Mah Jong is a card game or tile-game, where the goal is to collect sets, and those sets are worth points.
Rather than try to directly emulate a particular regional variation, I will teach a fairly "vanilla" version, derived from the rules I've found common to most oriental versions.
Note also, American Mah Jong is a fairly different game, using an expanded tileset, and with different collection and scoring goals.
THe solitaire games where you simply match exposed tiles are also not the actual game.
Mah Jong apparently arises in the 19th century in china. By the turn of the century, it was a fairly well spread, and diverse, set of regionally varied collection games, all fairly similar to Gin Rummy. By the 1930's, it had reached America.
I came to learn it by quirk. While assigned to Vietnam, My father purchased a 144 tile set, and a Japanese rulebook in English. It sat on the shelf. I occasionally played with them as a child, but never thought of them as "Cards"...
In High school, I found the book on the same shelf as the tiles, and got interested. I sat down, and read. I tried very hard to follow the relatively poor translation. I figured it out.
In college, I picked up a cheap set on sale, having 148 tiles. It had an even more poorly translated rulebook, from a chinese ruleset, I think. I also picked up "The Fortune Teller's Mah Jong", for the cards. It had the example I needed.
Fairly soon, many of my friends were playing, and we developed a standardized score system for our own use. It is broadly similar to most oriental scoring systems.
You need:
It helps to have:
A standard set of Mah Jong consists of 136 playing tiles, 4 spares, and 0, 4 or 8 "flowers" and/or "Seasons". American sets add "Big Jokers".
Card sets carry the same number of cards. I will refer to tiles exclusively, but know that cards are used exactly the same.
| The standard 136 | ||||||
| Honors | Numbers | |||||
| Suits: | Winds | Dragons | Characters | Coins | Bamboo | |
| 4 each of: | East South West North | White Green Red | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 | Bird (1) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 | |
Characters are also "Ten-thousands", Numbers, Chars, or Cracks.
Coins are also called Balls or Dots.
Bamboo is also sometimes called Rods or Sticks. Note that the 1 bamboo is oftend a bird in front of a stand of bamboo.
Dragons are a misnomer; White is Void, Green is Fortune, and Red is Center. They are principles, not dragons; the term Dragons, though, is a long time americanism, and will be used here to avoid confusion later....
If you have 8 white tiles, 4 are spares, and 4 your whites. If you have 4 white, and four with a black box, the black box is your "white dragon" tile. You can call it black, instead, if you really want to... If you have only 4 white, and no black tiles, then your set has no spares...
Flowers and Seasons are ornate tiles, sometimes labeled with numbers, other times with names. Even if a set uses only one color per tile, these tiles will often be multi-colored.
These tiles are usually black, and show either Benten's mirthful aspect, or the smiling budda, or some similar symbol of luck. These rules don't use them; few oriental rules use them.
Before anything else, it is important to know what constitutes a set. Each type of set has different requirements.
A player's hand consists of 13 tiles; a 14th is drawn and then one is discarded as one's turn. (the actual numbers are higher if you have drawn flowers or seasons, or completed kongs)
The dealer always starts with 14 tiles, but begins play by discarding one.
Each revealed flower allows an extra tile.
Each kong allows an extra tile.
Tile Positioning:
Tiles are Hidden if placed such that only the player whose hand they are in can see them. This is usually standing on end, with the face towards the player. It is also acceptable to place them face down.
Open or Exposed if they are laid face up on the table so all can see them.
note that this is enough to have 4 sets, plus an extra...
You need 4 sets. You also need a pair.
Since this would total 14 tiles, you can only go out on your turn.
At least one of the sets must be a pung or kong; if you can't score, you can't go out.
The pair needed is worth nothing, but counts for hand contents, and without it, you can't go out.
Since chous fill a set, they allow you to go out sooner with a lower valued hand. Sometimes this can be a very strategic thing to do.
On your turn. We'll get to that soon. If you can go out, you should, unless you have REALLY good reason to believe you can make more points by completing kongs. It's usually a bad idea to wait.
If you don't go out when you can, or no one was able to go out, the "deal" ends when a draw would be required from the last eight tiles. Everyone still counts scores.
Note: I always count clockwise (left). It's easier.
On the turn, you draw a tile. If you have flowers, play them and draw replacements. If you have a Kong in hand, lay it face down and draw a replaement. You either go out, or discard a tile. If other players can complete a set with your discard, they may take it and lay the set open, skipping the draw, but then completing their turn. If no one grabbed you discard, the player to your left draws from the wall.
Every turn begins with either picking up someone's discard, or by drawing from the wall.
If you see a discard you need, you immediately indicate your desire. Provided you're the only one, you then reach for it. If more than one needs it, a priority system is used to tell who gets it. In either case, sucha tile is immediately lain face up in front of the grabbing player. The rest of the Pung, Kong, Chow, or Pillow must be placed face up beside it. You may never take a discard without making a set immediately. If the set being made is a kong, and the pung is still hidden, the pung is laid face down beside the face up fourth.
