4 Beneficial Steps on How to Play Mahjong for Beginners

Do you know how to play Mahjong? Well, Mahjong is a classic Chinese game in which players use sets of tiles to solve puzzles. 

It has many regional variations, from the Chinese prevailing wind system to American mahjong with special bingo-like scoring cards, as do many popular games. These rules will concentrate on the most basic which are the same in most other variations.

Although some regional variations may omit or add unique tiles, the game is played with a set of 144 tiles based on Chinese characters and symbols. 

How to Play Mahjong for Beginners

While there are numerous variations of mahjong, most of them share some basic rules like these below. 

1. The Components in Mahjong

Four players are required to play the basic game. Three-player variants are available.

The basic game consists of 136 tiles, which include 36 characters, 36 bamboos, and 36 suits (circles). 

Each suit is divided into four sets of numbers ranging from 1 to 9. Additionally, there are 16 wind tiles and 12 dragon tiles. 

Eight bonus tiles with four flowers and four seasons are included in many sets, but they are not required for the basic game. The deal is decided by a single pair of dice. The addition of four racks is optional.

2. The Goal of The Game

The objective of the game is to complete a mahjong, which entails grouping all 14 of your tiles into four sets and one pair. 

Two identical tiles make up a pair. A set can be either a “pung” of three identical tiles or a “chow” of three consecutive numbers in the same suit. A single tile cannot be used in two different sets at the same time.

3. The Set Up to Play

Choose a dealer to begin with. The four wind tiles are shuffled face down and dealt to the players in Chinese tradition. 

The players then take their seats in the order of north, west, south, and east, in accordance with their tile. East takes the first turn as the dealer. To determine the dealer, modern players can simply roll the dice.

All of the tiles are shuffled together, and the players form a wall of 34 face-down tiles, 17 tiles long and two tiles high, in front of themselves. The end result should be a large square tile wall in the table’s center.

The dealer rolls the dice and counts how many tiles are to the right of their wall’s right edge, then separates the wall at that point to start dealing tiles from the left of that spot clockwise. Each player is dealt 13 tiles, with the dealer receiving an extra 14th tile to begin with.

Each player then arranges their own tiles in such a way that only they can see them and no one else can. For this, racks are frequently used. Play begins to the left of the dealer after the dealer discards one tile.

4. To Play Mahjong

You must give other players a few seconds before your turn to claim the most recently discarded tile.

Any player who can claim a discarded tile to complete a mahjong game gets first priority. A player who is capable of doing so claims the tile and then reveals the winning 14-tile hand.

In the event that this is not possible, any player can claim the discarded tile to complete a pung. When the player says “pung,” the two matching tiles that match the discard are revealed. 

If the discarded tile was a bamboo 7 and the player had two more bamboo 7s on the rack, the player would call it “pung.” 

When a player calls pung, the completed pung (in this case, all three bamboo 7s) is turned face-up, a different tile is discarded, and the turn is passed to the right.

If no one claims the discarded tile but it finished a chow for you, you can also claim it by saying “chow” at the start of your turn. 

As in the pung example above, you also must turn your chow face-up to reveal the completed run (e.g. 5, 6, 7 of bamboo). After that, you discard a different tile and play resumes as usual.

If the discard does not finish a set for you, you draw the next tile from the wall on your turn (going left). If this does not result in a mahjong, you discard a tile face-up.

Those are four steps on how to play Mahjong. So easy, right? Yes, it is!. You can also play the best other games on pkv games because on that site you will find so many benefits. 

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