How to Play Chinese Mahjong

Mahjong is a Chinese tile game for four players in which you build a winning hand of four melds and a pair, drawing and discarding tiles until your hand is complete. It took shape in 19th-century China, and it is the parent game that the American and Japanese versions later adapted. The original is still played widely today, most often in the Hong Kong style.

The set

You play with 144 tiles. The heart of the set is three suits, bamboo, circles, and characters, each numbered one through nine, with four copies of every tile, which makes 108 tiles. To those you add the honor tiles: the four winds, east, south, west, and north, and the three dragons, the red 中, green 發, and white 白. Last come eight bonus tiles, the four flowers and the four seasons. There are no jokers in the Chinese game.

The hand you are building

Each player starts with thirteen tiles. A winning hand is fourteen tiles arranged as four melds and a pair. A meld is one of three shapes:

• A chow, three consecutive numbers in a single suit.
• A pung, three identical tiles.
• A kong, four identical tiles.

The pair is two identical tiles, the matched set your hand rests on. Honors and suits can fill the melds; only the numbered suits can form a chow, since winds and dragons have no sequence.

Flowers and seasons

The eight bonus tiles are not part of any meld. When you draw a flower or a season, you set it aside for a bonus and draw a replacement tile, so a bonus tile never costs you a turn. They sit in front of you, face up, until the hand ends.

Playing a turn

Play moves around the table. On your turn you draw a tile and discard one. When another player discards a tile you need, you may claim it to complete a meld and lay that meld face up for the table to see.

Here is a key difference from the American game: in the Chinese game you can claim a discard to complete a chow, a run of consecutive numbers. A chow can only be taken from the player on your left, the one who plays just before you. A pung or a kong may be claimed from any player, and claiming one can jump the turn order to you.

Winning

You win by completing four melds and a pair, on a tile you draw yourself or one another player discards. When that tile arrives you declare the win and reveal your hand.

How Hong Kong play is scored

Hong Kong mahjong is the most widely played form, and it is scored by faan 番, units of doubling earned from the patterns in your hand. A hand usually needs a minimum number of faan before you are allowed to declare a win, and there is a cap on how high the faan count goes. The more demanding the pattern, the more faan it is worth. The exact tables vary from house to house, so settle the count and the limits with your table before you start.

Where it comes from

Mahjong is a Chinese game, and the version on this page is the one the others grew from. The suits, the winds, and the dragons all carry centuries of tradition, and they are worth knowing on their own terms. If you want the longer story, read where the game comes from.