How to play Hong Kong mahjong: Cantonese rules from first deal to winning hand

How do you actually play Hong Kong (Cantonese, 廣東牌) mahjong? This page walks through the whole game in order: what is in a set, choosing seats and the dealer, rolling the dice and breaking the wall, dealing and replacing flowers, the order of play, Chow, Pung and Kong, waiting and winning, the 3-faan minimum, and drawn hands with the dealer staying on. It is written so a first-timer, or someone who has not played in years, can read it and sit down at a table. How many faan each hand is worth, and how much money that means, are covered in the faan table and the payout table.

Free to start, no sign-up. Does your table play Taiwanese-style? See HK-Taiwanese mahjong rules (in Chinese).

What is in a mahjong set

A Hong Kong mahjong set has 144 tiles in three groups:

• 108 suit tiles: three suits, dots (筒), bamboo (索) and characters (萬), each numbered 1 to 9, four of each tile.
• 28 honour tiles (番子): the four winds East, South, West and North, and the three dragons Red (中), Green (發) and White (白), four of each.
• 8 flowers (花): one each of spring, summer, autumn and winter, and plum, orchid, chrysanthemum and bamboo. You cannot keep a flower in your hand: lay it face up in front of you and draw a replacement.

A winning hand is four sets plus a pair. A set can be a run (順子, three in a row in one suit, such as 4-5-6 of dots), a triplet (刻子, three of a kind) or a kong (槓子, four of a kind, which only counts once declared as a kong). The pair (眼, "eyes") is two identical tiles. The special hand Thirteen Orphans (十三么) is the exception and does not need four sets.

Agree the table rules first

Cantonese mahjong does not have many house rules, but every one of them changes the money, so settle them before you start:

For how much each combination pays, the payout table has a calculator and the full tables.

Seats, dealer, prevailing and seat winds

1. Drawing for seats (執位): turn the four wind tiles East, South, West and North face down and mix them, then roll the dice to decide who draws first. Whoever draws East sits in the East seat; the others sit South, West and North going counterclockwise.
2. Dealer (莊家): in the first hand the East seat deals (some tables have East roll the dice again and whoever the count lands on deals). The dealer is East; going counterclockwise from the dealer come South, West and North. That is each player's seat wind (門風).
3. Prevailing wind (圈風): once all four players have dealt once, that is one round. The first round is the East round, then the South, West and North rounds. Four rounds make one full game, often called "一個東" or "打一局".
4. Dealer staying on (連莊): if the dealer wins, they deal again. If a non-dealer wins, the deal passes to South. Whether the dealer stays on after a drawn hand depends on your table rules; most home tables say yes.

The prevailing and seat winds affect faan: a pung of the wind matching the prevailing wind, or matching your own seat wind, counts one faan each. A flower whose number matches your seat wind (East 1, South 2, West 3, North 4) is your own flower (正花), worth one faan each.

Dice, breaking the wall, dealing, flowers

1. Rolling the dice: the four players build the tiles into four walls, and the dealer rolls three dice. Counting the dealer as "one", count the total counterclockwise around the table; the wall in front of the player it lands on is where the wall is broken.
2. Breaking the wall (開門): on that player's wall, count stacks from the right equal to the dice total and split the wall there. The end of the section split off is the "kong end" (槓尾), where flower and kong replacements are drawn; the other section is the "head of the wall" (牆頭), where normal draws are taken, going clockwise.
3. Dealing: the dealer takes two stacks (four tiles) from the head of the wall, then South, West and North take two stacks each, and this repeats three times so everyone has 12 tiles. The dealer then makes the "jump" (跳牌), taking the first and fifth tiles, while each other player takes one: the dealer has 14 tiles and everyone else 13.
4. Replacing flowers (補花): starting with the dealer, anyone holding flowers lays them out and draws a replacement for each from the kong end, then South, West and North do the same. If a replacement is another flower, wait until the others have finished and the dealer starts a second pass.
5. Once flowers are replaced, the dealer discards the first tile and play begins.

