Hong Kong Mahjong Rules

Overview

Hong Kong Mahjong is a four-player tile game built around drawing, discarding, and completing a legal fourteen-tile hand. It plays like a tactical cousin of rummy: every turn you improve your hand, read the table, and decide whether to keep your hand concealed or expose sets for speed.

A full game is organized by winds. A hand ends when a player wins, the live wall runs out, or a hand is cancelled by table rules. The winner scores fan based on the shape and contents of the hand.

Tiles

A Hong Kong Mahjong set normally uses 144 tiles: 136 standard tiles plus 8 flowers and seasons. Some tables play without flowers, in which case only the 136 standard tiles are used.

When a flower or season is drawn, reveal it immediately, place it to the side, and draw a replacement tile from the dead wall. Repeat if the replacement is also a flower.

Objective

The normal winning hand contains four sets plus one pair. Because the winner has either drawn or claimed the final tile, a winning hand has fourteen tiles total.

• Chow / seung: three suited tiles in sequence, such as 3-4-5 dots.
• Pung / pong: three identical tiles.
• Kong: four identical tiles. It counts as one set, and requires a replacement tile.
• Pair / eyes: two identical tiles. A normal hand has exactly one pair.

A player one tile away from winning is said to have a ready hand or to be waiting.

Seating and Dealer

The dealer is East. The players sit in counter-clockwise wind order: East, South, West, North. This order follows Mahjong table order, not compass direction.

Common ways to choose the first dealer include youngest player, highest dice roll, or drawing one of each wind tile face down; the player who draws East becomes dealer. A more formal method assigns temporary seats, has temporary East arrange the four wind tiles with odd and even markers, then uses dice to choose who draws from which end.

Once the dealer is selected, East keeps the dice and the round-wind indicator. The game begins in the East round.

Wall, Break, and Deal

Build the wall

Shuffle all tiles face down. With flowers, each player builds a wall of 18 stacks, two tiles high. Without flowers, each player builds 17 stacks. The four walls are pushed together into a square.

Break the wall

East rolls dice and counts counter-clockwise around the four walls, counting East as 1. The selected player counts that same dice total from the right end of their wall and breaks the wall there.

The section to the right of the break is the dead wall or kong box. It is used for replacement tiles after flowers and kongs. The rest is the live wall, where ordinary draws come from. Replacement tiles are taken from the dead wall, and the dead wall is kept reserved as play consumes tiles.

Deal the tiles

East takes the first two stacks from the live wall, then South, West, and North do the same in order. Repeat until everyone has 12 tiles. Then players draw final tiles so East has 14 and the other players have 13. Some tables use the common "chan-chan" method where East takes the 13th and 14th tiles together.

After the deal, players organize their hands. Starting with East and moving counter-clockwise, players reveal flowers and draw replacements until all flowers are out of the hand. East should have 14 tiles and everyone else 13 before the first discard.

Playing a Turn

East begins by discarding one tile face up into the center. Play normally proceeds counter-clockwise.

1. At the start of your turn, you may declare a legal kong already in your hand.
2. Draw one tile from the live wall.
3. If you draw a flower, reveal it and take a replacement from the dead wall.
4. If you make a kong, reveal or promote it and take a replacement from the dead wall.
5. If the drawn tile completes your hand, declare a self-drawn win.
6. If you do not win, discard one tile face up.

If no one wins before the live wall is exhausted, the hand is a draw.

Calls and Melds

When a player discards, other players may claim the tile immediately. A claimed tile is exposed with the matching tiles from the claimant's hand, then the claimant discards and play continues from that player.

Chow / seung

A chow is three consecutive tiles in the same suit. You may only claim a discard for a chow from the player on your left. Chows cannot wrap around, so 8-9-1 and 9-1-2 are illegal. Winds and dragons cannot be chowed.

Pung / pong

A pung is three identical tiles. If any player discards the third matching tile for a pair in your hand, you may call pung, expose the triplet, and discard.

Kong from discard

If any player discards the fourth matching tile for three identical concealed tiles in your hand, you may call kong, expose all four tiles, draw a replacement from the dead wall, then discard.

Claim priority

• A winning claim beats pung, kong, and chow.
• Pung and kong beat chow.
• If multiple players claim the same discard to win, the nearest claimant in turn order from the discarder wins.

Kongs

A kong is four identical tiles and counts as one set. Because a kong uses an extra tile, the player must draw a replacement tile from the dead wall after declaring it.

• Concealed kong: four identical tiles drawn into your hand. Reveal it as a kong; many tables place the two center tiles face down to show it remains concealed for scoring.
• Exposed kong from discard: call a discard to complete four identical tiles from three concealed matches.
• Promoted kong: add a self-drawn fourth tile to your already exposed pung.

You cannot claim a discard just to upgrade an exposed pung into a kong. A promoted kong can be robbed if another player can win on that tile.

Winning

A player wins by completing a legal hand. A win from your own draw is self-drawn. A win from another player's discard is a discard win.

• Self draw / ji mo: your drawn tile completes your hand.
• Win on discard / sik wu: another player discards the tile that completes your ready hand.
• Robbing a kong: another player promotes or declares a kong using the exact tile that completes your ready hand; you claim it to win.
• Last tile cases: wins on the final wall tile, final discard, or supplement tile may score extra fan.

Standard hands use four sets and a pair, but special hands such as Seven Pairs and Thirteen Orphans have their own structures.

Rounds and Rotation

A full Hong Kong Mahjong game has four rounds: East, South, West, and North. Each round lasts until all four players have been dealer at least once, so a complete game has a minimum of 16 hands.

If East wins, East remains dealer. If the hand is a draw, East also remains dealer. If a non-dealer wins, dealer passes to the player on the right and all seat winds rotate counter-clockwise. Some tables also keep the same dealer after an invalid Mahjong declaration.

The round wind advances after dealership returns to the initial dealer for the next circuit.

Fan Scoring

The winner scores fan from the winning hand. Fan usually stack unless a table rule says a larger pattern replaces a smaller included one. Special maximum hands are scored at their listed limit.

Special Hands

These difficult hands score maximum payout in the Hong Kong rule sheet used for this guide.