How to play authentic mahjong - a beginner's guide
If you have never played mahjong with other people and you want to, this article is for you. This article covers basic concepts you need to start to play. This article does not cover any variation specific knowledge. This article covers the concepts below:
- Recognize Mahjong Tiles
- Mahjong Melds: Pair, Sequence, Triplet, Kong
- Basic Winning Hand
- Overall Game Process
- Actions in the Game
Recognize mahjong Tiles
This article talks about the mahjong tiles. There are 136 commonly used tiles, as well as a few not commonly used ones. We focus on the former.
136 seems a lot, but they are easy to know. The 136 tiles have 34 kinds, each kind has 4 identical tiles. The 34 kinds include 4 suits: Bamboos, Dots, Characters, Dragons. The first 3 suits are numbered from 1 to 9, can be used to form sequences, triples, kongs. The dragon suit is not numbered, thus can form triples and kongs, but not sequences.
Bamboos
Below is the bamboo suit with a number from 1 to 9. The number is the count of sticks in the tile. A bamboo tile reads "n bamboos". For example, "9 bamboos" is the last one in the picture. The Chinese way to pronounce it is "n tiao" or "n suo" where "tiao", "suo", means sticks.
The tiles are marked with a number for ease of recognition. The marks do not exist in real mahjong tiles.
Dots
Below is the dot suit with a number from 1 to 9. The number is the count of circles in the tile. A dot tile reads "n dots". For example, "9 dots" is the last one in the picture. The Chinese way to pronounce it is "n bing" where "bing" means circle.
Characters
Below is the character suit with a number from 1 to 9. The number is the first Chinese in the tile (the second character pronounces wan, means 10 thousand). A character tile reads "n characters". For example, "9 characters" is the last one in the picture. The Chinese way to pronounce it is "n wan".
Dragons
There are 7 dragon tiles, 4 of which are called winds, the rest 3 are just dragons.
Winds tiles - east, south, west, north - are below. In Chinese, they pronounce "dong", "nan", "xi", "bei".
dragon tiles - white, green, red - dragon. People also call them white board, fortune, red character etc. In Chinese, they pronounce "baiban", "facai", "hongzhong", means whiteboard, fortune, center.
Conclusion
There are total 9 kinds of bamboo tiles, 9 kinds of dot tiles, 9 kinds of character tiles, 7 kind dragon tiles. Sum up, there are 34 kinds of tiles. In a mahjong tile set, each kind has 4 tiles, that is 136 tiles in total.
Congratulation, you now know the mahjong tiles. Next, we are going to talk about common concepts of mahjong game. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below.
Basic Melds of Mahjong Hands
To win a mahjong game, you need to make a hand that satisfies winning condition. The conditions are based on patterns called melds. The different kinds of melds are: pair, triplet, sequence, kong. In Chinese, a triplet is called pong, a sequence is called chi, a kong is called gang, the pair in a winning hand is called jiang.
A pair is a 2-tile meld, which has two identical tiles.
For example, below is a pair of 2 *white dragons*
A triplet is a 3-tile meld, which has three identical tiles.
For example, below is a triplet of 3 *green dragons*
A sequence is a 3-tile meld, whose numbers are sequential. Unlike other
For example, below is a sequence made of 2, 3 and 4 *bamboos*. melds, a sequence can not be of type dragon because dragon type is not numbered.
a kong is a 4-tile meld, which has four identical tiles. Recall that a kind of type has four identical tiles, so there are no more identical melds. For example, below is a kong of 4 red dragons:
Basic Winning Hand
Mahjong wins by forming a hand of certain patterns, among which there is a most basic one. It is called chicken hand. In Chinese, it is ping hu (平和), pi hu （屁和), ji hu (鸡和).
A chicken hand contains any 4 melds of triplet or sequence or kong, 1 meld of pair, without any additional requirements. For example, below is a chick hand. It is made of:
- a kong of 1 bamboo
- a triplet of 9 bamboos
- a sequence of 2 dots, 3 dots, 4 dots
- a sequence of 7 characters, 8 characters, 9 characters
a pair of east wind
Basic Mahjong Play Process - Big Picture
This post tells about how to play mahjong. It is like a hello world program, the very first program you wrote when you studied programming.
A mahjong game can be considered 3 stages: initialization, play, win.
Initialization
After all the players are seated, the game may start. Then they prepare for the game. For a computer game, this part is taken care of automatically, you only need to know what it is.
Shuffle and wall the tiles. In front of each player, the wall is 34 tiles on two floors, each floor 17 tiles.
