Chinese Mahjong Rules Guide

Rules at a Glance

Setup

• 136 tiles: Dots, Bamboo, Characters, Winds, and Dragons; no flowers or seasons. Four players; the dealer starts with 14 tiles and discards first, while others start with 13.
• A sequence is three consecutive tiles of one suit; a triplet is three identical tiles. Honors cannot form sequences. A kong is four identical tiles and counts as one set.

Turns

• Play proceeds counter-clockwise: draw one tile, then discard one, unless you declare a legal win or kong. A meld claim skips the draw and is followed by a discard; a kong requires a replacement draw.
• A win ends the hand. Wall exhaustion ends a drawn hand with no points awarded. The winner becomes the next dealer; on a draw the dealer stays.

Calls

• CHOW takes a sequence from the player on your left. PONG takes a triplet from any opponent. KONG takes a quad from a discard or your own hand. Claim priority is WIN > KONG > PONG > CHOW.
• Competing discard wins use head-bump: the nearest eligible player in turn order wins.

Winning

• Complete four sets and one identical pair. Open and concealed hands are both legal; no score minimum applies. Each kong adds one physical tile, so a hand with one kong totals 15 tiles.

Scoring

• Each legal win earns 1 point, whether from a discard or self-draw. A draw earns 0 points. The first player to reach 4 points wins the match.

Scoring patterns and winning structures

Supported hand patterns, their values, and tile examples. Bonus and payment rules appear in the companion references.

Winning Structures

Standard Hand

4 Sets + 1 Pair = 14 Tiles

14 tiles

Kong Exception

A hand with a Kong (4-of-a-kind) contains 15 tiles but is still valid (4 Sets + 1 Pair).

15 tiles

Rules used in tsumo

These are the rules used in tsumo. Regional and house rules may differ.

• tsumo Simplified Chinese rules