How To Set Up 3 Player Mahjong

Mahjong is a game of both skill and luck that originated in China many centuries ago and was brought to the Westward in the 1920's with the publication of Joseph Park Babcock's "Rules of Mah-Jongg." American mahjong (also sometimes spelled "Mah Jongg" or called "Maajh") is unique from Asian mahjong in several ways. American mahjong utilizes racks, jokers, "Hands and Rules" score cards and has several distinct gameplay mechanics. Although an American mahjong ready can be used to play Chinese Mahjong, the rules that follow are for the American game.

Mahjong is always played with iv players seated around a table. Tiles are shuffled, die are cast, and rituals involving the allocation of tiles and and then the substitution of tiles begin. The showtime person to match a hand of 14 tiles and thus "call mahjong" ends the game, whereupon tiles are scored and a winner is declared.

The excitement of mahjong lies in the decisions that you will constantly have to make. Is information technology preferable to discard a tile and thus proceeds an advantage, or would it be more prudent to stay with a decent hand? There is the exhilaration of winning a hand as well as regret at not having been bold enough to accept made a different pick. Like poker, you will learn a lot almost your opponents as you play mahjong and adjust your strategy according to their strengths and weaknesses.

Table of Contents

Equipment
Starting The Game
Picking a Hand
The Charleston
Gameplay
Ending The Game
After The Get-go Game
Boosted Rules
Beyond The Nuts - Online Mah Jongg Resources

Equipment

• 152 tiles
• 2 Dice
• 4 Scoring Cards (Non included)
• Scoring Sticks or Coins
• i Current of air Indicator (optional)
• 4 Racks (optional, but highly recommended)
• four Pushers (optional, but preferred past players)

Tiles

Your Mahjong set has 166 tiles. 152 are used in play and the rest are spares.
The 152 tiles are divided into iv groups with their subgroups:

i. SUITS (108 tiles) Circles or Dots (36 tiles - 4 of each) Bamboos or Bams (36 tiles - four of each) Characters or Craks (36 tiles - 4 of each)

2. HONORS (28 tiles) Winds (16 tiles - 4 Due east wind, 4 Southward wind, four Westward wind, 4 North wind) Dragons (12 tiles - 4 white dragons "Soap", 4 Green dragons, 4 red dragons). The white dragon tile on the left is too known as "Soap". Soaps can be used as zeroes when putting together certain hands.

3. FLOWERS and SEASONS (eight tiles - 1 of each)

4. JOKERS or Wild Tiles (8 tiles - all identical) Jokers can substitute for any tile in a Pung (3 identical tiles), Kong (four identical tiles), Quint (five identical tiles) or Sextet (6 identical tiles). They cannot be used to substitute a tile in a Pair (two identical tiles) or whatsoever single tile.

Dice

Two die are used to determine the dealer (Due east) also every bit to determine where to break the wall (explained after).

Score Cards

Scoring is adamant past a list of hands determined by the National Mah Jongg League (NML). These score cards are published by the NML and updated annually. Each player keeps a card as reference for edifice easily and creating strategy.

Current of air Indicators

Wind indicators come in different variations and are used to display the electric current wind (the player who starts off the round). The wind indicator is optional and non required for gameplay. Information technology is also referred to as a ameliorate and is alternately used by a fifth person to identify bets on which thespian volition win. For wind indicators with only Chinese characters, the translations are every bit follows:

東 - East (Due east)
南 - South (S)
西 - W (West)
北 - N (Northward)

Scoring Sticks and Coins

Scoring sticks or coins (circular chips) are used to go along track of points and scoring. Yous can assign whatever signal or monetary value you desire to them and distribute in whatever quantity you want. The following is a suggested amount to be given to each player before the game starts:

QUANTITY	SCORING STICK / COIN	VALUE
i	9 dot / Yellow	200 points
2	v dot / Blue	100 points
8	1 dot / Red	25 points
ten	8 dot / Green	five points

Racks and Pushers

Racks and pushers, while not mandatory, are highly recommended. Racks are assigned to each player to concord their hand of tiles. Alternately, you can line the tiles up on the table in forepart of you.

Pushers are "arms" that attach to each person'south rack. They are very helpful when it's time to bring your portion of the wall to the heart of the table for playing. Using a pusher as well prevents you from accidentally exposing your hand while bringing your wall frontwards.

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Starting The Game

A. Place one rack (and attached pusher, optional) in forepart of each player.

B. All 152 tiles are placed faced down in the center of the table and shuffled by all players.

C. Build the Walls. Each player builds a wall of tiles ii tiles high in front of their rack as shown in the diagram below using all 152 tiles. Each wall consists of two rows of 19 tiles.

D. Determining Who is East. Each thespian rolls the die in turn. The player with the highest number becomes East (dealer). The player to their right is South, followed by West then N.

