How to Play Mahjong: Tiles, Turns, Winning Hands and Scoring

Mahjong is a game for four players built on the same idea as rummy, played with tiles instead of cards. You collect sets, throw away what you don't need, and try to complete a hand before the others do. It appeared in China in the late nineteenth century and became a craze in the United States in the 1920s.

There is no single set of rules. This page first explains the core that every version shares, then follows Hong Kong (Cantonese) mahjong, the most common style in the Chinese-speaking world, and finally explains how American mahjong differs.

The goal of mahjong

Build a hand of four sets and one pair (14 tiles, plus one extra tile for every kong, counting the tile that completes the hand) and declare it before anyone else does. A set is either three or four identical tiles, or a run of three consecutive tiles in one suit. The pair, often called the eyes, is two identical tiles.

Whoever goes out wins the round. The other players pay, and the amount depends on how valuable the winning hand is.

The tiles

A standard Chinese set has 144 tiles:

The three suits (dots, bamboo, characters) are the simples when you use the numbers 2 to 8, and the terminals are the 1s and 9s. Winds and dragons are the honours. Honours cannot be part of a run, only of triplets or pairs.

The flowers and seasons are bonus tiles. They never go in a set. If you draw one, you put it face up beside your hand and take a replacement tile from the end of the wall.

Setting up and dealing

1. Shuffle all the tiles face down and build a wall: each player makes a row of 18 stacks, two tiles high, and the four rows are pushed together into a square.
2. Decide who is the first dealer, called East. In many groups the players roll the dice and the highest roll sits East. The others are South, West and North, going counterclockwise.
3. The dealer rolls three dice and counts along the wall to decide where to break it.
4. Starting from that point, players take tiles in blocks of four, East first, until everyone has 12. Then each takes one more, and East takes an extra one.

Everybody now has 13 tiles, and East has 14. East discards first.

A turn

Play goes counterclockwise. On your turn:

1. Draw one tile from the wall (or claim the last discard, see below).
2. Discard one tile face up in the middle of the table, saying its name aloud.

Your hand always returns to 13 tiles after you discard. If the tile you drew is a flower, put it aside and draw again.

Pung, chow and kong

A kong counts as one set, even though it uses four tiles. When you make one, you show it and draw one extra tile from the end of the wall, so your hand still has the right size.

Claiming a discard

When someone discards, you may take that tile instead of waiting for your turn, as long as it finishes a set and you show the set to the table:

• You can claim for a pung or a kong from any player.
• You can claim for a chow only from the player before you in the turn order, the one whose discard comes right ahead of your turn. In a Hong Kong game that is the player on your left.
• You can claim the tile to win, from any player.

If several people want the same tile, a win beats a pung or kong, and a pung or kong beats a chow. Claimed sets are exposed: you lay them face up in front of your hand, and they can no longer be changed. After a claim you discard a tile and play continues from your seat.

A hand made up only of tiles you drew yourself is called concealed. In Hong Kong scoring a concealed hand earns a faan bonus.

Winning

You win when your tiles form four sets and a pair. There are two ways:

• Win by discard: you claim another player's discard that completes your hand. In most versions the player who threw it pays more.
• Self-draw (self-pick): you draw the winning tile from the wall yourself. In Hong Kong rules this is worth an extra faan, and all three opponents pay.

If the wall runs out before anyone wins, the round is a draw, nobody pays, and the dealer usually stays East for the next round.

Hong Kong scoring

In Hong Kong mahjong a hand is worth a number of faan. Most tables require at least 3 faan to be allowed to win. Some tables use a lower minimum for beginners, so ask first.

A flower or season that matches your seat (East 1, South 2, West 3, North 4) adds 1 faan. If your seat wind and the round wind are the same, a pung of that wind counts twice. Total faan are capped. The absolute limit is 13, and 10 is a common cap at the table.

