yakuhai in Nara).
  Where: https://w.atwiki.jp/mahjlocal/pages/4311.html ; https://w.atwiki.jp/mahjlocal/pages/310.html. Tried: 2026-10-07: Cloudflare 'Just a moment' challenge from the site; not bypassed.
• Guide 麻雀College 「抜きドラとは？三人麻雀での北の扱い」 — Guide on nukidora and North handling.
  Where: https://mahjongcollege.com/rules/4672/. Tried: 2026-10-07: site's own nginx 403 Forbidden.
• Historical 木下裕章 『麻雀屋からマージャン倶楽部へ』 (2012) — Book by the former head of the national mahjong parlour union, cited by note1990 for the 1985 Fūeihō revision that ended Bū mahjong; may document the shift of Osaka parlours to sanma.
  Where: Unknown publisher (possibly union-published); not found in NDL OpenSearch by title or creator.. Tried: 2026-10-07: NDL OpenSearch title= and any= queries returned 0; creator=木下裕章 returned unrelated namesakes.
• Journalism 麻雀新聞 2015年5月号 (第三回鳳凰杯) and 2016年8月号 (第四回鳳凰杯) print articles — Trade-paper articles on the Kansai store-vs-store sanma tournament; only contents listings are online.
  Where: Majan Shinbun (MCJ Co.; paper suspended 2025-11, continued in 『麻雀界』). Tried: 2026-10-07: read the web back-number page (contents only); no article text online.
• Forum Reddit r/Mahjong thread 'Sanma Japanese Riichi variant 3 player dora north' (7osl1x, 2018) — English discussion of sanma North rules referenced in McGill blog comments.
  Where: https://www.reddit.com/r/Mahjong/comments/7osl1x/. Tried: 2026-10-07: reddit answers 403 to automated readers (earlier fetch got an app shell with no content) and the search tool refuses reddit.com.
• Forum BoardGameGeek threads on sanma / three-player riichi — English hobbyist discussion.
  Where: boardgamegeek.com. Tried: 2026-10-07: Cloudflare challenge page from BGG (site's refusal).
• Guide YouTube rules explainers: 雀サクッTV 「関西三麻を覚えよう！！」 (LVTWnaU_0Gg); daisenの三人麻雀専門チャンネル 「初心者でも大丈夫！三人麻雀の基本的なルール」 (sPTxdc8DMn8); たkる麻雀グッズ研究所 「手積み３人麻雀（サンマ）の始め方」 (W3PqDcVmfJY); The Mahjong Line 'Can you play mahjong with three players?' (eFZ4Ift8dgQ); Riichi Mahjong Central 'New 3 Ma/3 Player Mahjong Rule!? Enter the 3M Kingdom' (2jhUHTMHNvI); 三人麻雀フリー雀荘のルール「関西サンマ」を優しく解説！ (400N7S256J0) — Rules explainers and broadcasts; video cannot be watched here and pages have no readable text.
  Where: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<id>. Tried: 2026-10-07: titles/channels confirmed via YouTube oEmbed; watch pages return Google's 'unusual traffic' captcha (site's refusal).
• Historical Chronicling America / Papers Past search for three-handed mah-jongg — Check 1920s Western three-handed mahjong mentions (not Japanese sanma).
  Where: chroniclingamerica.loc.gov ; paperspast.natlib.govt.nz. Tried: 2026-10-07: Chronicling America returned a Cloudflare challenge then 308 to loc.gov; Papers Past returned an Incapsula bot challenge — both site-side.
• Historical 林茂光 (or 日本競技麻雀倶楽部). 『麻雀競技法とその秘訣』. 四六書院, 昭和4 (1929) and 昭和5 (1930). Asami cites it as 「麻雀競技法と其秘訣（日本競技麻雀倶楽部・岡村書店S5/6/1）」 for the prewar A/B sanma types. — Asami's named source for the prewar three-player rules (North removed; or a suit and winds removed with flowers, pon but no chii). The no-chii rule would be the earliest known if confirmed.
  Where: https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000000773779 and https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000000773785. Tried: 2026-10-07/08: NDL OpenSearch (title 麻雀競技法と其秘訣 = 0; 麻雀競技法 found the 四六書院 records); no NDL Digital PID in the records; not among the five public-domain mahjong books in NDL Lab. Publisher discrepancy (岡村書店 vs 四六書院) unresolved.
