Depending on the variation, two or three dice are usually used to decide what part of the wall to start dealing from. They are six-sided dice, traditionally but not necessarily Chinese dice with red one and four pips. In all the hands that require pongs, each pong can be replaced by the corresponding kong. Players play to a pre-determined number of points, or 16 rounds, or until players agree that they are done. Simple scoring awards one point to whoever achieved the mahjong and won the hand.

• Players choose a tile from the Cardinal tiles to determine who will be the East Wind.
• The goal of the game is to match your tiles with one of these combinations.
• This is a great option if you are a beginner and want to practice.
• The Charleston, a distinctive feature of American mahjong, may have been borrowed from card games such as Hearts.

If a player is seen to have fewer or more than 13 tiles in their hand outside of their turn they are penalised. Old Hong Kong mahjong is played with a standard set of 144 mahjong tiles (though cards may be used). Sets often include counters (to keep score), dice (to decide how to deal), and a marker to show who the dealer is and which round is being played. Some sets include racks to hold the tiles, especially if they are larger or smaller than standard tiles or have an odd shape. Mahjong sets originating from the United States, Japan or Southeast Asia will likely have extra tiles or specialized markings. The wildcard tiles are decided at the beginning of the game by choosing one random tile. The wild card could be the immediately following tile on the wall, after distributing tiles to all players, or it could also be separately decided by a dice throw.

Mahjong Solitaire Rules

Remember that sequences like NEWS or 2020, though represented together on the card are really 4 single tiles. In addition to the regular tiles mentioned above, a Mah Jongg set also includes 8 jokers. Jokers are a wildcard and can substitute for any tile when building a hand. Mahjong is a 4-person game of skill and chance that originated in China. There are many variations of the game, but in this article, we focus exclusively on the American version, following National Mah Jongg League (NMJL) rules. This version is usually spelled "Mah Jongg" and often simply called "mahj".

How Do You Play Mahjong For Beginners?

If multiple players call for a discarded tile, priority for the discard depends on the declared action of the player stealing the discard. The game originated in China centuries ago and features beautifully adorned tiles meant to be arranged in specific combinations for a winning hand. The dealer rolls the dice and counts that many tiles from the right edge of their wall, and separates the wall at that point to begin dealing tiles from the left of that spot and going clockwise.

A player can only call a tile if it allows them to complete a set and needs to declare it by placing the three/four tiles face up in front of them. A simplified version of Mahjong played with 16 tiles in hand. Honor tiles are unused in-game and immediately https://nitrocasinoromania.com discarded upon drawing. This results in a more fast-paced game compared to the rest of the versions. Drawing begins from the wall in front of the East Wind player. Each player then draws tiles to form their hands, beginning with the East Wind player.

Hands

If a win results from a claimed discard, the discarding player needs to pay double, whereas the other players simply pay the point value of a hand. The unique thing about a Kong is that a previously called and revealed Pung can be completed by any player once the final duplicate is drawn. Once the Pung is converted into a Kong, the player adding in the final tile draws another tile to replace the used tile. This is allowed since each tile only has a maximum of 8 duplicates total. When a claim is successfully made, the turns skip to the player, and the draw stage from the wall is skipped, and replaced with the claim. The claiming player is then required to place the completed set face-up in front of their hand.

Your entire hand can be a mixture of pongs and chows; however, it can only be made from honour tiles and one suit only. The eyes will have to follow the same constraint, and it can only be a two of a kind from either honour tiles or the suit that you’ve chosen. There are different geographic variations of Mahjong (ie. American Mahjong, Taiwanese Mahjong, Japanese Mahjong, etc.) and equally as important, there are house rules. It is important at the beginning of the game to ensure all players are aware of the style, any house rules added, and if money will be involved and how much is the monetary value.

What Are the Honor Tiles?

If you have a 5-crack, you can exchange this tile for Mary’s joker. If you had two 5-cracks you could exchange these for both jokers. You can also swap a tile you have in your hand for a joker in one of your own exposures.

KIND OF MAHJONG AND PAYOUTS

A player cannot win by a discard if that player had already discarded that piece, where players’ discards are kept in neat rows in front of them. Players may declare ready, meaning that they need one tile to win, cannot change their hand and win extra points if they win. Some rules may replace some of the number 5 tiles with red tiles, as they can earn more points. Taiwanese mahjong adds three tiles to a hand requiring a 5th set to be formed, making a clean hand or all-pong hand very difficult to procure.

In the contemporaneous Himly set, there were no zhōng ("red dragon") tiles either. Instead there were the wild cards known as Cash Flower, String Flower, and Myriad Flower plus an additional tile, the king of everything. The rulebook contains 81 combinations, based on patterns and scoring elements popular in classic and modern regional Chinese variants; some table practices of Japan have also been adopted. Points for flower tiles (each flower is worth one point) may not be added until the player has scored eight points.

Moving counter-clockwise, each player takes four tiles and continues where the dealer left off, picking two tiles from the top and two from the bottom. The tile that has most recently been discarded can be called by any other player if the tile will complete a pung, kong, quint, sextet, or any other combination for an exposed hand. It’s a good idea to have a mix of sets, sequences, honors, and bonus tiles to increase your chances of winning. Arguably more of an art form, there are different versions such as Shisen-Sho and Solitaire Mahjong. These games are not competitive, and instead single-player. The player has to remove tiles in pairs to clear the board of all tiles arranged in special shapes.

Players score various hands based on information determined by the National Mahjong League. These are updated annually and should be used as a reference 5Gringos Casino when building hands. The game uses two dice to assign the position of the dealer (East) and to figure out where to break the wall (discussed below).

In Thailand the game Includes extra tiles, bringing the tile total to 168, one of the highest among all Mahjong styles. Achieved when the East Wind dealer wins with the starting hand and draw. Pung or kong with all 3 Dragon tiles, any set of chow, pung, or kung, and any pair. Different variations of Mahjong have specific scoring systems, though a common basis is the payout. There are payout rules for people playing for money and point accrual rules for tournaments.

The payout to the winner is determined by the hand value and how the mahjong was created. Concealed Pungs are in a single suit, along with Winds/Dragons and a pair. The standard bonus for winning Mahjong is 20, although there are other situations when you can get extra points or double your money. A player cannot win with an unrevealed Kong in hand and must call and reveal it before winning. These Mahjong tiles have bamboo sticks that depict the strings that ancient copper coin sets of 100 or 1,000 coins were strung on. You usually play Mahjong with four people but as there are varieties, mahjong can be played by 2, 3 or even 5 players.