Mahjong is a popular Chinese game played with sets of tiles. There are many regional variations, from the Chinese prevailing wind system to American mahjong with special bingo-like scoring cards. Read on to learn how to play mahjong using the game's basic rules and strategies, which are the same across most other variants.
How to Play Mahjong
American Mahjong
Mahjong is played with four players seated around a table, though there are variants with three players. Players shuffle the tiles, cast the dice, and perform rituals involving the allocation of tiles. Then, the exchange of tiles begins. The first person to match a hand of 14 tiles and call "mahjong" ends the game. Players then score their tiles and determine the winner.
Components
The basic game has 136 tiles, including 36 characters, 36 bamboos, and 36 circles, which are the suits. These are, in turn, divided into four sets of numbers 1 to 9 in each suit. There are also 16 wind tiles and 12 dragon tiles. Many sets also include eight bonus tiles with four flowers and four seasons, which you don't need in the basic game.
You use one pair of dice to determine the deal. It's optional to have four racks.
Goal
The game's goal is to get a mahjong, which consists of getting all 14 of your tiles into four sets and one pair. A pair is two identical tiles. A set can be a "pung," three identical tiles, or a "chow," a run of three consecutive numbers in the same suit. You cannot use a single tile in two sets at once.
Setup
Determine a starting dealer. In Chinese tradition, the dealer shuffles the four wind tiles face down and deals them to the players. Players then sit according to their tile and sit clockwise in the order of north, west, south, and east. East starts as the dealer. Modern players may simply roll the dice to determine the dealer.
All tiles get shuffled together, and the players build a wall of 34 face-down tiles in front of themselves, 17 tiles long and two high. The result should be a large square wall of tiles in the center of the table.
The dealer rolls the dice, counts that many tiles from the right edge of their wall, and then separates the wall at that point to begin dealing tiles from the left of that spot and going clockwise. Each player receives 13 tiles, the dealer starting with an extra 14th tile.
Each player then arranges their tiles so they can see them, but other players cannot. Players often use racks used for this purpose. The dealer then discards one tile, and play begins to the dealer's left.
Play
Before your turn, you must give other players a few seconds to claim the most recently discarded tile.
The priority goes to any player who can claim the discarded tile to complete a mahjong. A player who can do this claims the tile and then reveals the winning hand of 14 tiles.
Failing that, any player can claim the discarded tile to complete a pung. The player says "pung" and then reveals the two matching tiles that match the discard. For example, if the discarded tile was the 7 of bamboo, and the player had two more bamboo 7s on the rack, that player would call "pung." When calling pung, a player turns the completed pung (with all three bamboo 7s, in this case) face-up, discards a different tile, and the turn passes to the right.
If nobody claims the discarded tile but it completes a chow for you, you may claim it at the beginning of your turn by saying "chow". You then must turn your chow face-up, revealing the completed run (e.g., 5, 6, 7 of bamboo) as in the pung example above. You then discard a different tile, and play continues as usual.
If the discard does not complete a set for you, then on your turn, you draw the next tile from the wall (going left). Unless this gives you a mahjong, you then discard a tile face-up.
Note that you can only claim the most recently discarded tile.
Kong
Some players also play with a "kong," four of the same tile (like an extended pung). The same rules for claiming a discarded tile apply, but any player completing a kong immediately draws an extra tile before discarding.
Hand End
The hand ends when somebody declares mahjong and reveals a complete 14-tile hand of four sets and a pair.
If nobody has revealed a mahjong by the time the wall runs out of tiles, the game is considered a draw and the dealer redeals.
Scoring
Simple scoring awards one point to whoever achieved the mahjong and won the hand.
Many more complex scoring arrangements exist, which vary widely by region. Bonus point scoring awards an additional point for not winning by taking a discard, winning with the last tile in the game, or having a pung of dragons. Exponential scoring scores each pung at 2 points, which is doubled if the pung was not revealed, doubled if the pung used ones or nines, and doubled twice more if the pung was a kong.
Due to the many scoring variations, players should carefully agree on scoring rules before a game.
Game End
Players play to a pre-determined number of points, 16 rounds, or until they agree that they are done.