What is the best tile to discard in mahjong?

The tile whose removal keeps your hand closest to tenpai. Among equal options, throw terminals and honors first — they connect fewer ways than middle tiles.

What is tile efficiency?

Lowering your shanten (tiles from tenpai) on every turn. Keeping shapes with more outs, like two-sided waits, makes tenpai reachable from more draws.

What tile is safe to discard against riichi?

Genbutsu — a tile your opponent already discarded — is 100% safe. Suuji tiles (one rank away) are usually safe against two-sided waits.

What Tile to Discard in Mahjong: Efficiency and Shanten Explained

A practical discard framework — shanten, tile efficiency, keeping the right shapes, safe discards, and the mistakes that slow your hand down.

Discard decisions win games

Every turn you choose one tile to throw and one hand shape to keep. Over a whole game those small choices decide whether you reach tenpai before your opponents — discarding well is the highest-leverage skill in mahjong.

The quick rule: throw the tile whose removal keeps your hand closest to tenpai, and among equals, throw terminals and honors first.

Shanten: your scoreboard

Shanten counts how many tiles you are from tenpai. A hand with four melds plus a pair needs one more tile to win; counting shanten tells you which discard keeps you closest. Lowering shanten on every turn is called tile efficiency.

A two-sided shape like 4-5 waits on 3 or 6; a pair only waits on its own tile. Prefer keeping shapes with more outs — they make tenpai reachable from more draws.

Keep middle tiles, throw terminals

Tiles 3-7 of each suit connect with the most neighbors — 5 connects to 3, 4, 6 and 7. Terminals (1 and 9) and honors only connect one way, so they are the first to throw when they do not form a pair or triplet already.

A lone honor that is not your seat or round wind is almost never worth keeping in riichi — throw it early and use the space for a useful shape.

Safe discards under pressure

When an opponent declares riichi, your discard choices become defensive. A tile they have already discarded (genbutsu) is 100% safe; suuji tiles — one rank away from their discards — are usually safe against two-sided waits.

Fold when you are far from tenpai: throw only safe tiles until the danger passes. Pushing a bad hand into a riichi declaration is how most games are lost.

Mistakes that slow your hand

Keeping a third dragon, holding flowers for too long, breaking a two-sided shape for a lone pair, and calling a chi that opens your hand without lowering shanten are the classic efficiency leaks.

On this site the hint system highlights your waiting tiles after each draw, so you can check whether your discard kept the hand on its fastest path.

FAQ

What is the best tile to discard in mahjong?: The tile whose removal keeps your hand closest to tenpai. Among equal options, throw terminals and honors first — they connect fewer ways than middle tiles.
What is tile efficiency?: Lowering your shanten (tiles from tenpai) on every turn. Keeping shapes with more outs, like two-sided waits, makes tenpai reachable from more draws.
What tile is safe to discard against riichi?: Genbutsu — a tile your opponent already discarded — is 100% safe. Suuji tiles (one rank away) are usually safe against two-sided waits.