How to Play Mahjong: The Complete Rules for Beginners

Mahjong is a game for four players in which everyone holds 13 tiles, draws one and throws one away on each turn, and races to turn their hand into four sets and a pair. That core is the same everywhere, but the tiles, the scoring and even what counts as a winning hand change from one version to the next. This page teaches the core game first and then two complete rule sets: Basic 13, the plain game with no minimum score and the easiest place to start, and Chinese Official mahjong, the tournament rules. Riichi and Sichuan mahjong have pages of their own. If you were after the solo puzzle where you clear matching tiles from a pile, that is a different game, Mahjong Solitaire.

Which mahjong do you play?

In the United States, many people who say "mahjong" mean American mahjong, the version played from a card of hands published every year by the National Mah Jongg League. Its winning hands come from that card rather than from four sets and a pair, so if your group plays with a card and jokers, start with the American summary further down.

Everything from here down is the core game that the Chinese, Hong Kong, Riichi and Sichuan versions share.

How to play mahjong in one minute

1. Four players sit at the four sides of a square table. Each takes 13 tiles, and the dealer, called East, takes 14 and starts by discarding one.
2. On your turn you draw one tile from the wall and then discard one, face up in the middle, so you always end the turn with 13.
3. When someone discards a tile you need, you can claim it instead of waiting for your turn: three of a kind from anyone, or a run of three from the player just before you.
4. You win by completing 14 tiles as four sets and a pair, either with a tile you draw or with someone else's discard.
5. If the wall runs out before anyone wins, the hand is a draw and the next one is dealt.

A winning hand: three runs, another run and a pair

Also a winning hand: four sets of three alike and a pair

The 144 tiles in a mahjong set

A full Chinese mahjong set has 144 tiles: 108 suit tiles, 28 honor tiles and 8 flowers. Leave out the flowers and you have the 136 tiles used in Riichi and in many home games. American sets add 8 jokers to reach 152.

Characters

Dots

Bamboo

Winds: East, South, West, North

Dragons: White, Green, Red

One of the eight flowers

The 1s and 9s of each suit are called terminals, and winds and dragons together are called honors. Honors have no numbers, so they can only form sets of identical tiles, never runs.

How to set up mahjong: building the wall and the deal

Each player builds a wall of tiles two high in front of them, the four walls are pushed together into a square, dice decide where the wall is opened, and the tiles are dealt from there in blocks of four.

1. Seats. The dealer sits East. The player on the dealer's right is South, the one opposite is West and the one on the left is North.
2. Wall. Shuffle face down. With 144 tiles each player builds 18 stacks of two; with 136 tiles it is 17 stacks.
3. Dice. Under the Chinese Official rules the dealer throws two dice and the total picks a second thrower: 5 or 9 is the dealer again, 2, 6 or 10 the player on the right, 3, 7 or 11 the player opposite, 4, 8 or 12 the player on the left. The second player throws, and the two totals added together give the stack where the wall is opened, counted from the right along that player's wall. Many home games throw once and use that total.
4. Deal. From the opening, the dealer takes two stacks (four tiles), then each player in turn takes four, three times round, until everyone has 12. The dealer then takes the top tiles of two stacks with one stack between them, and the others take one tile each, leaving the dealer with 14 and everyone else with 13.
5. Flowers. Anyone holding a flower lays it face up and draws a replacement from the far end of the wall, dealer first. Then the dealer makes the first discard.

Play then moves counter-clockwise, East, South, West, North, so the player on your right always plays after you.

Rules for picking up discarded tiles

The only discard you can take is the newest one, and you take it to finish a set or to win. Once the next player has drawn, the chance is gone. A run can only be taken from the player immediately before you (on your left), while three or four of a kind can be taken from anyone (Article 5, items 17 to 19).

Chow: the 6 of characters from the player on your left, with your 4 and 5

Pung: an 8 of bamboo from any player, with your pair

Exposed kong: someone discards the fourth South wind

When more than one player wants the same discard, a win comes first, then a pung or kong, then a chow. If two players could both win on it, the 1998 rules let only one take it, the first in turn order after the player who discarded (Article 8). Sichuan and Riichi tables allow two players to win on the same tile.

