Rules

To understand what Mahjong is and be able to play, first of all, we must think that a Mahjong set is for Asians as a deck of cards for Europeans and Americans. It would be like four decks, since on a Mahjong set there are four copies of each card.

In this section, we will try to explain the general aspects of the game that are used in the different modalities that exist. As we have seen in the History section, as the game was expanding by new countries, its rules were adapting with typical aspects of the local games. Therefore, we will see the tokens; their meaning; the mechanics of the game; and other particularities, but without entering into the different types of rules that each modality has. We can see this in the rules section.

Due to the Chinese origin of the Mahjong, the game has a first barrier that gives complexity to it as the design of the tiles and the terminology applied are entirely new to us. Once this initial barrier is overcome, we can assure that it is a great game and very addictive.

To begin with, we have to say that the Mahjong is a game for four players, although it is also possible to play it among three, in a particular version of the Japanese rules (also called Riichi).

The Rules

Stairs, trios and quartets (Chow, Pung, and Kong)

To further explain the process of the Mahjong game, we should first introduce three concepts:

A pung, pon or threesome (碰, pèng) is always made up of Three Identical tokens.
A chow, chili or ladder (吃, chì) consists of three consecutive tokens of the same suit, or the three dragons.
A kong, kan or quartet (槓, Gan, gang) consists of four same tokens (the four white Dragons, the four seven disc.), that is the same as a pung but with four tokens instead of three. After all, the pung and chow formations are “normal, “and the kong formation is” exceptional,” as will be seen later. Note that chow cannot be formed with winds or dragons; it is only possible to use them to create pung or kong.

When a player holds a pung, chow or kong, which he has achieved either because it was distributed among his initial tokens, or he has managed to discard and steal tokens from the wall, all these formations are said to be “hidden.” A combination that is hidden remains like this until the player makes Mahjong, that is, does not manifest to the other players that have them, except when having kong. If some player had a kong and said nothing, he would not be able to make mahjong, since he would lack a chip to form four combinations of three chips and the pair (see next section). Therefore, if one of the players has a hidden kong, he must declare it before the game ends (before finishing any of his shifts). At any time within his turn, the player drops the four tokens of the kong, and receives an additional chip, which is taken not from the first free place of the wall. But from the part of the wall where the game was opened the kong that has been lowered on the table is turned upside down (this can change according to the rules to be played).