Mahjong

Overview

A four-player tile game of draw and discard. Each player builds a hand of fourteen tiles and the first to complete a legal hand wins.

Which mahjong? This matters more than for almost any other game. The tiles and the draw-and-discard turn are shared everywhere, but the legal hands and the scoring are not. American mahjong is a genuinely different game from the Chinese and Japanese versions: it has jokers, an annual card of hands, and a tile-passing phase the others don't use.

How far this page is checked. The Chinese section is checked against the European Mahjong Association's English text of the Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR), the international Chinese competition rules. The Japanese section is checked against the EMA Riichi Rules, 2025 edition. Hong Kong (Cantonese) mahjong has no single governing rulebook and is not covered. The American section is checked only against what the National Mah Jongg League publishes on its website; the League's full rules are sold with its card and have not been checked.

1. The tiles

An MCR set has 144 tiles:

Group	Tiles
Bamboo, Characters, Circles	1–9 in each suit, four copies each: 108
Winds: East, South, West, North	Four copies each: 16
Dragons: Red, Green, White	Four copies each: 12
Flowers	One of each: 8

Riichi uses 136: no flowers or seasons. American sets add jokers.

2. The shared core (MCR and Riichi)

Seat winds run East, South, West, North, counter-clockwise: the player to the dealer's right is South, opposite is West, and to the left is North. East is the dealer.

The dealer starts with fourteen tiles, everyone else with thirteen. On your turn you draw from the wall or claim the previous discard, then discard one tile, so your hand is back to thirteen between turns.

Sets

Set	Description
Chow (chii)	Three consecutive tiles in one suit
Pung (pon)	Three identical tiles
Kong (kan)	Four identical tiles; draw a replacement tile

Winds and dragons form pungs and kongs but never chows, because they have no numbers.

Claiming discards

Both rulebooks agree:

• A chow may only be claimed from the player immediately to your left.
• A pung or kong may be claimed from any player.
• If two players want the same discard, a claim to win beats everything, and a pung or kong beats a chow.

Claiming a pung or kong can skip the players in between, because play carries on from the claimer. A claimed set is exposed and cannot be rearranged later.

3. Chinese mahjong (MCR)

A winning hand is normally four sets plus one pair, though a few special hands (such as Seven Pairs and Thirteen Orphans) break the pattern.

Scoring adds up fan, named patterns each worth a set number of points. In MCR a hand must be worth at least 8 points to be declared. Declaring a hand worth less is a foul that costs the declarer 10 points to each other player.

A complete game is four rounds, named East, South, West and North, and in each round every player deals once. In MCR the deal passes to the right after every hand, whether or not the dealer won. Other Chinese and Hong Kong rules often let a winning dealer deal again; agree which before you start.

4. Japanese Riichi (EMA 2025)

Four sets and a pair (or one of the special hands), and a winning hand must contain at least one yaku, a scoring pattern. Riichi adds the riichi declaration, dora bonus tiles shown by an indicator in the dead wall, and furiten, which stops you winning on a discard in some situations. It is substantially more intricate than MCR.

5. American mahjong

Governed by the National Mah Jongg League, which publishes a card of Standard Hands every year. Every game is played against the current card: if a hand is not on it, it is not a winning hand. There is no general "four sets and a pair" rule.

The League lists the other differences as:

• The Charleston. Before play, players pass three unwanted tiles to one another.
• Jokers, used to complete quints (five alike) and sextets (six alike) as well as smaller groups.

Not checked. Detailed joker rules (for example, that a joker can never be used in a pair or as a single tile) and the exact Charleston sequence are widely taught, but they come from the League's own rulebook, which we have not read. Check your copy of the card and rules before relying on them here.

Commonly argued

• Jokers are American only. MCR and Riichi use none.
• The American card changes every year. A hand that won last year may not exist this year.
• A chow can only be claimed from the player on your left. Pungs and kongs from anyone.
• A win beats any other claim on the same discard.
• MCR needs 8 points to win. A smaller hand cannot be declared.
• Riichi needs a yaku. Four sets and a pair is not enough on its own.
• Agree the variant before dealing. Not the house rules, the actual game.