Talk:Mahjong

Limit Hand: Heavenly Gates
My understanding is that the hand Heavenly Gates is never ever melded. The 13 tiles must be concealed, and depending on rule variations, the 14th can be a discard (impure) or self drawn (pure), although both ways pay the limit. The whole reason behind its name Heavenly Gates, and reputation as the most perfect hand, is that any of the same suit tiles will complete the hand (complementing the 13 tiles in hand as a pair, pung or chow, to produce the required four sets and a pair): Note how the sets shift depending on which tile completes the hand. If any sets are melded, the winning tile is much more limited and the hand is thus not 'Heavenly', but ordinary. Having melded sets would be considered cheating - it elevates a mere single suit hand of multiple chows and one or two pungs to a limit hand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.210.161.120 (talk) 08:21, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * If the hand is completed by a 1: the hand is 111 123 456 789 99
 * If the hand is completed by a 2: the hand is 111 345 678 999 22
 * If the hand is completed by a 3: the hand is 123 345 678 999 11
 * If the hand is completed by a 4: the hand is 111 234 456 789 99
 * If the hand is completed by a 5: the hand is 111 234 678 999 55
 * If the hand is completed by a 6: the hand is 123 456 678 999 11
 * If the hand is completed by a 7: the hand is 111 234 567 789 99
 * If the hand is completed by a 8: the hand is 111 234 567 999 88
 * If the hand is completed by a 9: the hand is 123 456 789 999 11
 * In most versions Heavenly gates must be concealed or fully concealed. In a few variations or table rules...a previously melded pong of 1 and or 9 can be included and it is considered half-limit or specific amount of points less than a limit hand/max points.. --Shabidoo | Talk 03:50, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Beijing Mahjong
In the flash game Beijing Mahjong http://www.mahjongready.com/games/Play/Beijing-Mahjong.htm (fully Chinese), I don't understand any of the unusual winning hands (from the instructions). Can anyone translate these winning hands (and the conditions) so I can try them while playing:


 * 坐庄 (坐莊) - 两翻 (points doubled for hand)
 * 听牌 (聽牌)- 两翻
 * Won with a ready hand
 * 门清 (門清) - 两翻
 * 自摸 - 两翻
 * Won with the winning tile drawn?
 * 地胡 - 四翻 (points quadrupled for hand)
 * 天听 (天聽) - 两翻
 * 天胡 - 四翻
 * 杠呲 - 两翻
 * Winning tile is from a Kong
 * 捉伍魁 - 两翻
 * 一条龙 (一條龍) - 两翻
 * Hand has 1-9, Chow (吃) of a suit.
 * 七小对 (七小對)- 两翻
 * Hand has seven pairs
 * 豪华七小对 - 四翻
 * 字一色 - 四翻
 * Hand is pure honors (no wan, circle, or bamboo tiles)
 * 清一色 - 四翻
 * Hand is purely either wan, circle, or bamboo tiles (no honors)
 * 全求人 - 十六翻 (points multiplied by a power of 16?)

For the kongs:
 * 明杠 - 1個(5分/個)
 * Exposed kong, 5 points for each said kong in winning hand.
 * 暗杠 - 1個(10分/個)
 * Concealed kong, 10 points for each said kong in winning hand.