Determine who plays first. Because players play in turn, they need to determine an order. They do so by choosing the first player, traditionally the one who sits in the east direction. Then they play goes counter-clockwise in turn. That is, the next player is the right-hand side of the current one. Traditionally, the second, third, fourth player is called south, west and north.
Decide the head of the wall. The head of the wall is where the player draws tiles. The initial head is traditionally determined by throwing a die and use the number to determine the position. For example, if the die gives 3, it means the third tile (from the right side of the wall) of the south. Note that the number 3 is used twice, one to determine the tile by the number itself and the other is to determine the direction by matching the play order. When the initial head is determined, the next is the one below it or the one after it in a clockwise manner.
- Draw the initial hand. Each player has an initial hand of 13 tiles. They are drawn by a batch of 4 tiles in 3 rounds in order, then 1 tile in one round.
Now, the game is ready.
Main Game
The main game is a draw-discard loop in order. Draw means you bring a tile from the wall head to your hand. Discard means you pick one tile from your hand and discard it by putting it exposed on the center of the table. In this process, you optimize your hand to win.
When you discarded a tile, and no one would like to use it by chi or pong or kong, then it is the turn of the next play, the one on your right to draw and discard*. This goes on until the game finishes.
When a tile is discarded, it may be wanted by other players and it can be used. We will discuss later.
End Game
The purpose of the game is to win as much as points as possible. There are different ways you can get points based on the variations of game rules.
Here we talk about the basic case. The first one who makes a winning hand wins and the game is then over. If no one makes a winning hand after all the tiles on the wall are drawn, the game is over as a draw game.
When a game is over, the players start over except that the next first player will be the one on the right-hand side of the current first player.
Basic Mahjong Play Process - Your Actions
In addition to the discard-draw action in the main game, there are actions that make the game more interesting. These actions include: chi, pong, kong.
When a player discards a tile, the other players first check whether they win or not in turn. If any player declares win, the game is over. Otherwise, i.e. no player declares win, the other players check whether they would like to pong or kong in turn. If any player declares pong or kong, that player takes the turn. Otherwise, i.e. no players pong or kong, the next player - right-hand side of the current one - check whether he/she would like to chi. If the next player chi, the player takes the turn. Otherwise, i.e. no one chi pong or kong, the next player takes turn and continues with the discard-draw loop.
Chi
When a player discards a tile which can form a sequence hand with two tiles in the next player's hand, the next player can choose to form a sequence or not to if no player pong or kong that tile.
Note that a player can only Chi the tile discarded by the player on his/her left. Chi has the lower priority compared to win or pong or kong.
For example, Apple, Banana, Chery and Date are four players sitting in east, south, west and north. Apple discards a 2-dots tile, if no one win or pong or kong on that tile, Banana has a 1-dot tile and a 3-dots tile, Banana has the option to chi or not. If she chooses chi, she takes her turn thereby. She does chi by putting all 3 tiles exposed on the table. Banana then discard a tile from her hand and finishes her turn.
Pong
Also called pung or peng, is the action to make a triplet. If a player discards a tile, and you have two same tiles, you can pong. That is, You put your two tiles plus the discarded one together as your exposed meld, and discard a tile. After that, the player on your right takes the turn.
Kong
is the action to make a meld of kong, 4 same tiles. Kong has 3 different types: exposed kong, concealed kong and extended kong. When kong, the player says kong, others know the type by action.
In most rules, Kongs count as triplets. That is, the score patterns that count triplets also count kongs.
Exposed Kong
If a player discards a tile, and you have three same tiles, you can do exposed kong. That is, you put your three tiles plus the discarded one as your exposed meld, draw a tile from the tail of the dead wall to your hand, then discard one. After that, the player on your right takes the turn. You can see that exposed kong is similar to pong but needs to draw a tile from dead wall to replace the extra exposed tile.
Concealed Kong
In your turn, after drawing a tile, if you have four same tiles (no need to come from the current draw), you can do concealed kong. That is, you put all 4 tiles as an exposed meld. Then draw a tile from the tile of the dead wall and discard a tile. After that, the turn goes to the player on your right. In Zung Jung rules, all 4 tiles need to be revealed immediately for purposed of verification.
Extended Kong
In your turn, after drawing a tile, if you have an exposed triplet and the same tile (no need to come from the current draw) as the exposed ones, you can do extended kong. That is you put the same tile with the triplet, draw a tile from the tail of the dead wall, then discard a tile. After that, the turn goes to the player on your right.
Conclusion
Congratulations! You have known all necessary basics. Next you need to pick a mahjong rule to play, read its specific knowledge. Anyway, you are ready to try on our free authentic mahjong game at 1112-8999. If you have any questions, leave a comment below or ask at our forum, we will answer your questions.