• Historical 米沢章. 『標準麻雀 : 競技法とその作戦』 / 『標準麻雀競技法とその作戦』. 朝日新聞社, 1927 and 1928. NDL pid 1027927, 1029998. — Cited by Asami (as S4/11) as an early text mentioning three-player play.
  Where: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1027927 ; https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1029998. Tried: 2026-10-07: NDL Digital IIIF manifest returns {"checkResult": "NG"} (not public; registered-user or in-library access only). NDL's own restriction, not a failure here.
• Historical 柳河卓人. 『麻雀実戦妙技法』. 盛陽堂, 昭和5 (1930). — Cited by Asami as describing prewar sanma rules.
  Where: NDL (not found). Tried: 2026-10-07: NDL OpenSearch title 麻雀実戦妙技法, 麻雀妙技法, creator 柳河卓人: 0 results.
• Rulebook 村石利夫. 『麻雀101話 : 東南西北ものしり事典』. 光風社書店, 1976. — Asami's source for Shikoku sanma being devised c. Shōwa 19 (1944) by Masuda Minoru of Tokushima, and for the c. 1975 Shikoku rules (North nukidora, no chii, 45,000/50,000).
  Where: https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000001304780. Tried: 2026-10-07: NDL record found; no digital copy offered online.
• Journalism 『週刊読売』 1973年2月24日号 p.24 「公式「三人マージャン」の全魅力!」; 3月3日号 p.138; 3月10日号 p.144 「三人麻雀の現行3ルールの徹底的解剖」; 3月31日号 p.42 「決定版「三人麻雀」賛成･反対」 (山口瞳, 吉行淳之介, 大橋巨泉, 村石利夫). — A 1973 campaign for an 'official' sanma and a survey of three current rule sets: the best contemporary evidence for sanma's rules and spread in the early 1970s.
  Where: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1813820 , /1813821 , /1813822 , /1813825. Tried: 2026-10-07/08: tables of contents read via NDL Digital item API; the issues are restricted (manifest checkResult NG). NDL's restriction.
• Journalism 天野大三 「麻雀上達法」. 『面白倶楽部』 9(7), 光文社, 1956年7月, p.219. — NDL Search matched this issue on サンマ 麻雀 in full text; a 1956 article by Amano Daizō (father of the modern rules) that may mention three-player play.
  Where: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1834059. Tried: 2026-10-07: restricted (checkResult NG); which page matched is not shown.
• Journalism 森光子 「三人麻雀で一眼散」. 『新評』 19(5), 1972年5月, p.212. — 1972 magazine essay on three-player mahjong.
  Where: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1807975. Tried: 2026-10-07: table of contents read; issue restricted (NG).
• Rulebook 伊藤拓馬. 『賭けずに楽しむ日本の賭博ゲーム』. 立東舎, 2015. ISBN 9784845625918, pp. 119-123. — Cited by ja.wikipedia 東天紅 for the Akasaka parlour origin and Tōtenkō rules.
  Where: https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I026353160. Tried: 2026-10-07: NDL record found (any=東天紅 麻雀); in copyright, not online; Google Books API 429.
• Rulebook 栗原安行. 『おぼえる麻雀/3人麻雀の遊び方』. 泰光堂, 1979.03 (as listed in Asami's library list lib27). — Possibly the first Japanese book devoted to three-player play (the 3-mahjong.com site says there were no textbooks).
  Where: Asami's list https://mjradio.web.fc2.com/majansite-mirror/lib27.html ; NDL. Tried: 2026-10-07: NDL OpenSearch creator 栗原安行 (104 hits, first 10 seen), title 3人麻雀の遊び方 (0), おぼえる麻雀 (no match). Not located.
• Guide Sammaniax (www.sammaniax.com), a site with a 分布図 (distribution map) of sanma rule variants, cited by Asami (his16) and by suzume.hakata21.com. — Described as the detailed survey of regional sanma variants.
  Where: http://www.sammaniax.com/. Tried: 2026-10-07: DNS does not resolve (curl: Could not resolve host). archive.org availability API answered 429; Wayback connection reset (this side). Not in the fc2 mirror (gld4.html 404).