Some already have conditions, so I would like others to help me as well. (In-game, some of the characters are in Traditional Chinese) Thanks!
 * 99.27.105.64 (talk) 01:45, 29 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the long wait, here are the doubles:
 * 坐莊 - dealer bonus
 * 聽牌 - declared ready hand
 * 門清 - no open melds
 * 自摸 - win by self-pick
 * 地胡 - hand of earth
 * 天聽 - win by first discard?
 * 天胡 - hand of heaven
 * 杠呲 - win by dead tile after a kong
 * 捉伍魁 - "catch" a 5 wan for a winning chow of 456 wan
 * 一條龍 - run of 123-456-789 of same suit
 * 七小對 - seven pairs
 * 豪华七小對 - pairs and at least a quad/tile hog (latter should not be of a wind tile or called kong)
 * 字一色 - all honors
 * 清一色 - flush
 * 全求人 - at least a chow, pung, and kong (no added kong) from discards, then win by pair
 * 明杠 - open kong (5 points per kong)
 * 暗杠 - concealed kong (10 points per kong)
 * Enjoy! ～ POKéTalker（═◉═） 13:49, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Old Hong Kong mahjong but with American terminology?
The section describes mahjong as played in Hong Kong but the terminology is from the American version. Examples: bamboo, stones, characters, dragons, goulash, going mahjong.--Countakeshi (talk) 21:30, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * The game doesn't describe how mahjong is played in Hong Kong (many play modern hong kong or ISR)...it describes one particular rule set which is called "Hong Kong Mahjong" which was in the past played by some in Hong Kong as well as others outside of Hong Kong. It does not belong to Hong Kong and few English speaking players use Cantonese or Mandarin terms when playing. When English players play Mahjong, they use English (not American) terminology with the possible exception of "chow, pong, kong" translated from various Chinese dialects or even Japanese/Korean. We aren't going to put five different langauge translations next to every single mahjong term. It is the English language term as not all English speaking players are American. If it was American terminology then it would include terms only used in "American mahjong rules" which is not the case here. There is already a heavy saturation of Chinese, Japanese, Korean translated terms listed next to most terms listed in English. The article will only become even more jammed with terminology translations and pronunciations at a level that is rarely seen in other articles on Wikipedia. --Shabidoo | Talk 14:02, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * As far as I know there are no other widely used English terms for Mahjong, American or otherwise, so I don't know what other terminology could be used. --5.65.87.152 (talk) 15:26, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your input. "American terminology" should be better described as "Babcock terminology". From looking around at the wikis in other languages, every language except for Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Korean uses Babcock's terms. The Vietnamese were already well acquainted with Chinese terms since they use various types of Chinese playing cards including the closely related Bài tới and Tổ tôm decks. The Japanese imported the game in 1909 and transliterated the Chinese terms. Korean seems to be part translation and part transliteration probably through multiple vectors including Japanese influence during the occupation period. Babcock was not entirely wrong when he used "dragons" for the three elemental or cardinal honors. He preferred (and sold) a less common variant set that used red dragons (龍) and green phoenixes (鳳). I think the section "Mahjong in the West" is too narrow as it deals primarily with the US and not where it is most popular, other East and Southeast Asian countries. The game's popularity lasted longer in the British Empire and there are various continental European styles as well.--Countakeshi (talk) 16:38, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Old text
"Old Hong Kong Mahjong" uses the same basic features and rules as the majority of the different variations of the game. This form of Mahjong uses all of the tiles of the most commonly available sets, includes no exotic complex rules, and has a relatively small set of scoring sets/hands with a simple scoring system. For these reasons Hong Kong mahjong is a suitable variation for the introduction of game rules and play and is the focus of this article.

The above text is not neutral view at all. It favors one form of mahjong over others. KyuuA4 (Talk:キュウ) 21:28, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Foreign terms should be used sparringly
As per MOS:FOREIGN I think parts of this article has become filled with foreign terms. It's totally appropriate in the section: "name" and "variations" as well as in the lede and infobox, they clog up the article in other sections. We don't need a translations of the word "chow" or "dragons" in multiple languages in the actual article. This creates information overload and disrupts the flow of the article. I do believe having these terms in other languages is useful. I would like to either put these terms in footnotes, or have an embedded glossary (as the glossary wouldn't be large enough to have a standalone article. Shabidoo | Talk 19:39, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Potential source material
Just leaving it here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/phr.2010.79.3.329?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents KyuuA4 (Talk:キュウ) 21:31, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Great. Thanks kyuuA4! I'll read it when i get a chance. Considere editing the article and/or offer suggestions etc! --Shabidoo | Talk 14:18, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

too many cooks spoil the broth
"mahjong is also spelled mahjong"... wut? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.189.203.163 (talk) 23:47, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Good point. I have corrected. --Roly (talk) 09:24, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Some inconsistencies in the explanation of scoring
I'm not an expert but hoping someone who is can clarify these apparent inconsistencies in the text:
 * 1) Bonus Fan: "A player only scores a bonus fan for Flowers or Seasons if it is their own flower or season (East=1, South=2, West=3 and North=4) or if the player has all four Flowers or all four Seasons (scoring 5 fan in total)."  According to the table above however it would be 3 fan, as the table says "All 4 Flowers: 2 (plus one for own flower)."  Which is correct?
 * 2) Examples, Hand 1: states that 4 fan --> 1 base point, but the fan to base point table says 4 fan --> 2 base points.  Which is correct?
 * 3) Limit hands: "A common scoring limit is 64 points, which is the highest base points doubled twice."  According to what precedes this sentence, the highest base points is 8, and doubling that twice would lead to 8->16->32.  So is 32 the common scoring limit, or should it say doubled thrice, or is 8 not really the highest base points?

Ottosmo (talk) 17:14, 30 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks a lot for pointing out these inconsistencies!


 * 1. Yes, this should be corrected. I'll take a look at the article history to see how that happened.