Order of play and the discards

After the dealer's first discard, players take turns counterclockwise: draw one tile from the head of the wall, replace it from the kong end if it is a flower, then discard one tile into the discards (牌河). Place your discards in front of you, in a row from left to right, so everyone can see them.

• Do not reach for a tile before the player on your left has discarded; see what they discard first, then draw. Once you have drawn and taken the tile into your hand, nobody can claim that discard any more.
• A tile can only be claimed for Chow, Pung, Kong or a win at the moment it is discarded; once the next player has drawn, it is too late.
• From your own draw-and-discard to your next one is called a go-round (一巡).
• You do not have to call out your discards. If you call one wrongly and someone claims it by mistake, the fault is yours.

Chow, Pung, Kong

Chow (上)

If the player on your left discards a tile that completes a run with two tiles in your hand (say you hold 4 and 6 of dots and they discard 5 of dots), call "上" to take it and make an exposed run, lay it out in front of you, then discard. You can only chow a discard from the player on your left; you cannot chow from the players opposite or on your right.

Pung (碰)

If any player discards a tile that matches a pair in your hand, call "碰" to take it and make an exposed triplet, lay it out, discard, and play continues from the player on your right (anyone in between is skipped).

Kong (槓)

• Concealed kong (暗槓): holding four of a kind, you can declare a concealed kong after your draw, lay the four tiles out (competition rules require showing them), draw a replacement from the kong end and then discard. Whether a concealed kong breaks a concealed hand (門前清) varies: many home tables say it does not, while the Hong Kong Mahjong Association rules say it does.
• Added kong (加槓): if you already have an exposed pung and draw the fourth tile, you can add it on and draw a replacement. Once you have discarded that tile, you cannot take it back to add it.
• Exposed kong (大明槓): if someone discards a tile that matches a concealed triplet in your hand, call "槓" to take it, make an exposed kong and draw a replacement. You cannot kong someone's discard that matches an exposed pung of yours.

You cannot declare a kong on the same turn you chow or pung; you have to wait until you draw. Winning on the replacement tile right after a kong is "win on a kong" (槓上自摸), worth one extra faan.

When several players want the same tile

The order of priority is a win, then Pung or Kong, then Chow. If one player calls Chow and another calls Pung, the Pung wins; if anyone calls a win, the win beats everything. When two players win on the same tile, tables differ: some let everyone win (一炮多響), others use 截糊, where counting from the discarder's next player, the nearest one wins. Agree on this before you start.

Waiting and winning: discard win, self-drawn, robbing the kong

• Waiting (叫糊): when your hand is one tile from a winning hand, you are "waiting" (叫糊, also 聽牌). In Cantonese mahjong you do not announce it.
• Winning on a discard (出銃): if someone discards the tile you are waiting on, call "食" and take it to win (食糊, "sik wu"). The player who discarded it has dealt in (出銃), and under full payment they pay the whole hand alone.
• Self-drawn (自摸): drawing your own winning tile is worth one extra faan, and each of the other three pays half, so the winner collects one and a half times in total.
• Robbing the kong (搶槓): if someone adds a tile to a pung to make a kong and it is the tile you are waiting on, you can take it to win, worth one extra faan, and the player making the kong counts as having dealt in. A concealed kong cannot be robbed; the Hong Kong Mahjong Association rules let Thirteen Orphans (十三么) rob a concealed kong, but home tables may not.
• Last-tile win (海底撈月): self-drawing the last tile of the wall is worth one extra faan.
• Passing on a win (過水): if someone discards your winning tile during a go-round and you do not take it, you cannot win on that same tile for the rest of that go-round (the saying is 蘇州過後無艇搭: once the boat to Suzhou has left, there is no other boat).
• How to declare a win: put the winning tile to one side, lay your whole hand face up for the other three, and arrange it into four sets and a pair before counting faan. Do not shuffle until the other three have checked it.

