Hong Kong Mahjong basics
Hong Kong Mahjong is a friendly place to start. The tiles and sets are the ones you already know; what is special is how the deal moves, how flowers are used and how scoring is counted in faan.
Two rule sets, one family
Hong Kong rules are not fully fixed: clubs and tables agree their own details. MyMahjong follows two published rule sets, the Victoria Mahjong Club (VMC) and the Hong Kong Mahjong Association (HKMA), both used with permission. This page explains the shared ideas and uses VMC values for the examples; HKMA differs in places, for instance with a minimum of 3 faan and a ceiling of 10 faan. Agree the details before you play.
The dealer and the winds
- East is always the dealer. East keeps the deal after winning or after a drawn hand.
- If another player wins, the deal passes to the player on East's right, and the seat winds rotate.
- The seat wind belongs to your current position. The round wind is the same for everyone: a full game has East, South, West and North rounds, and both winds can matter for scoring.
- A round ends only after all four players have been dealer, but kept deals make rounds longer, so a full game has at least 16 hands.
A turn and claims
East starts by discarding from 14 tiles. After that, a turn is: draw a tile, check whether the hand is complete, otherwise discard one tile face up and say its name.
- You may claim the latest discard to win, to make a pung or a kong, or to make a chow.
- A win comes first, then a pung or kong, then a chow. You may chow only from the player on your left, whose turn comes just before yours.
- When two players call a win, many tables give priority to the one nearest after the discarder. Some allow more than one winner, so agree this beforehand.
- After a claim, expose the set and discard a tile. Play continues from the player who claimed.
Kongs and robbing a kong
You can make a kong from four tiles in your hand (concealed), by claiming a discard while holding three (melded), or by adding the fourth tile to an exposed pung (added). Draw a replacement from the back of the wall afterwards. If an opponent adds a fourth tile to a pung and that tile completes your winning hand, you may take it. This is called robbing a kong and usually earns one extra faan.
Flowers and seasons
Flowers and seasons never form sets. When you get one, show it beside your hand and draw a replacement. Each one is numbered to match a seat wind:
| Number | Flower | Season | Matching seat wind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Plum | Spring | East |
| 2 | Orchid | Summer | South |
| 3 | Chrysanthemum | Autumn | West |
| 4 | Bamboo | Winter | North |
A flower or season that matches your seat wind usually earns one faan. A full set of four flowers or four seasons earns two faan instead. Holding no flowers or seasons at all commonly earns one faan.
Winning and the minimum faan
The usual winning hand is four sets and a pair (a kong counts as one set), or Thirteen Orphans. Before play you also agree a minimum number of faan. Three faan is common, and beginners sometimes play without a minimum. A complete hand below the agreed minimum cannot win. Do not read a payment table that lists 0 to 2 faan as proof that those hands may win at your table.
Basic faan items
These are VMC example values. Items that replace others already include them, so do not add them twice.
| Item | Faan |
|---|---|
| All Chows (four chows and any pair) | 1 |
| Closed Hand (no called sets) | 1 |
| Dragon pung or kong | 1 each |
| Seat-wind pung or kong | 1 |
| Round-wind pung or kong | 1 |
| Same wind is both seat and round wind | 2 in total |
| Self-draw | 1 |
| Win on a kong replacement (replaces Self-draw) | 2 in total |
| Robbing a kong | 1 |
| Win on the last wall tile or the last discard | 1 |
The patterns worth more, such as All Pungs, Half Flush and Full Flush, are in the Scoring Guide in the app.
Turning faan into points
How faan become payments is agreed too. The VMC guide documents two models, called Modern and Classical, each with its own point table. Agree which model your table uses before the first hand.