American Style Mahjong Rules |
Drawing tiles |
The game is now ready and new tiles will be taken from the "Wall" where the drawing of initial hand ended. East starts the game by discarding a tile faces up in the center of the table. South then draws & discards a tile, followed by West and North. Thus, the draw goes counter-clockwise around the table, unless a tile is thrown which a player can claim. In that case, the turn jumps to the respective player's position. We'll go into more details in the Game Play section.
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Game Play |
When a player discards a tile, any of the other players may pick up the discarded tile if he/she has a set, which may be completed by the discarded tile. However, a drawback of this action is that the player must now expose the completed set to the others, thus providing them a glimpse of what kind of hand he/she is creating. A player can pick up a discarded tile to complete one of the following sets:
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| 1. |
Pung - a set of 3 identical tiles. A player must say "Pung" when he/she gets another player's discarded tile to form the combination. The player then must show the created set and then discard a tile. The next player (counterclockwise) will then have the next turn. Here is an example of a Pung:
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| 2. |
Kong - a set of 4 identical tiles. A player must say "Kong" when he/she gets another player's discarded tile to form the combination. The player then must show the created set and then discard a tile. The next player (counterclockwise) will then have the next turn. Here is an example of a Kong:
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| 3. |
Quint - a set of 5 identical tiles. A player must say "Quint" when he/she gets another player's discarded tile to form the combination. The player then must show the created set and then discard a tile. The next player (counterclockwise) will have the next turn. Here is an example of a Quint:
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| 4. |
Sextet- a set of 6 identical tiles. A player must say "Sextet" when he/she gets another player's discarded tile to form the combination. The player then must show the created set and discard a tile. The next player (counterclockwise) will then have the next turn. Here is an example of a Sextet:
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| 5. |
Pair -- An Eye, or a Pair, are two identical tiles. It cannot be created with discarded tiles unless to declare a win / mahjong. Here is an example of a Pair:
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How about if two players are claiming a discarded tile at the same time? Then the Claim Priority is in effect.
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| 1. |
Win (Mahjong) has priority over other claims. |
| 2. |
A player next in turn has priority over other players. |
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