E. Break the Wall. E rolls the die and and then counts off the resulting number from the stack of tiles in front end of them, from right to left, and breaks the wall. For example, if Due east rolls an eight, East will separate eight groups of ii tiles from the correct end of the wall. Then, East takes the following four tiles (ii from the pinnacle row and two from the bottom row).

Moving counter-clockwise, each player then takes turns where the dealer left off, taking four tiles (2 from the top and ii from the lesser). The process continues until each histrion has 12 tiles.

When all players have 12 tiles, East (the dealer) takes two boosted tiles - the first and third tile from the top row (as shown beneath). This gives East 14 tiles. Moving counter-clockwise, the other players take 1 tile from the end (equally shown beneath), giving each of them a total of 13 tiles.

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Picking a Hand

Now the strategizing begins. Each player arranges the tiles on their rack in a logical order and start to realize their goal of putting together a mahjong hand. The goal of mahjong is to friction match your tiles exactly with a paw from the score carte.

How To Read The Score Card

The hands on a score card are represented in numbers or letters in either reddish, blue, or green. The colors are not specific to any one suit, and different colors simply hateful different suits take to exist used. Flowers and zeroes are non considered to be role of any suit and will ever be blue.

1-nine	Correspond to the specific number on the tile (not including flowers)
N,Due south,Due east,Due west	Northward, South, East, West
D	Dragon
R	Red Dragon
Chiliad	Green Dragon
0	White Dragon (Soap)
F	Flower

The score card is organized into categories for easily based on common patterns:

YEAR	Patterns that make upwardly a year, such as 2010. In such case 2's, 0'south, and 1's would be used. White dragons are always used as zeros.
2468	Patterns that require even numbered tiles.
Change-up	This section varies
Quints	Hands that have at least 1 quint (v identical tiles) where at least one of which is a Joker.
Consecutive Runs	Patterns of sequent numbers.
13579	Patterns that require odd numbered tiles.
Winds-Dragons	Patterns requiring wind and dragon tiles.
369	Patterns using three's, 6'southward, and 9's.
Singles and Pairs	Patterns with unmarried and paired tiles.

Each mitt is grouped into several different combinations. Some combinations incorporate non-matching tiles, but well-nigh more often than not have two or more than matching identical tiles. These are known as:

Pair	Ii identical tiles.
Pung	Three identical tiles.
Kong	Iv identical tiles.
Quint	Five identical tiles, with the employ of Jokers.
Sextet	Six identical tiles, with the use of Jokers.

Next to each hand is the value of the hand for scoring or gambling purposes. Adjacent to the hand is an 'X' or a 'C' indicating whether that hand is exposed or concealed (explained later):

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The Charleston

Before actual play starts, information technology's time for The Charleston...

The Charleston is a ritual unique to American mahjong with roots to its beginnings in the early 1920's. It is an substitution of tiles that gives each player a chance to improve their mitt by passing unwanted tiles confront downwardly to other players.

1)	Each player passes 3 unwanted tiles to the histrion to the right.
2)	Each actor passes iii unwanted tiles to the opposite facing histrion.
3)	Each actor passes 3 unwanted tiles to the thespian to the left, known as 'first left'. The player is allowed to 'blind pass'. A blind pass is taking the tiles received and passing upwards to three of without looking at them. If less than three tiles are blindly passed, unwanted tiles from your paw are added for a total of three tiles.

The Charleston may continue a 2nd time if all the players concur. The second Charleston proceeds in the following sequence:

1)	Each player passes 3 unwanted tiles to the player to the left.
2)	Each thespian passes 3 unwanted tiles to the reverse facing thespian.
3)	Each thespian passes iii unwanted tiles to the histrion to the right, known as 'last right'. The player may blind laissez passer these tiles.

At the end of the second Charleston, a player may make an optional 'courtesy pass'. The player may agree with the player across from them to exchange up to iii tiles.

No jokers may be passed during the Charleston and courtesy laissez passer.

During the Charleston you may desire to change the hand you are aiming for. As tiles are exchanged you may notice another mitt might be more ideal than the original one y'all had in mind.

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Gameplay

The goal of each thespian is to win the game by beingness the commencement person to declare "Mahjong" past correctly creating a hand that exactly matches a paw on the score card.

Drawing and discarding tiles

At present the excitement begins equally each player tries to ameliorate their hand. Since East has 14 tiles, Due east starts the game by discarding a tile. If the discarded tile is non called (claimed by other players), the turn continues to the next role player on the right. The next histrion draws a tile from the wall. The tile is taken from where the breaking of the walls was left off. When a thespian draws a tile from the wall, they have the top tile if the adjacent tile in the stack is two tiles loftier, otherwise, they accept the bottom tile.

