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.

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

How about if two players are claiming a discarded tile at the same time? Then the Claim Priority is in effect.

1.	Win (Mahjong) has priority over other claims.
2.	A player next in turn has priority over other players.

Previous 1 2 3 4 5 Next