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Rules guide

Taiwanese Mahjong Rules Guide

Learn Taiwanese Mahjong online with 16-tile Taiwan Mahjong rules, meldable honors, Flower/Season replacement, tai scoring, examples, and tutorials.

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Rules at a Glance

Quick FactDetails
Tile Set144 total tiles (136 suited/honor + 8 flower bonus tiles)
Hand Size16 tiles held, win with 17
Win GateMinimum 1 tai required (flower tai counts)
Scoring StyleAdditive tai — compatible patterns stack
Flower TilesOnly the 8 Flower/Season tiles are bonus tiles

Setup

  • 144 tiles: suits, Winds, and Dragons are playable. Only the eight Flower/Season tiles are bonuses. The dealer starts with 17 playable tiles; others start with 16.
  • 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.
  • Reveal a Flower/Season tile and replace it from the back of the wall; repeat for another flower. Hold 16 playable tiles after discarding.
  • The dealer repeats after a dealer win or a draw; a non-dealer win moves the dealer to the next seat. The prevailing wind advances after four dealer changes.

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.
  • A concealed kong pays 1 point from each opponent immediately and requires a replacement draw. Competing discard wins use head-bump.

Winning

  • Complete five sets and one pair, or concealed Seven Pairs + Pong: seven unique pairs and a separate triplet. The structure totals 17 tiles, plus one extra physical tile per kong.
  • A legal win needs at least 1 tai. Flower tai counts toward this minimum. A win or wall exhaustion ends the hand.

Five sets and one pair (17 tiles)

Five three-tile sets and one identical pair.

dot 1dot 1dot 1dot 4dot 4dot 4bamboo 1bamboo 1bamboo 1bamboo 4bamboo 4bamboo 4character 1character 1character 1character 5character 5

Scoring

  • Compatible tai patterns stack after exclusions. Dealer wins add 1 tai, and each consecutive dealer repeat adds 2 more tai: dealer totals are 1, 3, 5, and so on.
  • Flower tai and win tai add to the total. On a discard win, the discarder pays the full total and the other opponents pay nothing. On self-draw, every opponent pays win tai plus flower tai.
  • Draws transfer no win points; concealed-kong side payments remain.

Scoring patterns and winning structures

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

Tai Scoring Table

Dragon Pong/Kong

Each Dragon triplet or quad

+1 tai each

bamboo 2bamboo 3bamboo 4dot 5dot 5dot 5character 4character 5character 6dragon reddragon reddragon reddot 7dot 8dot 9wind eastwind east

Seat Wind Pong (門風)

Triplet of your own seat wind

+1 tai

wind southwind southwind southdot 1dot 2dot 3bamboo 4bamboo 5bamboo 6character 7character 8character 9dragon greendragon greendragon greendot 8dot 8

Round Wind Pong (圈風)

Triplet of the prevailing wind

+1 tai

wind eastwind eastwind eastdot 2dot 3dot 4bamboo 3bamboo 4bamboo 5character 6character 7character 8dragon whitedragon whitedragon whitedot 9dot 9

All Triplets / Pengpeng (碰碰和)

All 5 sets are Pong or Kong

+2 tai

dot 2dot 2dot 2bamboo 6bamboo 6bamboo 6character 9character 9character 9wind southwind southwind southdragon greendragon greendragon greendot 8dot 8

Mixed One Suit (混一色)

One numbered suit + honor tiles

+3 tai

bamboo 1bamboo 2bamboo 3bamboo 5bamboo 5bamboo 5bamboo 7bamboo 8bamboo 9wind westwind westwind westdragon reddragon reddragon redbamboo 2bamboo 2

Pure One Suit (清一色)

One numbered suit only, no honors

+7 tai

character 1character 2character 3character 4character 5character 6character 7character 8character 9character 2character 2character 2character 6character 6character 6character 9character 9

Seven Pairs + Pong (七對一刻)

Fully concealed 7 unique pairs plus one triplet

+3 tai

dot 1dot 1dot 5dot 5bamboo 3bamboo 3bamboo 7bamboo 7character 2character 2wind westwind westdragon reddragon redcharacter 9character 9character 9

Bonuses and scoring conditions

RuleValueCondition
Each Flower/Season tile+1 taiPer tile held at win time
Seat-matching Flower+1 taiFlower matching your seat (Spring→East, etc.)
Self-Draw (自摸)+1 taiWin by drawing from the wall
Concealed Hand (門清)+1 taiNo open melds from discards
After Kong (嶺上開花)+1 taiWin on kong replacement tile
Robbing Kong (搶槓)+1 taiWin on opponent's promoted kong tile
Last Wall Tile (海底撈月)+1 taiWin on the final wall draw
Last Discard (河底撈魚)+1 taiWin on the final discard

Additional tai patterns

RuleValueCondition
Dealer / consecutive dealer+1 / +2 per repeatDealer totals: 1, 3, 5… tai.
Round-matching flower+1 taiBonus for a Flower/Season tile matching the prevailing wind.
Eight Immortals8 taiAll eight flowers; stacks with individual flower and matching-flower tai.
Big Three Dragons8 taiAll three Dragon triplets/quads; excludes individual Dragon tai and Small Three Dragons.
Small Three Dragons4 taiTwo Dragon sets and a Dragon pair; excludes individual Dragon tai.
Big Four Winds16 taiFour Wind sets; excludes Small Four Winds. Value-wind tai still stacks.
Small Four Winds8 taiThree Wind sets and a Wind pair. Value-wind tai still stacks.
All Honors16 taiHonors only; All Triplets still stacks.
Three / four / five concealed triplets2 / 5 / 8 taiOnly the highest applicable count scores. A triplet completed by a discard win is not concealed.

Rules used in tsumo

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

  • tsumo Taiwanese Mahjong rules