Every chow, pung and exposed kong is laid face up and makes your hand "open". That matters for scoring, because several patterns, and the riichi declaration, need a hand that has made no claims. A concealed kong does not open your hand.

How to win at mahjong: four sets and a pair

A winning hand is 14 tiles split into four sets and one pair, where a set is a run of three in one suit (a chow), three identical tiles (a pung) or four identical tiles (a kong). Claimed sets count as part of the four, and each kong adds one tile without adding a set, so a hand with kongs has more than 14 tiles.

Three special hands win without four sets and a pair, and all three must be built without claims:

• Seven pairs. Under the Chinese Official rules a set of four identical tiles can stand in for two of the pairs; Riichi does not allow that.
• Thirteen orphans. One each of the 1 and 9 of every suit and all seven honors, plus a second copy of any one of them.
• Honors and knitted tiles. Fourteen different tiles, using 1-4-7, 2-5-8 and 3-6-9 each in a different suit, filled out with honors. This one belongs to the Chinese Official rules (and this site's Basic 13).

A few words you will hear at the table. A hand one tile from winning is "ready" (in Riichi, tenpai), and the tiles that would finish it are its waits. Winning on a tile you draw is self-drawn; winning on someone's discard is winning by discard, and the player who threw it has "fed" or "dealt in" the win.

Is this a winning hand?

A hand wins when every one of its 14 tiles fits into four sets and a pair, or into one of the special shapes, and the rule set's own condition is also met.

Yes: three runs of dots, three 2s of bamboo and a pair of red dragons

Yes: seven pairs

Yes in Chinese Official rules, where the four 1s count as two pairs; no in Riichi

Yes: thirteen orphans, with the red dragon as the extra tile

No: White, Green and Red do not make a run

The shape is not always enough. Chinese Official mahjong needs 8 points of patterns, Riichi needs at least one yaku, and Sichuan forbids any tile of your declared missing suit.

Mahjong scoring basics

How a winning hand is paid depends entirely on the version. Chinese Official mahjong adds up named patterns, Hong Kong style counts faan and pays from a doubling table, Riichi combines han with fu, and American hands are worth the value printed on the card. What they have in common is that a self-drawn win is paid by all three opponents, while a win on a discard falls hardest, or entirely, on the player who discarded.

Basic 13: mahjong with no minimum

Basic 13 is mahjong at its plainest, the version to learn first: 136 tiles with no flowers, and any complete hand can win, so a hand with no scoring patterns at all is as legal as a 24-point one. Seven pairs (four alike count as two), thirteen orphans and the knitted hands all win too. Everything else in mahjong, from the Chinese Official minimum to Riichi's yaku, is a rule added on top of this.

Home games settle up in many different ways. This site scores Basic 13 with the Chinese Official patterns, without flowers, and pays them the same way, with a base of 8, over a match of eight hands from 500 points each. Learning which patterns your hands usually hold here makes the 8-point line much less of a shock later. These ten patterns come up most often:

Seven Pairs24 points

No declared sets; seven pairs, with four identical tiles allowed as two pairs.

Full Flush24 points

One numbered suit and no honors; open calls allowed.

Pure Straight16 points

123,456,789 sequences in one suit.

Mixed Straight8 points

123,456,789 sequences in three different suits.

Mixed Triple Chow8 points

The same sequence once in each of the three suits.

All Pungs6 points

Four triplets/kongs and a pair.

Half Flush6 points

One numbered suit together with honors.

Dragon Pung2 points

A triplet/kong of White, Green or Red dragons; not just a pair.

Prevalent Wind2 points

A triplet/kong of the current round wind.

Seat Wind2 points

A triplet/kong of your current seat wind.

The 7-point hand in the Chinese Official section below cannot win there on a discard, but it wins here, collecting 15 from the player who threw the 6 of dots and 8 from each of the others.

Chinese Official mahjong (MCR): the 8-point minimum

Chinese Official mahjong, also called MCR or Guobiao, is the tournament version and a step up from Basic 13. It is played with 144 tiles, and a hand can only be declared a win if its scoring patterns add up to at least 8 points, not counting flowers (Article 10). The rules list 81 patterns worth from 1 to 88 points. They are added together, never doubled, and a pattern already implied by a bigger one is not counted again, so Full Flush (one suit only) does not also score No Honors.

