Mahjong is a four-player tile game in which everyone races to assemble the same shape of hand: in most versions four sets of three tiles plus one matching pair, though Taiwanese play uses five sets and a pair. On your turn you take a tile and give one back, and the first player to complete the pattern declares mahjong and scores it. Learn the pattern, the tile set and the rotation, and every regional variant becomes a set of adjustments to those three things rather than a new game.
The pattern you are building
In the thirteen-tile game (Hong Kong, Japanese riichi and most others) you hold thirteen tiles and complete the fourteenth on the turn you win: four melds of three, plus a pair. Taiwanese mahjong is the main exception, with sixteen tiles in hand and five sets plus a pair. Either way the vocabulary of melds is short, because only a few shapes exist.
| Meld | Made of | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Chow | Three consecutive tiles in one suit | 4, 5, 6 Circles |
| Pung | Three identical tiles | Three Red Dragons |
| Kong | Four identical tiles | Four East Winds |
| Pair (eyes) | Two identical tiles | Two 9 Bamboo |
A kong is four tiles doing the job of three in the hand. Special hands exist as well (Thirteen Orphans being the famous one) but they are exceptions you can safely ignore for a few sessions.
What is actually in a mahjong set
A standard Chinese set holds 144 tiles in three families. Nothing is random: every suit and honour tile comes in exactly four copies, which is what makes counting the remaining tiles a real skill rather than guesswork. Bonus tiles are the exception, since each flower and each season appears once.
| Family | Tiles | Copies each | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suits | Characters, Circles and Bamboo, numbered 1 to 9 | 4 | 108 |
| Winds | East, South, West, North | 4 | 16 |
| Dragons | Red, Green and White | 4 | 12 |
| Bonus tiles | Four flowers and four seasons | 1 | 8 |
Winds and dragons together are called honour tiles. They form pungs and kongs but never runs, since there is no sequence to build. The three dragons are traditionally the red centre character, the green prosperity character and a plain white tile.
Bonus tiles behave differently again, and how they are handled is one of the first things that changes from table to table, so ask before the first deal rather than in the middle of it.
Play without them and the set drops to 136 tiles, which Wikipedia’s article on mahjong tiles gives as the usual minimum, four copies each of the suits and honours. Sets sold for the American game are larger again, because they include jokers.
Our guide to mahjong tile symbols and their meaning covers the artwork and where the imagery comes from.
How a session is structured
Three words get used loosely and they mean different things.
- Hand — one deal, from the opening discard to somebody winning or the wall running out. This is what most people mean when they say game.
- Round — a set of hands during which one wind is prevailing. Seats rotate as the deal passes.
- Game — traditionally four rounds, one per wind, though plenty of tables agree in advance to play a shorter session to fit the evening.
Settle that last point before the first deal rather than at eleven o’clock, especially with a mixed-ability table. Beginners tire faster than they expect, and a short agreed session that everyone enjoys beats a long one that half the table is enduring.
A turn, in brief
Each turn is one decision and one obligation. The decision is whether to claim the tile just discarded or draw a fresh one from the wall; the obligation is to end your turn by discarding face up in the middle of the table.
Play moves counter-clockwise from the dealer, and claiming a discard can jump the order, skipping whoever sat between. The full mechanics (claim priority, replacement draws, false calls) are set out in our walkthrough of how to start and play a mahjong game.
Scoring, in one paragraph
Completing the pattern is not the same as winning something. Most rule sets value hands by pattern, and several impose a minimum before a hand may be declared at all, which is why an experienced player will pass on a quick, shapeless hand you would happily finish. The values themselves vary so widely that there is little point learning numbers before you know which game is on the table: tournament play runs on the Mahjong Competition Rules, the code the European Mahjong Association runs its tournaments under, the American game runs on a card the National Mah Jongg League reissues every year, and home tables often run on neither. The shape of the differences between Hong Kong faan, Japanese han and fu, and pattern-based systems is laid out in our comparison of mahjong point counting systems.
Which mahjong are you playing?
