#MAHJONG TILES HOW TO#
#MAHJONG TILES SERIES#

There are a number of wining hands that you can make, however to begin with a few of the basics combinations are as follows: A basic hand ( gai wu 雞糊) is a mixed sequence of three-of-a-kind sets and a pair.

or Chow, 3 tiles of the same suit in sequence.

In order to win you need to form combinations of the following melds/sets: A ‘faan’ is a point and you typically need a minimum of 3 points to win. The goal of the game is to get ‘ mahjong’, which consists of four sets and one pair (total 14 tiles).

#MAHJONG TILES HOW TO#

While many variations of mahjong exist, most of them have the basic rules of how to play mahjong in common for example how to deal, the order of play, how a tile is drawn and discarded, how to take a piece from another player, the use of suits and honour tiles, and the basic sets allowed.

#MAHJONG TILES SERIES#

A player can also win with a small series of special hands. Players take turns to draw and discard tiles until they complete a hand using the 14th tile to form four melds (sets) and a pair (eye). Players then takes turns choosing tiles to make a hand of 13. These rows are then pushed forwards, with space in the middle for discarded tiles. Each player selects 36 tiles and arranges them into 18 columns of two, like a wall. Once the seats are all filled, the tiles are shuffled and placed face down on the table. The East seat throws the dice again, and the number is counted counter-clockwise and the player it lands on takes a tile from the stack, and so on until each player has picked a wind direction. The remaining seats are determined by shuffling the four wind tiles, face down, and stacked on top of each other. You can determine who will be the dealer in a few ways – each player rolls the dice and the highest number is the dealer OR a randomly chosen player throws the dice and the rolled number is counted counter-clockwise from that player, until it lands on the number rolled and that person becomes the East seat. The seats rotate counter-clockwise with each game, and one round is completed once every player has held the dealer position. If the dealer wins a game or the game is a tie, they can hold on to the East seat until they lose. The dealer position is called the East seat, and each player takes turns being the dealer. The game requires four players, seated around a square table. You will also need 2/3 dice, a four winds dice, a dice holder, and chips can used to keep track of points scored for each game.

Four Season tiles (Spring (春, one), Summer (夏, two), Autumn (秋, three), and Winter (冬, four).

Four Flower tiles (Plum Blossom (梅, one), Orchid (蘭, two), Chrysanthemum (菊, three), and Bamboo (竹, four).

Wind tiles (East, South, West, and North).

Two sets of non numbered honour tiles (28 in total):

Three suits (108 in total) numbered 1-9, with 4 of each number, making it 36 tiles in each suit: There are 144 tiles in a mahjong set based on Chinese characters and symbols:

It was originally called 麻雀 ( ma jeuk) which means ‘sparrow’, representing the clacking sound of the tiles being played, which sounds like the chattering of sparrows.Īlso see: Five Films to Watch Over Chinese New Year Originally developed in 19th century China, it is played throughout Eastern and South Eastern Asia and is also very popular in Western countries. In order to do this, each player selects and discards mahjong tiles until an entire set of combinations has been made. Mahjong is a tile-based game often compared to gin rummy, and the object of the game is to build “sets”, as well as to get the highest point value. In Hong Kong, the most common style is Hong Kong/Cantonese mahjong, while Taiwanese mahjong has also gained some popularity. There are many versions of the game – Chinese, Cantonese, American, Taiwanese, Japanese, and Western mahjong to name a few. Learning how to play mahjong is no mean feat. Reading Time: 6 minutesMaybe it’s the various lockdowns we’ve all been through, the self quarantines at home or the joys of home schooling whatever the catalyst, it feels like everyone we know is suddenly learning how to play mahjong.

Mahjong tiles