How to play Mahjong

Winning and table settings

Win with four groups and a pair, or Thirteen Orphans: one of each 1 and 9 from the three suits, all four winds and all three dragons, plus a duplicate of one of those tiles.

A win must meet the table’s minimum fan. Practice offers 0, 1 or 3 fan; 0 is the default. A complete shape alone may not qualify at a higher minimum. Mahjong appears only when you can legally win.

Practice offers 136 tiles (no flowers) or 144 (flowers and seasons), and one East round or a full East–South–West–North match. Random online rooms use a 3-fan minimum, flowers and seasons, and a full match. Private rooms let the creator choose these settings.

Claims and kongs

Chi (chow): claim the previous player’s discard to complete a run in one suit. Pung (pon): claim any player’s discard to make three identical tiles. Kong (kan): make four identical tiles and receive a replacement draw.

After chi or pung, discard without drawing. After your own draw, you can declare a concealed kong or add a fourth tile to an exposed pung. Another player may win by robbing that added tile; concealed kongs cannot be robbed in this profile.

Mahjong outranks pung/kong, which outrank chi. Equal-priority claims go to the nearest player after the discarder in turn order. Only one player wins. Pass declines a claim.

Flowers and hand progression

Flowers and seasons, when enabled, are shown separately and replaced automatically. They do not form groups or pairs. Their bonuses count toward the minimum fan needed to win. No flowers or seasons gives +1 fan; your seat flower and seat season give +1 each (East 1, South 2, West 3, North 4). All four flowers or all four seasons give +2 for that category instead of its seat bonus. Collecting them does not trigger an instant win.

Everyone starts with 1,000. A dealer win repeats the dealer; another player’s win or an exhausted wall rotates the dealer. An exhausted wall ends the hand in a draw with no payments. An East round ends after four dealer rotations; dealer repeats can extend it.

Scoring and payments

Fan are scoring bonuses. Eligible ordinary patterns combine, up to 10 fan. A limit hand scores 10 fan on its own. The highest-scoring valid interpretation is used.

On a discard win, the discarder alone pays 4 × base. On self-draw, each opponent pays 2 × base. For example, 3 fan has base 8: a discard win gains 32; self-draw gains 16 from each opponent, 48 total. There is no extra dealer payment multiplier.

Alternatives do not all stack: Four Concealed Pungs and Mixed Terminals replace All Pungs. Great/Small Three Dragons replace individual Dragon Pungs. Small Four Winds does not add Half Flush. A full flower/season set replaces that category’s seat bonus.

Online timing and ratings

Human players have 20 seconds to discard and 10 seconds per claim decision. An expired discard timer discards automatically; an expired claim timer passes. Between hands, the result panel shows a 20-second countdown before the next hand starts. Completed matches do not automatically start a new match.

Completed, recorded four-human matches count toward an active rated season. Practice, bot rooms, abandoned matches and pre-season play are unrated. Private rooms have full rating impact at 3 fan, flowers and seasons enabled, and a full match; each different setting halves both rating gains and losses.

Not included

Seven Pairs, opening-hand bonuses, consecutive-kong bonuses, instant flower wins and multiple simultaneous winners are not supported. These house rules may differ from rules played elsewhere.