Using lobbies on Tenhou

Tenhou

Most players use Tenhou.net by playing against others without knowing who you are playing with. This is explained in more detail in this post where how to use the English user interface is explained.

Recently, I got the question how to play others that you know: this is where lobbies come into the game. In a lobby, you can get together with others and start playing without anyone else joining. 

There are 2 ways to set up a lobby: simple and advanced. 

Simple lobby

On the start page of Tenhou click on the "Change Lobby" button, choose "Others (Go to a private lobby)" and enter a number between 1000 and 7999 to enter the lobby with that number. By sharing the same lobby number with other players, you all enter the same lobby and once everyone is logged in, you can start playing any of the normal games available in Tenhou.
Note that if you played before, the first 10-20 seconds you will see that many other players are available. As the user interface is refreshed, this number will drop to the actual number of players in the lobby you entered. Note: if you encounter other players in the lobby you chose, it is best to leave them alone and choose another lobby. There are 7,000 lobbies to choose from, so the chances of that happening are not very big.

To return to the "normal" way of playing, log out and change lobby to "Ranked Play (Ranked, Parlor)". 

Playing as a group

To coordinate play, it is best to have a way to communicate with the other players, in text chat, voice chat and/or video chat. There are many ways to do this online, for example using WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Discord, Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype, etc. etc. Note that functionality to do this is sometimes limited, unless paid for.

Advanced lobby

The pages to create a tournament lobby, in which more advanced options are available is only in Japanese. More details to follow.