Paying. The winner also gets a base of 8 from every player. On a self-drawn win each opponent pays 8 plus the hand's points. On a discard, the player who discarded pays 8 plus the points, while each of the other two pays the base of 8. A 9-point self-drawn hand therefore collects 17 from each opponent, 51 in all.

Choosing a route to 8 points

Most hands get to 8 through one pattern picked early. Mixed Straight (1-2-3, 4-5-6 and 7-8-9, each in a different suit) and Mixed Triple Chow (one run repeated in each suit) are worth 8 on their own. Seven Pairs and Full Flush are worth 24. All Pungs and Half Flush are only 6, so they need a dragon pung or something similar on top.

Starting hand: two of the three Mixed Straight runs are already there, and the 4-6 of dots needs only the 5

Throw the White dragon, draw a 5 of bamboo, then win on a discarded 5 of dots

When self-draw makes the difference

Concealed hand, waiting on the 3 or 6 of dots

Someone else discards it: All Chows 2, All Simples 2, Concealed Hand 2 and Pure Double Chow 1 make 7, not enough

Self-drawn: Fully Concealed Hand 4 replaces Concealed Hand. That is 9, a legal win

Two more rules catch people out. Flowers are worth a point each but only count once the hand already has 8 without them. And Chicken Hand, worth 8, is only for a hand with no other pattern at all; it does not top up a hand that has a few points.

MCR scoring patterns

The three lists below, together with the ten common patterns in the Basic 13 section above, come straight from the pattern reference at this site's Chinese Official table: the 81 patterns of the 1998 rules, plus Concealed and Exposed Kong (5 points), which the site's scorer also counts. Each value is for the pattern by itself; the exclusion rule above still decides what adds together.

Patterns worth 24 points or more

Big Four Winds88 points

Triplets/kongs of all four winds.

Big Three Dragons88 points

Triplets/kongs of all three dragons.

All Green88 points

Use only 2,3,4,6,8 Bamboo and Green dragons in a legal hand.

Nine Gates88 points

Closed 1112345678999 plus any extra tile in that suit.

Four Kongs88 points

Four declared kongs of your own, plus a pair.

Seven Shifted Pairs88 points

Seven consecutive pairs in one suit.

Thirteen Orphans88 points

Every terminal and honor once, plus a duplicate.

All Terminals64 points

Only suited terminals; four sets and a pair or seven pairs.

Little Four Winds64 points

Three wind triplets/kongs and a pair of the fourth wind.

Little Three Dragons64 points

Two dragon triplets/kongs and a pair of the third dragon.

All Honors64 points

Every tile is an honor.

Four Concealed Pungs64 points

Four concealed triplets/kongs and a pair.

Pure Terminal Chows64 points

Two 123 and two 789 sequences in one suit, with a pair of 5s.

Quadruple Chow48 points

Four identical sequences in one suit.

Four Pure Shifted Pungs48 points

Four triplets/kongs in one suit at consecutive ranks.

Four Pure Shifted Chows32 points

Four same-suit sequences whose starts increase by 1 or by 2 consistently.

Three Kongs32 points

Three declared kongs, open or concealed.

All Terminals and Honors32 points

Only terminals and honors; four sets and a pair or seven pairs.

Greater Honors and Knitted Tiles24 points

All seven honors plus seven distinct suited tiles from a knitted 147/258/369 allocation.

All Even Pungs24 points

Four triplets/kongs and a pair using only suited 2,4,6,8 tiles.

Pure Triple Chow24 points

Three identical sequences in one suit.

Pure Shifted Pungs24 points

Three triplets/kongs in one suit at consecutive ranks.

Upper Tiles24 points

Every tile is a suited 7,8 or 9.

Middle Tiles24 points

Every tile is a suited 4,5 or 6.

Lower Tiles24 points

Every tile is a suited 1,2 or 3.

Patterns worth 8 to 16 points

Three-Suited Terminal Chows16 points

123 and 789 in each of two suits, plus a pair of 5s in the third suit.