 * Limit hands: What was meant (but not well expressed) was that the limit of 64 is double "two doubles" or "twice as much as 2x2" (as there cannot be more than two doubles for a regular hand. This means a limit hand will score twice as much as you could get for a regular hand. I'll also check out the history there. I'll also mention that 64 is just one possible limit. 16 and 32 are also accepted limit hands amongst various players


 * Heavenly gates. Yes, there are nine legal hands (though it's hard to imagine how before trying to work them out). I was also surprised when I realised that it is possible:
 * 11(1) 123 456 789 99
 * 111 (2)2 345 678 999
 * 11 123 (3)45 678 999
 * 111 234 (4)56 789 99
 * 111 234 (5)5 678 999
 * 11 123 456 (6)78 999
 * 111 234 567 (7)89 99
 * 111 234 567 (8)8 999
 * 11 123 456 789 (9)99


 * Shabidoo | Talk 02:20, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Another scoring inconsistency?
If one's hand always consists of 14 tiles, how can a winning hand have "Four kongs, plus eyes" or "Four concealed pongs, plus eyes"? --108.24.202.139 (talk) 05:59, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Additional suggestions

 * I think we need to elaborate on the Drawing tiles section:
 * As I understand it, the "stacks" of the "wall" (ie. the four sides of the square wall that the players have made) are two tiles high. We do not say whether tiles are drawn from the highest level or in top-tile-then-bottom-tile pairs.  I assume you work your way around the top level of the entire wall, then continue with the bottom layer, as opposed to making a larger and larger gap in the wall, but we should be explicit.
 * We say that "players in anti-clockwise order draw blocks of four tiles", but later, we say that, depending on house rules, the dealer might be penalized for exposed tiles. So, are the players drawing blocks of four tiles, or is the dealer dealing blocks of four tiles to the players?  If the players are drawing the tiles, then the example penalty should be that the drawing player might be penalized for exposing a tile.  If the dealer is dealing to the other players then we shouldn't say that players draw the blocks of four tiles.
 * Are tiles drawn clockwise or widdershins from the stacks?  We do not state the direction in which tiles are pulled from the stacks; we only say the order of players who will be receiving those tiles.
 * We say that "If a player gets any Flowers or Seasons tiles in the replacement draw, the players must wait for the next turn to draw replacement tiles." What is a turn?  Did we mean that the player who drew a second bonus tile as a replacement must set the bonus tiles aside and wait until their next turn to draw a replacement?


 * I think we need a dedicated seizure section to explain the mechanics of how tiles are seized, rather than forcing somebody down into the "Melding another player's discard" portion of the vaguely named "Interruption of play" section. The main Rules section just says a player can "seize" a discarded tile.
 * The scetion should say up front that you can only seize a tile if you can form a meld with it.
 * A seizure section should mention the order of priority.
 * We should be explicit that play continues to the right of the player who just seized and melded unless somebody can seize the tile they just discarded. (At least, I assume this is so)
 * Is there any way to seize tiles that were discarded earlier? If not, we should explicitly say that.


 * In the melds section:
 * To avoid confusion, we should explicitly say that, in spite of the term, a concealed meld is not fully hidden, face down.
 * Under "Kong", we say "Whenever a Kong is formed, that player must draw an extra tile from the end of the wall and then discard a tile". We should probably add "so that a tile will still be available for seizure (Since the previously gained tile is now part of the Kong)" or some such thing.  (At least, I assume that is why the Konger has to draw then discard a second time)
 * Can you only rob a Kong in order to win the hand? We should be explicit.

These might be glaringly obvious to most people, but I have had to read through the rules a few times to understand these points, and I am still not sure (which is why I am not editting directly)

-- Bertrc (talk) 20:08, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

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GREAT WORK EVERYONE
Really well done dog2 for copyediting and clarifying, there was a lot that needed cleaning up or exapnding on! And mliu92 for modifying tables and images and other tweaks making the article look great! It's a much better article now everyone!! Shabidoo | Talk 21:19, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
 * My pleasure. I was just trying to add the terms that I know as someone who is somewhat familiar with mahjong myself. I hope it's been of help. The dog2 (talk) 00:52, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Categorizing variants
Currently, the variants section is just a list of games. They should be sorted out based on similarity and lineage possibly with a branching diagram to show descent.--Countakeshi (talk) 02:03, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Simples
The term "simples" (in 2.1.1) to denote the suits seems incorrect. The table in 3.3.2 (Tiles) refers, I think, correctly, to them as "suits". My understanding was that the ones and nines are called "terminals", and the twos to eights are called "simples". This distinction doesn't seem to be made in "Hong Kong" rules, but in European rules they take an important place in scoring. 124.168.145.69 (talk) 22:38, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * You are completely correct. I'll get to changing it ASAP! Thanks for pointing that out. Shabidoo | Talk 15:26, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

wind directions
In the article there is talk of inverted wind directions, where North is left of East. Yes, this is not the way we are used to in geography, but for astronomers such as me this is quite natural, as we are looking outwards from the earth on the sky, so when North is up on a map, East is naturally on the left. I don't know if you want a new word for that, instead of *inverted*, but perhaps a reference to astronomy where this is natural is in place. Made we wonder how the game designers came up with this convention though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teuben (talk • contribs) 01:10, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Sources/Translations for Vietnamese and other regional rules
A friend recently bought a tile set with unfamiliar tiles that, based on the info on this page, are tiles from the Vietnamese ruleset. However, the current page does not have details on the Vietnamese ruleset, and the only two citations on the page are academic articles and a hobbyist website which only describe the tiles and not how Vietnamese mahjong is actually played (scoring, faan, hands, etc).

