VMC rules explained

Who the VMC is

The Victoria Mahjong Club is a mahjong club in British Columbia, Canada. MyMahjong follows its published scoring sheets with the club's permission, and credits the club for them. MyMahjong is an independent project: it is not run or endorsed by the club, and the explanations and examples here are our own.

What both versions share

• 144 tiles, with all eight flowers and seasons.
• A winning hand is four sets and a pair; a declared kong adds one physical tile.
• The minimum faan is a choice for the table. Three faan is the common choice, and beginners sometimes play with no minimum.
• Flowers: each flower or season that matches your seat wind gives 1 faan, no flowers at all gives 1 faan, and a full set of four flowers or four seasons gives 2 faan in place of the matching bonus.
• The dealer (East) stays after a dealer win or a draw; otherwise the deal passes on.
• A concealed kong does not make the hand open.

The faan items themselves, such as All Chows, All Pungs and the flush hands, are the same in both versions. The basic ones are listed in the Hong Kong basics guide.

Two ways to turn faan into points

First you look up a base amount for the hand's faan in a table. Then a settlement model decides who pays how much. The two models use different tables, so never mix them.

Modern: the discarder pays. With base points P from the Modern column:

• Win on a discard: the discarder pays 2P and the other two pay nothing. If East is the winner or the discarder, the discarder pays 4P.
• Self-drawn win by a player who is not East: East pays 2P and each of the other two pays P.
• Self-drawn win by East: each opponent pays 2P.

Classical: everyone pays. With base points Q from the Classical column, every opponent starts by paying Q, and then these doublings apply to each payment separately:

• x2 for the player who discarded the winning tile.
• x2 on every payment when the winner draws the tile themselves.
• x2 on any payment that involves East.

Doublings stack, but a discard win and a self-draw win are alternatives, so you never apply both to one hand.

The base-point tables

The 0, 1 and 2 faan rows are not winning hands when the minimum is 3 faan. The table and the minimum are separate decisions.

Same hand, two results

South wins with 5 faan. Modern gives P = 24 and Classical gives Q = 16.

• West discards the winning tile. Modern: West pays 48 and South receives 48. Classical: West pays 32, East pays 32 and North pays 16, so South receives 80.
• South draws the tile. Modern: East pays 48, West 24 and North 24, so South receives 96. Classical: East pays 64, West 32 and North 32, so South receives 128.

The totals differ because the two models are different systems, not because either is wrong. Agree on one model before the first hand.

In MyMahjong

Online tables set to VMC Classic use the Classical model. Choose the rules when you create a table.