Learning to play Mahjongg

Background

I have been playing Mahjongg solitaire for some time and have recently made some Mahjongg tiles - fascinated by the physical tiles as objects themselves and what can be done with them (besides playing games!) Now though I have received a nice set of tiles as a gift and I have started to learn the proper 4-player game. I want to teach nerds like myself at the Hackspace (and The Dice Cup) so that I have plenty of people to play and learn with.

Michael E.

Mahjongg Basics

Mahjongg is similar to the card game of Rummy where each player tries to make high scoring sets from a hand of tiles. There are numerous regional rules but the and the set I want to start off with is the World Series of Mahjong Rules and then simplify for new players. I have a little book of rules that came with my mahjong set from John Lewis and we have adopted most of the scoring from that.

no wildcards or fixed hands (so especially _not_ like American versions!)
no minimum score hand
no maximum score hand?
we haven't decided what to do about stealing kongs yet!

Rather than read all these crazy rules, the easiest thing for a beginner to do is to simple join in a game, perhaps with an introductory hand where everybody shows their tiles.

Regarding seats, directions, and dealing

At the start of the game after washing the tiles and building the walls, the East player (and initial dealer) is chosen at start of game by dice throw, other players assigned relative to that seat
Note that the directions are NOT the usual compass directions (as per most Eastern variants of the game) but go East, South, West, North going in an anti-clockwise direction
These assignations remain throughout the game with no special benefits to East
The dealer rotates around anti-clockwise to the next player each round regardless of the winner and has no special benefits other than discarding first (we may alter that later if it proves easy enough for beginners)
Dice throw is also used to decide where to break the wall and start dealing (TODO details)
Each player is dealt 13 tiles but the dealer has an extra tile as they will start with a discard
Normal play commences when the dealer discards their first tile
The player to the dealer's right is up next and play continues in an anti-clockwise direction (unless interrupted by claiming discarded tiles)

Normal play

for a normal play the player draws the next tile from the wall and discards a tile to maintain 13 tiles in their hand
the player temporarily has 14 tiles - the number required to declare mahjong
mahjong is declared when a player has 4 sets of 3 tiles and a pair (known as the "eyes")

Regarding discards

discards can only be claimed for a chow by the player whose turn is next (or by anybody for mahjong)
a pung can be claimed by any player and this outranks a chow
a kong outranks a chow (and a pung but that would not be possible as we don't use wildcards)
a mahjong outranks everything and the claim can also be to make up the required pair
if more than one person claims the discard for mahjong then priority is given to the player closest to the discard (in the normal anti-clockwise turns sense)

Scoring

Our scoring system is based on Old HK style where it seems every opportunity is taken to double scores for anything "special"! Terminals and honours are doubled, concealed sets are doubled, and kongs are doubled twice!

When a player declares mahjong all players reveal their hands and the hand scores are calculated (prior to winner bonus points and double honour scores being awarded - see below)

a sequence or "chow" scores no points itself but can be very useful when trying to get to mahjong
an exposed 3-of-a-kind or "pung" scores 2 points for the middle tiles (2 to 8) but if "terminals" (1 or 9) or "honours" (winds or dragons) then it is doubled to 4 points
a concealed 3-of-a-kind is doubled, so 4 points for concealed middle tiles or 8 points for concealed terminals or honours
a kong, or 4-of-a-kind, is the score of the pung doubled twice(!) (x4 really), so 8 points for exposed kong of middle tiles, 16 points for terminals and honours
concealed kongs are doubled again! So 16 points for middle tiles and 32 points for terminals and honours
a pair of dragons or the player's own wind scores 2 points

chow (sequence), pungs (3-of-a-kind) of middle tiles, and terminals
pungs of winds and dragons