• Rulebook Rep, Jelte. The Great Mahjong Book: History, Lore, and Play. Tuttle, 2007 (chapter 'Japan'). — Cited by en.wikipedia 'Three-player mahjong' for its 'vanilla' rules; may say which country's three-player game it describes.
  Where: https://archive.org/details/greatmahjongbook0000repj. Tried: 2026-10-07: Internet Archive lending-only (printdisabled); djvu.txt redirects, search-inside answers 'Item not available'.
• Encyclopedia 最完整的日本麻將中文維基百科 (wiki.lingshangkaihua.com), article 三人麻将 / 三人麻將 — The fullest Chinese-language wiki on riichi mahjong. Search snippets show a dedicated sanma article covering north-as-yakuhai, north-as-dora and 拔北.
  Where: https://wiki.lingshangkaihua.com/mediawiki/index.php/zh/%E4%B8%89%E4%BA%BA%E9%BA%BB%E5%B0%86. Tried: 2026-10-07. curl failed TLS verification (SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate). This looks like the site's incomplete certificate chain, not the proxy, since other hosts verify fine; I did not disable verification. WebFetch got HTTP 503 Service Unavailable from the site.
• Encyclopedia 百度百科「三人麻将」(item 6981529) and「日本麻将」(item 5292909) — Baidu Baike entries on three-player mahjong and on Japanese mahjong.
  Where: https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%89%E4%BA%BA%E9%BA%BB%E5%B0%86/6981529. Tried: 2026-10-07. 日本麻将: the first curl died mid-exchange on this side (proxy recentRelayFailures: tunnel closed code 1006 for baike.baidu.com:443), and a retry got the site's own 403. 三人麻将: the site's own 403.
• Forum 知乎: question「三人日本麻将规则和四人的有哪些区别？」(300339195) and column「【地方麻将】那些改变麻将玩法的规则（三）—— 三人麻将」(p/20920031944), also「三麻役种和牌率预测」(p/677136726) — Chinese community discussion of sanma rules. A search snippet says the column compares Japanese sanma with 卡五星 and Korean and Malaysian three-player games, and says Korean mahjong is related to the Japanese.
  Where: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/20920031944. Tried: 2026-10-07: the site's own 403 to curl, for both the question and the column.
• Encyclopedia Mahjong Wiki (Fandom) zh「拔北」 — Chinese wiki article on the north-pulling rule.
  Where: https://mahjong.fandom.com/zh/wiki/%E6%8B%94%E5%8C%97. Tried: 2026-10-07: the site's own 403 to curl.
• Guide Bilibili column「【正经科普向】颇为魔性的日麻古役与地方役种（2）」(cv2650901) — A search snippet says it describes a sanma-only old yaku, 拔北大四喜.
  Where: https://bilibili.com/read/cv2650901. Tried: 2026-10-07. The page is JS-rendered and curl got an empty shell. api.bilibili.com/x/article/view answered -404 for the id (and -509 rate limit for cv21982265). WebFetch also saw an empty page.
• Encyclopedia Korean wikis on Japanese sanma: 나무위키「3인 마작」, 리브레 위키「리치마작/3인작」, 더위키「3인 마작」; and the arca.live 마작 채널 post「초심을 위한 삼마 입문」 — Dedicated Korean-language pages on Japanese three-player riichi (nukidora, 8 dead-wall tiles, 1m/9m dora) exist, according to search snippets.
  Where: https://librewiki.net/wiki/%EB%A6%AC%EC%B9%98%EB%A7%88%EC%9E%91/3%EC%9D%B8%EC%9E%91. Tried: 2026-10-07: the site's own 403 to curl from librewiki.net, thewiki.kr and arca.live; Namu Wiki is known to answer 403 and was not retried. I did not try to get around these refusals.
• Law 大阪府風俗営業等の規制及び業務の適正化等に関する法律施行条例 (originally 風俗営業等取締法施行条例, 昭和34年大阪府条例第6号; amended 昭和59年条例第57号, in force 13 Feb 1985), especially its pre-1985 text on prizes in mahjong parlours — It would show whether Osaka law before 1985 allowed or tolerated prizes in mahjong parlours (the legal basis of bū/B-rule settlement), and whether Osaka's post-1985 ordinance differs from Tokyo's 'no prizes for games between customers' duty.
