Taiwanese mahjong is the sixteen-tile game. Every player holds 16 tiles instead of 13, a winning hand is five sets plus a pair rather than four and a pair, and the score is counted in tai (台) rather than in the faan tables used across southern China. Those changes stretch hands out and give the game a rhythm of its own.
The sixteen-tile hand, and why it changes the maths
You sit down with 16 concealed tiles and win on the 17th. That means five complete sets (any mix of chows (runs), pungs (triplets) and kongs (quads)) plus one pair of identical tiles. Wikipedia’s survey of the mahjong family is a good place to see how far the game’s shapes and conventions spread from region to region.
An extra set sounds like a small addition until you count blocks. A thirteen-tile hand is built from five building blocks; a Taiwanese hand needs six, and that sixth block is what makes the game feel slower and more deliberate than the version most players meet first.
A finished hand might look like this: 2-3-4 dots, 6-7-8 dots, three red dragons, three west winds, three 5 bamboo, and a pair of 9 characters. Hands also run longer, so exposing a meld early leaks information for many more turns than it would in a faster variant.
What a Taiwanese table is like to sit at
The equipment is ordinary. Taiwanese play uses the standard 144-tile set — three suits of nine ranks in four copies each, four winds, three dragons and the eight bonus tiles, exactly as catalogued in Wikipedia’s breakdown of mahjong tiles — with nothing added and nothing removed.
What differs is the pace. Sixteen-tile hands take longer to assemble than thirteen-tile hands, and an evening of them is a genuine evening: long enough that the physical setup starts to matter, with a stable table, chairs at a sensible height, and room to push tiles around without knocking a wall over.
Expect your first session to be mostly bookkeeping, sorting, watching, asking. Anyone who already plays a thirteen-tile game will find the shapes familiar and the counting unfamiliar, which is the usual order of things. Sit beside someone who knows the group’s chart, and ask your questions between hands rather than during them.
Table manners are the same as anywhere else in the mahjong world: keep your discards neat and in front of you so everyone can read them, do not reach across the wall, announce claims clearly rather than grabbing, and let a slow player be slow. A sixteen-tile hand punishes a rushed table more than a thirteen-tile one, because there is simply more to keep track of.
Flowers, seasons and the house chart
The eight bonus tiles (four flowers and four seasons) are set aside as they appear rather than played into a set, and they are part of what a Taiwanese chart counts at the end of the hand. How much they are worth is a question for the chart your group uses, not for an article: Taiwanese charts differ from one another more than almost anything else in the game.
Tai: the scoring unit
Taiwanese scoring is counted in tai. What a given pattern earns, and what a tai is worth once the hand is settled, comes from the chart the table has agreed on.
Scoring varies widely between rulesets, and the numbers are not worth memorising from a general guide — Wikipedia’s article on scoring in mahjong surveys how differently the family counts, and tournament play uses a published minimum hand value, with the European Mahjong Association running its tournaments under one such published code.
These are the pattern names you will see written down the side of a Taiwanese chart. What each one pays is set by that chart:
- Winning on a self-drawn tile (自摸)
- A fully concealed hand (門清)
- A pung of your seat wind, or of the round wind
- A pung of a dragon
- Flowers and seasons
- All pungs (碰碰胡)
- Half flush — one suit plus honours (混一色)
- Full flush — one suit only (清一色)
- All honours (字一色)
Read the chart together before the first deal and settle any disagreement while the tiles are still in the box. A good half of all mahjong arguments are really arguments about a chart nobody read.
Side by side with the thirteen-tile game
Most people arrive here from Hong Kong rules, so it helps to see where the two genuinely part company, and where they do not. The shape of the hand and the counting are the real distance; much of the rest will feel familiar.
| Feature | Taiwanese | Hong Kong |
|---|---|---|
| Tiles concealed before the win | 16 | 13 |
| Completed hand | Five sets and a pair | Four sets and a pair |
| Building blocks per hand | Six, so hands take longer to assemble | Five |
| Scoring unit | Tai (台) | Faan |
| Tile set required | Standard 144-tile set | Standard 144-tile set |
| Session length | Longer, because every hand has more to build | Shorter |
If you have only played the thirteen-tile game, our breakdown of Hong Kong mahjong rules and scoring is a useful reference point while the differences settle in.
Habits that do not transfer from the thirteen-tile game
- Counting five blocks instead of six. The most common beginner error is celebrating a hand that is still one full set from ready.
- Over-exposing. Six blocks take time to build, and every meld you call tells three opponents what you are doing for many more turns than in a shorter game.
- Playing to the wrong clock. A sixteen-tile evening is long. Players who treat it as a quick game get impatient somewhere in the middle and start taking risks they would never have taken at the start.
- Not agreeing the chart. Every group counts a little differently, and the moment to discover that is before the first deal, not after somebody declares.
- Reading tiles instead of people. The habits in our guide to reading opponents from their discards matter more, not less, when hands run long and every player has shown you more.
Setting up a Taiwanese game in Sydney
Sixteen-tile hands are slow hands, and a full match will comfortably swallow an evening. A Taiwanese night therefore asks for a real table rather than a coffee table and four cushions.
That is the part we hire out. A Size 40 Green Chinese 144-tile set starts at A$20.00, table and tiles together at A$50.00, and the whole arrangement (table, stools and tiles) at A$70.00, priced by weekday or weekend and by how long you keep it.
Collect at Brodie Spark Drive in Wolli Creek, or let us drive it to you anywhere in Greater Sydney; the current hire list and duration rates are on the rental page. Sets are cleaned after every hire, and children from five are welcome at the table with an adult watching.
A few things are worth sorting before your guests arrive. Give each player elbow room and a clear line of sight to all three sets of discards. Put the light overhead rather than behind anyone, because reading tiles across a table in a dim room ruins an evening faster than any rules dispute. Keep greasy food off the table and away from the tiles; drinks go on a side table, not beside a wall. And photograph the chart your group is using so nobody has to reconstruct it from memory at midnight.
If you are still deciding which style suits your group, compare it against the animal-tile mechanics of Singapore mahjong or the wider field in our tour of lesser-known regional variants.
Sixteen-tile questions new players ask
How many tiles do you hold in Taiwanese mahjong?
Sixteen. You win on the seventeenth tile, and that winning hand is five sets plus one pair rather than the four sets and a pair used in the thirteen-tile game.
Is there a minimum score needed to win?
That is a question for your table rather than for a general guide. Minimum requirements vary between rulesets and between house charts, so agree yours before the first deal instead of after somebody declares.
Does a standard mahjong set work for Taiwanese rules?
Yes. The usual 144-tile Chinese set has everything required, including the eight flower and season tiles. No extra tiles need to be bought or removed.
Is Taiwanese mahjong harder than Hong Kong mahjong?
It is more demanding rather than more complicated. The rules are similar in structure, but six building blocks instead of five and a house-set tai chart mean each decision carries more weight, and the sessions are longer, so concentration matters as much as cleverness.
How long does a Taiwanese mahjong session take?
Plan on a couple of hours at least, and be ready for it to run longer. Sixteen-tile hands take more turns to build than thirteen-tile hands, which makes a full match an evening’s entertainment rather than something to squeeze in before dinner.
Curious enough to try one? Rent a mahjong set and play a variant properly before you commit to buying.
More in Mahjong Variations, Strategy