Pure Shifted Chows16 points

Three same-suit sequences whose starts increase by 1 or 2 consistently.

All Five16 points

Every set and the pair contains a 5.

Triple Pung16 points

A triplet/kong of the same rank in all three suits.

Three Concealed Pungs16 points

Three concealed triplets/kongs.

Lesser Honors and Knitted Tiles12 points

Fourteen distinct tiles drawn from three-suit 147/258/369 allocation and honors.

Knitted Straight12 points

147,258,369 in three different suits, plus one set and one pair.

Upper Four12 points

Every tile is a suited 6,7,8 or 9.

Lower Four12 points

Every tile is a suited 1,2,3 or 4.

Big Three Winds12 points

Triplets/kongs of three different winds.

Reversible Tiles8 points

Only Dots 1,2,3,4,5,8,9; Bamboo 2,4,5,6,8,9; and White dragons.

Mixed Shifted Pungs8 points

Three triplets in three suits, with consecutive ranks.

Chicken Hand8 points

A complete hand with no other scoring pattern, excluding flowers.

Last Tile Draw8 points

Self-draw on the final live-wall tile.

Last Tile Claim8 points

Win on the final discard.

Out with Replacement Tile8 points

Self-draw on a kong replacement; flower replacement does not qualify.

Robbing The Kong8 points

Win on another player's added-kong tile.

Small patterns and bonuses

Mixed Shifted Chows6 points

Three sequences in different suits, with consecutive starting ranks.

All Types6 points

Use all three suits, at least one wind and at least one dragon.

Melded Hand6 points

Four open sets; win by discard on the remaining pair wait.

Two Concealed Kongs6 points

Two declared concealed kongs.

Two Dragons Pungs6 points

Triplets/kongs of two different dragons.

Outside Hand4 points

Every set and the pair contains a terminal or honor.

Fully Concealed Hand4 points

Closed hand winning by self-draw.

Two Melded Kongs4 points

Two open kongs; added kongs count as open.

Last Tile4 points

Win on the last copy after the other three copies are publicly visible.

Concealed Hand2 points

Closed hand winning by discard.

All Chows2 points

Four sequences and a suited pair; open calls allowed.

Tile Hog2 points

Four identical tiles used across groups, not declared as one kong.

Double Pung2 points

Triplets/kongs of the same rank in two suits.

Two Concealed Pungs2 points

Two concealed triplets/kongs.

Concealed Kong2 points

Declare a concealed kong of four tiles from your hand.

All Simples2 points

Every tile is suited 2–8, with no terminals or honors.

Pure Double Chow1 points

Two identical sequences in the same suit.

Mixed Double Chow1 points

The same sequence in two different suits.

Short Straight1 points

Two adjoining sequences of the same suit.

Two Terminal Chows1 points

123 and 789 sequences in the same suit.

Pung of Terminals or Honors1 points

A terminal triplet/kong, or a non-value wind triplet/kong.

Melded Kong1 points

A kong called on a discard or added to an existing pung.

One Voided Suit1 points

Use only two of the three numbered suits.

No Honors1 points

No honors anywhere in the hand.

Unique Wait (Edge)1 points

A unique edge wait: 12 for 3 or 89 for 7.

Unique Wait (Closed)1 points

A unique middle wait, such as 46 waiting for 5.

Unique Wait (Single)1 points

A unique wait to complete the pair.

Self-Drawn1 points

Draw the tile completing your hand yourself.

Flower Tiles1 points

Each flower adds one point, but cannot meet the eight-point minimum.

Concealed Kong and Melded Kong5 points

One open and one concealed kong, scored together as five points here.

Where mahjong and its versions come from

Mahjong took shape in southeastern China in the late Qing dynasty, most likely from a draw-and-discard card game called pènghú, and the oldest surviving tile sets date from around 1870 and were collected in Fuzhou, Shanghai and Ningbo. Whether it began around Ningbo or in Fujian is still argued over. Every version on this page grew from that one set of tiles.

