GLOSSARY
Mahjong glossary
Mahjong has its own vocabulary, and the same idea often has a different name in Hong Kong, in MCR and in Japan. This page explains the words you meet in the guides and at the table, in plain language. Chinese terms are shown where they help you recognise a word.
Tiles
- Suit
- One of the three numbered families: Bamboo, Dots and Characters. Each suit runs from 1 to 9 and has four copies of every number.
- Simples
- The number tiles 2 to 8 of any suit.
- Terminals (幺九, yāojiǔ)
- The 1 and the 9 of each suit.
- Honours (字牌, zìpái)
- The winds and the dragons. They have no numbers, so they can only form pungs, kongs and pairs.
- Winds
- East, South, West and North. They name the seats, and they name the round.
- Dragons
- Red (Zhōng), Green (Fā) and White (Bái).
- Flowers and seasons (花牌, huāpái)
- Eight bonus tiles that are not part of your hand. When you draw one you set it aside and draw a replacement. Some rule sets score them, others leave them out.
- Tile set
- Usually 144 tiles with the bonus tiles, 136 without them. American Mahjong adds jokers for 152.
Sets and hands
- Set (meld)
- A group of three or four tiles that belongs together: a chow, a pung or a kong.
- Chow (吃, chī)
- Three consecutive numbers in one suit, such as Bamboo 3-4-5. You may claim a chow only from the player on your left.
- Pung (碰, pèng)
- Three identical tiles. You may claim a pung from any player.
- Kong (杠, gàng)
- Four identical tiles. A kong counts as one set, and you draw a replacement tile after making it.
- Concealed kong
- A kong made entirely from tiles you drew yourself, without claiming a discard.
- Added kong
- A fourth tile added to a pung you already have on the table.
- Pair (将, jiàng)
- Two identical tiles. A standard winning hand has four sets and one pair.
- Exposed and concealed
- A set made with a claimed discard is exposed and lies face up. Tiles that stay in your hand are concealed.
- Closed hand (门前清, ménqiánqīng)
- A hand without any exposed sets. Many rule sets give a bonus for it.
- Hand size
- You hold 13 tiles between turns and 14 after you draw. Each kong adds one more tile on the table.
Playing a hand
- Wall (牌墙, páiqiáng)
- The stacked tiles from which players draw.
- Dealer (庄家, zhuāngjiā)
- The player in the East seat, who starts the hand. In many rule sets the dealer pays and wins double.
- Seat wind (门风)
- The wind of the seat you sit in.
- Round wind (圈风, quānfēng)
- The wind of the current round. It starts as East and moves on after the dealer role has gone around the table.
- Dice and break
- The dealer rolls dice to decide where the wall is opened. That point is called the break.
- Draw and discard
- On your turn you draw one tile and then discard one tile face up in the middle. The discards are also called the pond.
- Claim (call)
- Taking another player's discard to complete a set or a win. A win takes priority over a pung or kong, which takes priority over a chow.
- Pass
- Letting a discard go by without claiming it.
- Replacement tile
- The extra tile you draw from the end of the wall after a kong, or after setting aside a flower.
- Robbing the kong (抢杠, qiǎnggàng)
- Winning on the tile another player adds to a pung to make a kong.
- Draw game (流局, liújú)
- A hand that ends with no winner because the wall ran out.
Winning
- Mahjong, hu (胡, hú)
- The declaration of a winning hand.
- Winning hand
- Usually four sets and a pair. Special hands such as Thirteen Orphans follow their own shape.
- Ready hand (听牌, tīngpái)
- A hand that needs one more tile to win. It is also called waiting.
- Wait
- The tile or tiles that would complete a ready hand.
- Self-draw (自摸, zìmō)
- Winning on a tile you drew yourself.
- Winning on a discard (点和)
- Winning on a tile another player discarded. That player is said to have dealt in (放铳, fàngchòng).
- Special hand
- A hand that does not follow the four sets and a pair shape, such as Thirteen Orphans.
- Minimum to win
- The smallest score a complete hand needs before it may win. It is 3 faan in many Hong Kong games and 8 points in MCR.
Scoring
- Faan (番, fān)
- The scoring unit of a Hong Kong hand. You add the faan of every item that applies, then look the total up in a point table.
- Points (MCR)
- MCR scores each pattern in points and adds them up. The Chinese word is also fān, but MCR values and Hong Kong faan are not the same thing.
- Pattern
- A tile combination that earns score, such as All Pungs or Full Flush.
- Half flush (混一色)
- One suit plus honour tiles.
- Full flush (清一色)
- One suit only, with no honours.
- Limit hand
- A hand worth the maximum value. Hong Kong rule sets differ on which hands count and on how high the top value is.
- Ceiling (cap)
- A top value that no hand can exceed. HKMA caps hands at 10 faan.
- Chicken hand
- A complete hand worth 0 faan. It cannot win where a minimum applies.
- Base points
- The amount a faan total is worth in the point table, before payments are worked out.
- Settlement (payment)
- The rules that decide who pays whom and how much. VMC offers Classical and Modern settlement.
- Liability (包, bāo)
- A rule that makes one player pay for a win that they made possible. HKMA has such a rule for some hands.
- Doubling
- A multiplier that applies in some cases, for example when the dealer is involved in the payment.
Rule sets and variants
- MCR (国标麻将)
- Mahjong Competition Rules, the rule set used in international tournaments. It has 81 patterns, and a hand needs at least 8 points to win.
- Hong Kong Mahjong
- The classic Cantonese style, scored in faan with a point table. MyMahjong offers it with VMC and HKMA rules.
- VMC
- Victoria Mahjong Club, a club in British Columbia, Canada, whose Hong Kong rules MyMahjong follows with permission.
- HKMA
- Hong Kong Mahjong Association, whose Classical Mahjong rules MyMahjong follows with permission.
- Riichi (立直)
- The Japanese variant, with a declaration for a ready hand. It is in preparation here.
- American Mahjong
- A variant played with jokers and a yearly card of allowed hands. It is in preparation here.
- House rules
- Local agreements, such as the minimum to win. Agree them before the first hand.
In MyMahjong
- Coach
- The hint button. It suggests a discard or a claim and explains why.
- Score Keeper
- A score ledger for real tables, with hand history and a PDF export.
- Calculator
- A tool that scores a hand you enter and shows every pattern that applies.