  Where: https://www.pref.osaka.lg.jp/houbun/reiki/reiki_honbun/k201RG00001068.html (current text); pre-1985 text in 大阪府公報 or a printed 大阪府例規集. Tried: 2026-10-07/08: curl to pref.osaka.lg.jp failed with 'Recv failure: Connection reset by peer' (a failure on this side or in the relay, not a page from the site); WebFetch reached the page, and its summary reported a 1959 origin, commencement 13 Feb 1985, a grandfather clause for 'まあじやん遊技場' structures and no 賞品 provision. That is a summary, not a reading, so it is not reported as a source.
• Law 風俗営業等の規制及び業務の適正化等に関する法律施行規則 (昭和60年国家公安委員会規則第1号) as originally promulgated in the 官報, January/February 1985, art. on mahjong play fees — The current rule caps fees per hour (600 yen per person or 2400 yen per table for automatic tables). The original 1985 basis matters for the claim that fast games (bū, sanma) charged per game breached hourly fee limits, and for any Tokyo-specific practice.
  Where: 官報 1985 (NDL Digital Collections, 官報 is restricted for 1985); 法令全書 昭和60年. Tried: 2026-10-07: e-Gov holds only the current text (already read by g4); the NDL hourei.ndl.go.jp search is a JavaScript application and returned no readable text to curl; not pursued further.
• Scholarship 伊藤拓馬 Itō Takuma. 『賭けずに楽しむ日本の賭博ゲーム』. 立東舎, May 2015 (ISBN 978-4-8456-2591-8), pp. 128-131 on bū mahjong — The only modern book source cited by ja Wikipedia ブー麻雀; it may hold the source for the 1985 prize-ban and hourly-fee statements.
  Where: NDL https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I026353160; libraries. Tried: 2026-10-07: found in NDL OpenSearch; no full text online.
• Historical 木下裕章 (former chairman, 全国麻雀業組合総連合会). 「麻雀屋からマージャン倶楽部へ」 (2012), and his article in 『麻雀界』 no. 4 (c. 2011), on the end of B-rule settlement in 1985 — First-hand industry account cited by a 2022 note.com post and by the 2011 Asami forum thread: the B rule allowed a small stake until the 1985 revision and the federation gave it up under the Metropolitan Police's 'strong guidance'.
  Where: Industry publications (日本アミューズメントサービス publishes 麻雀界); NDL holds some 麻雀界 issues as newspaper-clipping records only. Tried: 2026-10-07: NDL OpenSearch title and any= searches for 麻雀屋からマージャン倶楽部へ returned 0; 麻雀界 no. 4 not found as an issue record.
• Encyclopedia ja Wikipedia 「麻雀のルール」 history before 8 June 2009 (the three-player section that was split out into 三人麻雀) — To find when the unsourced 'free sanma parlours cannot be run in Tokyo' sentence was first added, and by whom.
  Where: https://ja.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=麻雀のルール&action=history. Tried: 2026-10-08: Wikipedia API answered 429 (rate limit on this shared address) to the history query; not retried.
• Journalism Full page text of 『週刊読売』 1973-02-24 p.24 (公式「三人マージャン」の全魅力!), 1973-03-03 p.138, 1973-03-10 p.144 and 1973-03-31 p.42 (pids 1813820-1813825) — Only OCR snippets with the columns interleaved can be read. The full pages would settle what the 1973 'official' rule did with North, the exact Masuda (升田実) chronology (c.1944 at the Takamatsu railway bureau, post-war Tokushima, Takamatsu boom c.1962-63), the 'inventor was ex-JNR' line, and Yokota Masatoshi's Wakayama pre-war claim.
  Where: NDL Digital Collections, in-library only (permission ndl_only): https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1813820 etc.. Tried: 2026-10-07: full-text search API snippets read (about 150 probe keywords). Page images need NDL in-library access. This is the NDL's access restriction, not a technical failure.
• Rulebook 村石利夫 (Muraishi Toshio). 『麻雀101話 : 東南西北ものしり事典』. 光風社書店, 1976 (NDL R100000002-I000001304780) — Asami (his16) cites it for 'S19年頃、徳島市在住の升田実さんという人が考案した'. Need to see whether Muraishi cites Shūkan Yomiuri 1973 (he wrote in its 1973-03-31 issue).
  Where: NDL catalogue record only; no NDL Digital copy found (title searched in full text 1950-2000: only catalogue and advert mentions).. Tried: 2026-10-07: NDL OpenSearch title= and full-text keyword '麻雀101話'. Not digitised, so a library copy is needed.