• Japan. The first documented mahjong set reached Japan in 1909, and Tokyo had mahjong clubs by the 1920s, each with rules of its own. Riichi still has no single national rulebook: professional leagues and parlours each set their details.
• United States. Mahjong sets went on sale in the US in 1920 and set off a craze. Joseph Babcock's simplified Rules of Mah-Jongg came out the same year, and the National Mah Jongg League, founded in 1937, brought American play under one set of rules and the card of hands it still publishes.
• China. After players wrote to the national sports authority asking for unified competition rules, China published the Chinese Official rules in July 1998, with 81 patterns and the 8-point minimum.
• Sichuan. The Sichuan game is best known in the form played in and around Chengdu: only the three suits, no chows, a missing suit you must clear, and Blood Battle, where the game goes on after the first win.

Hong Kong, Riichi, Sichuan and American rules in brief

Hong Kong style uses 144 tiles with flowers and allows chows like the Chinese Official game, but hands are counted in faan, and payment roughly doubles with each faan up to a limit. The most common table minimum is 3 faan. This site does not offer Hong Kong rules.

Riichi, the Japanese game, uses 136 tiles with a red 5 in each suit, needs at least one yaku (a qualifying pattern) to win, and lets you declare riichi on a ready concealed hand. This site has four-player and three-player Riichi. See the Riichi mahjong rules.

Sichuan mahjong drops the winds and dragons, forbids chows, and asks every player to pass three tiles and then name a suit they will get rid of. In Blood Battle, players who win drop out and the rest play on. This site has Blood Battle and Blood Flow. See the Sichuan mahjong rules.

American mahjong uses 152 tiles including 8 jokers and the yearly National Mah Jongg League card, starts with the Charleston, and allows discards to be called only for sets of identical tiles or for mahjong. American rules are not playable on this site at the moment.

Can you play mahjong with 2 or 3 players?

Yes, but only some versions have official rules for it. Japanese three-player mahjong (sanma) is a standard game with its own tile set: the 2 to 8 of characters are removed, leaving 108 tiles, and chows are not allowed. This site's Riichi · 3 players works that way.

American players have League rules for both. With three, the empty seat gets no tiles and the Charleston is officially skipped; with two, the players sit opposite each other, the dealer has 14 tiles and the other 13, and again there is no Charleston. The Chinese Official rules only cover four players, so two- or three-player Chinese games are house arrangements, and the group should agree on them before the deal.

If you want to play by yourself, the mahjong table on this site gives you three computer opponents, or two in three-player Riichi.

Mahjong rules beginners often get wrong

On this site the win button only appears when the hand really can win, and draws and replacements are automatic, so neither a false win nor a dead hand can happen by accident.

Your first game: what to keep, what to throw

Sort your 13 tiles by suit with the honors at one end, then count. Four sets and a pair is five groups, so look at how many you already have and how many pairs or two-tile starts could become the rest. Throw first what belongs to nothing, usually a single honor, and keep tiles that sit next to each other in a suit.

Watch the player on your left. Every chow you make comes from their discards, so the suits they are throwing away are the ones you can build runs in. The player on your right is the reverse case, since your own discards are the only tiles they can chow.

As the wall gets short, look at what each opponent has already discarded before you throw a tile. A tile someone has already let go is less likely to complete their hand. This site's table opens with an offer to "Learn by playing", a guided first hand, and during play the Hint button suggests a move and then becomes Explain, which opens the Hand Coach with your waits and how many copies of each are still unseen.

Mahjong rule sources

• Chinese Mahjong Competition Rules (trial), 1998, General Administration of Sport of China, full Chinese text on Wikisource. Article numbers in brackets in the Chinese Official section and the mistakes table refer to it.
• Wikipedia, Mahjong: history, the oldest tile sets, the American craze and the National Mah Jongg League, tile set, wall and deal, claim order, Hong Kong table minimum.
• Wikipedia, Japanese mahjong: the first set in Japan, early clubs, no single rulebook.
• Chinese Wikipedia, Guobiao mahjong and Sichuan mahjong: how the 1998 rules were drawn up; the Chengdu game.
• Wikipedia, American mahjong: 152 tiles, jokers, the yearly card and the Charleston.
• Tom Sloper, American mah-jongg with 2 or 3 players: League rules for two and three players.

By The World at PlayLast updated 2026-11-02