The name mahjong covers a family of games. Before your first session, find out which one is on the table.
| Variant | Tiles in hand | What sets it apart |
|---|---|---|
| Hong Kong | 13 | The common social game in Cantonese-speaking households; scoring counted in faan |
| Riichi (Japan) | 13 | The most tightly codified of the major variants, and the one best served online |
| Western / American | 13 | Jokers, and an annually published card of legal hands |
| Taiwanese | 16 | Sixteen-tile hands; scoring counted in tai |
Japanese riichi is codified in more detail than any other version, which is one reason it dominates online play: the client can enforce everything. Wikipedia’s article on Japanese mahjong sets out the rules in full.
The Western game is the bigger outlier. Its legal hands come from a card that the National Mah Jongg League reissues every year, so the same tiles support a slightly different game each season, and the sets include jokers.
Habits worth forming early
- Settle the rule set before the first deal. Everyone at the table naming the same game is worth more than any tactic. Whoever owns the set usually decides, and the rest of you play their version for the night.
- Watch the discards from the first turn, not the tenth. Every suit and honour tile exists in exactly four copies, so once three are face up, the fourth is a poor thing to wait on.
- Keep your tiles and your discards tidy. A straight hand and a neatly laid out discard area let everyone read the table, and a sprawling pile is the usual cause of arguments about what was thrown and when.
- Call clearly, and once. Say it out loud before you reach for the tile. Grabbing first and deciding afterwards is the habit that most annoys regular players.
- Learn one rule set twenty hands deep before comparing. Reading about two variants at once is how beginners end up confidently playing neither.
What you need for a first session
Four players, a set of 144 tiles, a flat surface that will take a fair amount of pushing, and a couple of unhurried hours. A felted mahjong table makes washing and stacking easier, but a dining table under a thick cloth is a perfectly reasonable start. If you want the sequence before the first discard, our step-by-step guide to setting up and dealing a mahjong game covers seating, the wall and the deal.
Two things first-timers forget: somewhere to write the score, and enough table edge for four hands of tiles plus a growing pile in the middle. Pen and paper is fine for a first night; chips and sticks are nicer and entirely optional. Tile size matters more than it sounds, too — larger tiles are easier to read across the table and easier for older hands to hold, and heavier to shuffle, which most people find satisfying rather than tiring.
Buying a set before you know whether the game suits your group is the wrong order of operations. In Sydney, The Mahjong Masters hires out Size 40 Green Chinese 144-tile sets, tables and stools by the day, with pickup from Wolli Creek or delivery across Greater Sydney, and every set is cleaned between hires.
Our own hire terms ask that players from about five years old have an adult supervising at the table, since the tiles are small, heavy and easy to lose. That is a condition of hire rather than a rule of the game, and how young a child can usefully join in is a judgement for the table.
Questions new players ask before their first hand
How many tiles do I hold?
Thirteen in most variants, fourteen at the moment you draw or claim, and back to thirteen after you discard. The dealer starts on fourteen because they open the hand with a discard rather than a draw. Taiwanese mahjong uses sixteen.
Is mahjong a game of luck or skill?
Both, in the same way poker is. The tiles you are dealt are chance; which tiles you keep, which you release and when you fold a hopeless hand are entirely decisions, and those decisions compound over an evening.
Do I need to know Chinese characters to play?
No. The characters suit is numbered one to nine like the other two, and after a hand or two you recognise the shapes without reading them. Many modern sets print Arabic numerals in the corner as well.
How long does a game take?
A single hand runs a few minutes once everyone knows the rules. Allow two to three hours for a proper session with scoring and seat rotation, and closer to four if half the table is learning.
Can three people play?
Yes. Three-player mahjong is played mainly in Japan, Korea and Malaysia, usually with part of the tile set removed and the scoring adjusted to match. Four players remains the standard, and it is the version worth learning first.
None of this lands until the tiles are actually in your hands and somebody is waiting on your discard. Sydney readers can hire a 144-tile set from A$20 (the exact rate depends on whether it is a weekday or a weekend and how long you keep it) pick it up at Wolli Creek or have it delivered, and find three people before Saturday.
Learning on a proper table helps. Rent a complete mahjong set — tiles, table and racks, delivered ready to play across Sydney.
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