The player either decides to discard the drawn tile or to place it in their hand and then discard another tile from their hand. The proper noun of the discarded tile is announced and placed face in the center of the table. Caution must exist used hither since each tile you lot discard is seen past the other players and it won't be long before they figure out what kind of hand you are trying to build.

If the discarded tile is not chosen, the plow continues to the side by side player on the right. The sequence of drawing, discarding, and continuing turns is repeated unless interrupted by a telephone call.

Calling Tiles

The near recent discard may exist called past whatsoever thespian if the tile completes a pung, kong, quint, sextet, or another combination of an exposed mitt (a hand marked with "X" next to its value on the score carte du jour).

• A tile may not exist called to consummate a combination of the paw that requires simply a unmarried tile.

• A tile may not be chosen to complete a pair unless it completes a mahjong paw.

• Tiles discarded prior to the most contempo cannot be called and are expressionless tiles.

If a thespian calls to have a discarded tile and it does not issue in mahjong, the combination it completes must be exposed face on height of their rack for anybody to see and cannot be changed for the rest of the game. The thespian then discards a tile and if information technology isn't called by another histrion, the turns keep with the histrion to the correct. Note that some players may accept their turns skipped when a tile is called.

There are provisions when more than one person calls:

• The histrion who calls a tile to consummate a mahjong mitt trumps calls by whatever other role player to complete a set up.

• When none of the calls are to complete a mahjong hand, the player nearest in turn receives the discard.

Note: When aiming for a concealed hand (a hand marked with a "C" next to its value on the scorecard), all of the tiles in your hand must be drawn from the wall. None of them may be called tiles except for the last tile which would allow you to declare Mahjong.

Joker Rules

Jokers tin can substitute any tile in a pung, kong, quint or sextet combination. They may not be used to complete a pair or single tiles in a paw.

If a histrion has an exposed combination with a joker substituting a tile and y'all accept the actual tile the joker is substituting, you may exchange that tile for the joker in the following manner:

• Call a discard or draw a tile from the wall on your turn as you usually would.

• Exchange the actual matching tile with the exposed substituting joker. Multiple matching tiles may be exchanged for multiple exposed jokers.

• Discard a tile to maintain the proper tile count in your paw.
  After exchanging for a joker, it is non necessary to expose tiles if that joker creates a combination in your hand. Jokers exposed in dead hands (hands that are out of the game due to violating rules), may be exchanged.

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Catastrophe The Game

The game ends when either someone declares "mahjong" or when at that place are no more tiles in the wall to be drawn.

Mahjong

When a 14th tile drawn from the wall or called from a discard completes a hand on the score card, a mahjong is created. The actor then declares "Mahjong" and wins the game.

The payout to the winner is based on the value of the hand and how the mahjong was created:

TYPE OF MAHJONG	PAYOUT
Mahjong made off a discard.	Discarder pays the winner double the value of the hand. All other players pay single value.
Mahjong made off a depict from the wall.	Each player pays double the value of the mitt.
Mahjong made off a discard, contains no jokers, and is not from the Singles and Pairs category.	Discarder pays the winner four times the value of the hand. All other players pay double value.
Mahjong made off a draw from the wall, contains no jokers, and is not from the Singles and Pairs category.	Each thespian pays four times the value of the hand.

Draw

If mahjong has not been called and all the tiles have been fatigued from the wall and the terminal discard has been made then the game ends in a draw. No payouts are made.

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After The Kickoff Game

Now that the get-go game is complete, the position of East (dealer) moves to the person on their right. After each game, the position of East continues to movement counter-clockwise. The process of shuffling the tiles, rebuilding the walls, and dealing is repeated until the games stop.

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Additional Rules

Occasionally mistakes are made such as erroneous discards, incorrect exposures, or calling mahjong incorrectly. In such cases, there may exist penalties. Below are general guidelines regarding errors:

ERROR	Penalty
An accidentally discarded tile has touched the table or been appear.	Tile cannot be taken back.
A tile has been announced incorrectly.	Tile cannot be claimed.
A tile is chosen but no exposure has been made.	The call may be retracted.
An incorrect exposure has been fabricated.	The exposure may be corrected prior to discarding.
A player has likewise few or besides many tiles.	The actor's mitt is dead (out of the game) but volition pay the winner only like all the other players at the stop of the game.
3 players have also few or also many tiles.	The game is replayed.
A actor's hand is discovered by some other to be impossible, based on the tiles exposed on their rack.	The player'due south hand is dead.
Mahjong is alleged in mistake but the hand has not been exposed.	No penalty and the game continues.
Mahjong is alleged in error and the hand is exposed.	The player's hand is dead. The actor pays the winner of the game.

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Beyond The Basics - Online Mah Jongg Resources

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