You can not grab to make a pair unless you are going to go out with that pair.
if you take a discard, and then can't prove it, you must return it whence it came from.
If you draw from the wall, you draw into your hand. Any sets made remain hidden.
If you happen to have a Kong, you need an extra tile to make the required 4 sets and one pillow (pair).
If a flower or season was drawn from the wall, it is lain exposed, and a replacement is drawn.
the theory here is that the 4th tile of a kong, and any flower or season tiles, don't count against the tiles allowed in hand. Hence, you are "replacing" the tiles. (THey stay part of your hand, they just allow extras in hand, to be honest.
If you have the four sets, now you lay down all the sets hidden in your hand, and they go down face down.
Next you score your hand revealing each set as you count it. If you were WRONG, any hidden sets may be returned to hidden... and you proceed to discard.
if you really did go out, now that you you've totalled your set's points, you find the hand multiplier's. Each multiplier doubles to total.
once your score is totaled, everyone else will score theirs. See scoring for more.
you place your discard in front of yourself, inside the wall.
Usually you announce your discard.
You may never discard exposed tiles.
| Set values | ||||||
| 2-9 | 1,9, Honor | One of:
|
Two of:
|
All three of:
|
||
| Pung | Exposed | 2 | 4 | 8 | 16 | 32 |
| Hidden | 4 | 8 | 16 | 32 | 64 | |
| Kong | Exposed | 4 | 8 | 16 | 32 | 64 |
| exposed 4th | 6 | 12 | 24 | 48 | 96 | |
| Hidden | 8 | 16 | 32 | 64 | 128 | |
| Chou | 0 | |||||
| Pung | Exposed | 2 |
Double for each:
|
| Hidden | 4 | ||
| Kong | Exposed | 4 | |
| exposed 4th | 6 | ||
| Hidden | 8 | ||
| Chou | 0 | ||
Own wind means the wind assigned the same name as your seat.
Dealer's wind means the same as the name for the dealer's seat.
Round Wind is only used if playing with rounds, and every 4th hand it changes. See below, Rounds.
Each set is evaluated. Then the four sets are totaled.
next, the hand is evaluated for each of the following:
| Hand Doublings | ||
| Whole hand hidden | All one suit | 4 Pung and/or Kong sets in sequence (numbers only) |
| All Honors | all 4 winds | all 3 dragons |
| No 1,9 nor Honors | All 1,9 and Honors | All 1's & 9's |
| 1-5-9 P/K sets | 2-4-8 P/K sets | 3-6-9 P/K sets |
| 3 sets same number | Each Flower | Each Season |
| Went out | Went out w/o discards | Went out in own round |
| Went out in own deal | ||
Now, to epxlain these more fully.
Once you know the number of doublings, double the score that many times.
this does, in fact, mean that a hand can be worth from 2 to 65536 assuming NO FLOWERS! With flowers and seasons, it goes up to a whopping 16777216.
Once everyone has scored, each player subtracts their score from the score of the person, and pays them that much. Normally. (For less competetive play, each person merely scores their own. The person who went out never pays.
On the matter of payment, Mah Jong is often played with a fixed point load, or with a set number or rounds. Likewise, scoring is often kept with sticks or chips. I like to use poker chips; Red is 2, white is 10, blue is 100. Each player starts with 10 red (20), 18 white (180), and 8 blue, for 1000 points, or 15, 27, 12, for 1500 points.
Many oriental scorings use 10, 50 and 500 point markers, and round payment to the nearest 10 point bar.
When I used to play for money, we played penny for 10 points, round down, all 8 flower/seasons in the wall. Made a few decent hands. One guy insisted on a penny a point game... while sitting south, 2 hands in I drew 3 flowers, went out on my own deal, with SSSS NNNN WWW EEE RR, never having discarded (and therefore also all hidden). He hadn't realized just how bad it could get.
| Hidden Kong of South (Dealer and Own) | 64 |
| Hidden Kong of North | 16 |
| Hidden Pung of West | 8 |
| Hidden Pung of East (round) | 16 |
| Sets total | 104 |
|---|---|
| Went out | x2 |
| All Honors | x2 |
| All four winds | x2 |
| Out on Own Deal | x2 |
| Out without discard | x2 |
| 3 flowers (x2x2x2) | x8 |
| total | 26624 |
Now, he did have a good debt to pay off that day... We struck a deal that precluded him having to pay up in cash. I gave up playing for money that day, too...
The first dealer is East. The next person clockwise is South. Then comes West, then North.
If you have only two players, East and South.
If you have three, East south and West
| 4 North | ||
| 3 West | East 1 | |
| South 2 |
The first round is East. Always. Unless you are not playing by rounds.
A "Full game" consists of 4 rounds, each of 4 hands.
East deals first in each round.