I'd appreciate it if more sources on the Vietnamese ruleset could be included, or that the page include a translation from the Vietnamese wikipedia page. It's minor enough that I'm not going to add a translation request template, but I would greatly appreciate if the relevant info was added; I think it makes sense to not just unique tiles for regional rulesets but also differing rules. The same also applies for the info on Thai mahjong. --LatakiaHill (talk) 04:36, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
 * By all means, please do improve the Vietnamese section! Shabidoo | Talk 22:01, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Sixteenth source
mahjong.wikidot.com is listed as a source. However, Wikidot is an unreliable source as it is a wiki hosting site, and thus user-generated. --112.213.213.216 (talk) 10:05, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Advice wanted: Articles for deletion/Mahjong Competition Rules‎‎
Please take a look at the Articles for deletion/Mahjong Competition Rules‎‎ discussion and at the article itself, Mahjong Competition Rules‎‎. This article is very long and detailed -- perhaps too long for Wikipedia? The idea has been raised to move it from Wikipedia to Wikibooks. What does the Wikipedia mahjong community think? How does this article fit with the other mahjong-related articles? Mahjong players' advice would benefit this discussion.

Thanks, -- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 18:10, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Comparison of Mahjong variations: American does not have melded chows?
Hi In the table it is green check mark for melded chows for American variant. I'm not to familiar with the American version but on the Mahjong Wiki it says it does not have Melded chows. http://mahjong.wikidot.com/rules:american-scoring So this may need to be corrected. 80.217.29.225 (talk) 07:41, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Writing Workshop
— Assignment last updated by Nymaker (talk) 20:41, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Why Mahjong is important to Asians?
Mahjong culture is very important to trans-asian from the very beginning. As Heinz, Annelise says in her book Mahjong : A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture:''Men crowded around the table where the mahjong game was in full swing. Others gathered near the phonograph spinning Cantonese opera records. Domino players shuffled Chinese coins nearby; the mahjong players had smaller piles of their own. The high window of this former bathroom let in enough light to play but offered no view of the ocean. Just as well, since the men could not venture past the fences anyway. Stuck indefinitely in the immigration detention center at Angel Island just offshore San Francisco, they waited for their interrogations to begin, end, or be decided. The hours were long and the company changed from one week to the next as young and old came and went through the detention center’s locked doors. Rumors lingered in the air about a man whom they deported, a food riot, a woman who hanged herself in the bathroom. All over the Chinese barracks, the walls sang silently with poems of longing and frustration carved into the wooden boards. The players focused for the moment on the game. It was 1930.''In the book, Heinz illustrate the figurative scene of the 19s' mahjong culture.

Besides the origin of Mahjong, China, Mahjong has been having essential cultural factor in other Asian countries, and even in Asian communities all around the world. Heinz mentioned in her book that “For the first half of the twentieth century, Asians in America encountered an acute tension between inclusion and exclusion. Individuals of Chinese and Japanese heritage, resident by migration or American by birth, shared experiences of segregation and incarceration. Their positions were indelibly shaped by the twists and turns of geopolitics between the United States and China or Japan, as well as American domestic politics around economic competition felt or feared by white Americans. Geopolitical relationships had profound consequences for policies that targeted one national group or another, particularly those focused on movement—​ whether migration across borders or residence during wartime. American concepts of race and ethnicity dynamically fractured and solidified—​ sometimes hardening distinctions between the meaning of Chinese and Japanese descent while offering more inclusion to one or another, and sometimes unifying them under a racial understanding of essential difference that could never be assimilated. Chinese and Japanese Americans and immigrants also positioned themselves in opposition to each other for reasons beyond American politics, related especially to China’s relative weakness and vulnerability to Western and Japanese aggression, and Japan’s rising militarism and invasions of China.” Mahjong is not only a game today, it is a connection of communities with same cultural background.

Heinz, Annelise. Mahjong : A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6524250. DtHammonddd (talk) 21:36, 28 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Ma 112.201.254.16 (talk) 01:35, 15 January 2024 (UTC)