• Journalism 田村光昭「雀鬼ひとり旅〈四国巡礼篇〉」『新評』22(3), 1975-03, p.90 (pid 1808011) — Gives Tokushima 1957-58 as the start; full text needed to see what Tamura was told and by whom.
  Where: NDL Digital Collections, registered-user transmission (ooc).. Tried: 2026-10-07: snippets only through the full-text search API; no login used.
• Journalism 「全国各界麻雀ルール」『週刊文春』1974-05-13 pp.150-154 (pid 3375538) and 「全調査 インフレ・マージャンまかり通る」『週刊現代』1968-06-13 pp.40-44 (pid 3371475) — Earliest full statements of the nukidora sanma rule (1974) and of Shikoku no-chii three-player (1968); only snippets were read.
  Where: NDL Digital Collections, in-library only.. Tried: 2026-10-07: snippets through the full-text search API.
• Guide sammaniax 「日本サンマ分布図」: the per-prefecture rule entries (229 in March 1999, 376 in June 2001) behind map.cgi — This was the only survey of regional sanma house rules (chii, North, characters suit, tile set) in 1999-2001, and two Japanese sources cite it.
  Where: http://www.sammaniax.com/map/map.cgi (POST form). Tried: 2026-10-07/08. Wayback CDX shows only the front page and a bare map.cgi GET (2000-03-01), whose content is the front page. The listings were POST results and were never captured. Megalodon: no capture. WARP (NDL): 'Page not found'. The domain is NXDOMAIN. The refusals are on the archives' side (nothing captured), not this side.
• Guide Hurley, japanese-mahjong.com: 3pmjother.html ('Mahjong in Japan'), 3pmjnews01-03.html (2001-2003 club diaries) and the Yaku table — They may say where and since when Hurley's group played Kansai/Chugoku-style sanma, and they complete his rules.
  Where: https://web.archive.org/web/20080212132948/http://japanese-mahjong.com:80/3pmjother.html. Tried: 2026-10-08: the fetch of 3pmjother failed on this side (SSL_ERROR_SYSCALL / connection reset to web.archive.org), then was not retried for lack of time. CDX lists the captures, so the pages exist.
• Commercial Tonpuso (mj.giganet.net) update notices for 1998 (old/planOld3.htm, 1998-05 to 1999-08) at the date the third server and its sanma tables opened — To date the start of online sanma on Tonpuso more exactly. The log shows sanma rules documented by 1998-11-12, but no opening notice was found by keyword.
  Where: https://web.archive.org/web/20000118154107/http://mj.giganet.net:80/old/planOld3.htm. Tried: 2026-10-08: read in full (41k chars) and grepped for 第3/サンマ/三人. No opening notice was found before 1999-05. The opening may be in planOld2 or in the 1998 plan.htm (captured 1998-12-06), which was not read.
• Commercial blog.tenhou.net monthly archives 2009-01 and 2009-02 — The blog's earliest months, possibly announcing sanma tournaments or lobby changes.
  Where: http://blog.tenhou.net/archives/200901-1.html. Tried: 2026-10-08: HTTP 403 from the Sakura blog server's own page ('サーバのアクセス権限がありません'), twice. Earlier months answer 404 (they do not exist). Wayback was not tried for these two pages.
• Collection archive.ph / archive.today captures of japanese-mahjong.com, sammaniax.com and mahjong.wikidot.com/rules:three-player — An independent second archive of the dead pages.
  Where: https://archive.ph/http://www.japanese-mahjong.com/3pmjintro.html. Tried: 2026-10-08: connection reset, logged by the agent proxy as ws_closed_mid_exchange to archive.ph:443 (a failure on this side or upstream, not a site refusal). archive.today and archive.is reset the same way.

Where it was searched

Every place the search checklist names for this variant’s languages, and what each gave, including nothing. The last full pass was on 2026-10-08.

Names searched: Japanese 三人麻雀, 三麻, サンマ, 三人打ち, 三人打ち麻雀, 3人麻雀, 関西三麻, 東天紅, 北抜き, 抜きドラ; English sanma, three-player mahjong, three-player riichi, three-player Japanese mahjong; Chinese 日本三人麻雀, 三人麻将, 三人麻將, 三麻.