The 3-faan minimum, counting faan, the cap

After a win you count faan: the faan for the hand pattern (All Chows (平糊) 1 faan, All Pungs (對對糊) 3 faan, Half Flush (混一色) 3 faan, Full Flush (清一色) 7 faan, and so on) plus bonus faan (self-drawn, concealed hand, own flower, a pung of the prevailing wind, a pung of Red, Green or White dragons, one faan each). The total is the hand's faan.

• Minimum to win (起糊): a 3-faan minimum is the most common in Hong Kong. A hand with fewer than 3 faan cannot win, so even if you are waiting you have to keep playing. A hand with no faan at all is a Chicken hand (雞糊).
• The cap (封頂): once the faan reach the limit they stop rising. That is called "爆棚" or "滿糊" (a limit hand), commonly at 8, 10 or 13 faan. Special hands such as Thirteen Orphans (十三么) and Great Four Winds (大四喜) count as the limit as soon as you win with them.
• What cannot be counted together: a Full Flush already includes a Half Flush, so only count the Full Flush. The 8 faan for Great Three Dragons (大三元) and the 5 faan for Small Three Dragons (小三元) already include the faan for the dragon pungs themselves; do not add them again.

For how many faan each hand is worth, with worked examples, see the Hong Kong mahjong faan table.

How faan turn into money

In Cantonese mahjong each faan does not have a fixed price. Instead, the payout doubles up from 3 faan: at 二五雞 stakes, 3 faan is $8 and 4 faan is $16. After that, with half doubling (半辣上), 5 faan is $24, 6 faan $32, 7 faan $48 and 8 faan $64; with full doubling (辣辣上), 5 faan is $32, 6 faan $64 and 7 faan $128. On a discard win under full payment, the discarder pays it all; on a self-drawn win, each of the other three pays half.

For what each faan is worth at 二五雞, 五一 and 一二蚊 stakes, and what shorthand like 8番64 or 10番128 means, see the Hong Kong mahjong payout table, with a calculator that works it out as you pick.

Drawn hands, dealer staying on, how long a game lasts

• Drawn hand (流局, also 黃莊): if the last tile of the wall is drawn and nobody has won, nobody wins or loses that hand and the tiles are reshuffled. At most home tables the dealer stays on after a draw; under the Hong Kong Mahjong Association competition rules the dealer does not.
• Dealer staying on (連莊): when the dealer wins, they keep dealing. In Cantonese mahjong this earns no extra faan (unlike Taiwanese-style mahjong); it just means one more hand as dealer.
• How long a game lasts: four rounds is at least 16 hands, more if the dealer stays on. Some tables agree to stop after a set number of rounds or once someone reaches a set score.

False wins, dead hands, liability payments

• False win (詐糊): laying down your hand to declare a win you do not actually have (not enough faan, the wrong shape, or you had passed on that tile). At home tables the usual penalty is paying each of the other three a limit hand; under the Hong Kong Mahjong Association rules you are docked the score of one special limit hand (例牌). The hand is replayed with the same dealer.
• Dead hand (相公): one tile too many is 大相公 and one too few is 小相公; either way you cannot win that hand. If you forget to draw a replacement after a flower or a kong, it is fine as long as you put it right within one go-round.
• Liability payment (包牌): if you discard the key tile that lets someone complete a big hand, you have to cover ("包") their self-drawn win. The Hong Kong Mahjong Association rules have liability for Great Three Dragons (大三元, the player who gave up the third dragon pung pays) and for twelve exposed tiles (十二章, the player who gave up the fourth exposed set pays). Home tables also commonly apply it to Great Four Winds (大四喜), All Honours (字一色) and Full Flush (清一色). Liability only covers self-drawn wins; on a discard win the discarder still pays.

FAQ

For how many faan each hand is worth, see the Hong Kong mahjong faan table; for how faan turn into money, see the payout table; look up unfamiliar words in the Cantonese mahjong glossary. Does your table play Taiwanese-style? HK-Taiwanese mahjong rules (in Chinese) has its own page.