The faan total is converted into payment points. One common conversion, the "half-spicy" table, goes like this:

In the common "discarder pays all" style, the player who threw the winning tile pays the table value. In a self-draw win, the winner is paid 1.5 times the table value in total, shared by the three opponents. A 3-faan self-draw therefore pays 12 points, 4 from each opponent. Some tables split a discard win differently, so settle this before you start.

A worked example (Hong Kong)

You are South in the East round. Your final hand is a pung of Red Dragons, a pung of South winds, a pung of 3 of bamboo, a pung of 8 of dots and a pair of 5 of characters. You draw the last 8 of dots yourself. You had claimed one of the pungs earlier, so the hand is not concealed, and your table has no bonus for holding no flowers.

• All triplets: 3 faan
• Pung of Red Dragons: 1 faan
• Pung of your seat wind (South): 1 faan
• Self-draw: 1 faan

Total: 6 faan, which is 32 points on the half-spicy table. Because you won by self-draw, you collect 1.5 times that: 48 points, or 16 from each opponent.

American mahjong

American mahjong follows the same ideas with a few big changes. It was standardised by the National Mah Jongg League, founded in 1937.

• Tiles: 152 in play: the 108 suit tiles, 16 winds, 12 dragons, 8 flowers and 8 jokers.
• The card: your hand must match a pattern printed on the League's official card, which changes every year. There is no faan counting; you either match a printed hand or you don't. This page does not list the hands, because they belong to the League. You need the current card to play.
• Dealing: each player builds a wall 19 stacks long and two high. East breaks the wall with the dice. After the deal East has 14 tiles and the rest have 13.
• The Charleston: before play, all players pass three unwanted tiles right, then across, then left. A second Charleston, in the reverse order (left, across, right), happens if everyone agrees. On the last pass of each Charleston you may pass blindly, which means passing tiles you just received without looking at them. After the Charleston, two players across from each other may agree to a courtesy pass of up to three tiles. Jokers can never be passed.
• Jokers: a joker can stand for any tile in a pung, kong, quint (five) or sextet (six). It can never be used in a pair or as a single tile. If someone has exposed a joker and you hold the tile it represents, you may swap yours in on your turn.
• Calling: you may call a discard only to complete a pung, kong, quint or sextet (or to win). The called set must be shown.
• Winning and payment: the winner declares Mahjong with the 14th tile. A winning hand is worth the value on the card. On a discard win, the discarder pays double and the other two pay the single value. On a self-drawn win, all three pay double. Some groups double the payment again for a hand with no jokers. Treat that as a house rule.
• Dead hand: a hand with the wrong number of tiles, or one declared as Mahjong by mistake after it has been shown, is dead. You cannot win with it, but you still pay the winner.

Tips for beginners

• Keep your hand flexible early. Discard single honours and isolated terminals first.
• Count the copies of a tile you have already seen. If you hold a pair of East winds and two more are visible, no East is left for a pung.
• Be careful with a tile of a suit or honour that another player is visibly collecting.
• In Hong Kong rules, a hand below the minimum faan cannot win, however complete it looks. Decide early where your 3 faan will come from, for example a dragon pung or a single suit.
• Watch what everyone else discards. A player who throws a lot of one suit and none of another is usually collecting the second.

Common mistakes

• Declaring a win with fewer than the minimum faan. Most tables treat it as a false win and make you pay a penalty, so agree on the penalty beforehand.
• Claiming a chow from the wrong player.
• Forgetting to replace a flower, so the hand has the wrong number of tiles. A hand with the wrong tile count cannot win.
• Calling a tile in American mahjong that does not complete a pung or better.

Variants and history

Besides Hong Kong and American styles, there are Chinese Official rules (introduced in 1998 with 81 scoring patterns), Japanese riichi (with a special declaration called riichi and dora bonus tiles) and many local forms in Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Its exact birthplace is disputed, but it developed from older Chinese card games and reached the West in the 1920s. If you know a rummy-style game like Gin Rummy, the rhythm of draw and discard will feel familiar.