What are the hands in Mahjong?

Hands. Each line on the card represents a winning hand and each hand is made up of 14 tiles. The hands are depicted in 1, 2 or 3 colors, which indicate the number of suits required. You may recall from last week's post that there are 3 suits - cracks, bams and dots.

What are the basic hands in mahjong?

Basic hand in Mahjong is 'four pungs and a pair' in the same suit, including winds and dragons. 2. Special Hands allow you to collect different combinations of tiles. They are usually more difficult to complete and therefore attract higher scores (though you can be left with nothing if your gamble does not pay off!)

What are the winning hands for mahjong?

A winning hand consists of four sets of chow, pung, or kong, and a pair. In Hong Kong Mahjong If East (the Dealer) wins the game he stays as East. Also, in case of a Dead Hand, the wind / seating position stays in place.

What is the rarest hand in mahjong?

Of all the hands possible, suukantsu is the rarest. It is even more rare than either tenhou or chiihou.

What is the strongest hand in mahjong?

Mahjong Combination: All Honours (字一色)

If you have a hand made up of either the four Winds or three Dragons, you have an All Honours winning hand. This combination only appears once every 5,200 round.

Shape of a Hand - Riichi Mahjong Guide

What is a Pung in mahjong?

A Pung - a set of 3 identical tiles e.g. 3 x Red Dragons, 3 x Two circles. A Kong - a set of 4 identical tiles. e.g. 4 x Eight of Bamboos or 4 x North Winds. A Chow - a run of 3 tiles in the same suit. A Chow does not score and so is only helpful because it can contribute to a hand that allows a player to call Mah Jong ...

What is the secret to winning mahjong?

Have a clear plan of attack – Think about the direction you want to take your hand and stick with it, while also remaining flexible. Picking up tiles for the sake of it won't work, and patience will always win out in the end. If your strategy isn't working, change tactics and look for other winning possibilities.

Is mahjong skill or luck based?

Mahjong game is dependent on skills , not luck. Although sometimes , getting a wrong card can also result to winning a game. There are instances where a player have very poor basic cards but good skills, thus they utilized rigorous card control to prevent other players from winning.

What is the 4 of a kind rule in mahjong?

This is a kong - four of a kind. All four of a single tile = "kong." It counts as a special sort of pung. - When you have four identical tiles concealed within the hand, you have the option of melding them, declaring the four to be a kong that counts as concealed, so you can take a replacement tile.

What is the flower rule in mahjong?

There are only 4 flowers (1, 2, 3, and 4) and only 4 season tiles (1, 2, 3, and 4). When drawn, they are declared and a substitute tile is drawn. The flower(s) or season(s) corresponding with the winning player's wind may increase the score. The Flowers are represented by a plum, orchid, chrysanthemum and bamboo.

Should you push or fold in mahjong?

In general, you should push if: You are in tenpai and your minimum value is above 3900 points with a good wait. You are in tenpai and your minimum value is above 7700 points with a bad wait. You are 1-shanten and your worst hand development guarantees you 7700 points and a good wait.

What are invalid hands in mahjong?

Invalid Hand – The current exposed tiles do not match with any of the possible hands. b. Invalid Exposure -- The current exposed tiles points out that the hand must be concealed.

Is Mahjong a game of skill?

Similar to the Western card game rummy, mahjong is a game of skill, strategy, and luck.

What is a clean hand in Mahjong?

A CLEAN hand is one that uses tiles from no more than one suit - and has some winds or dragons as well. This "clean" hand has dots only (no craks or bams).

What does Kong mean in Mahjong?

There are three main types of melds: a Pong (three identical tiles), a Kong (four identical tiles), and a Chow (three suited tiles of the same suit in numerical sequence).

Does playing mahjong prevent dementia?

Although this is also important, it does not alter the main results in that frequent playing cards/mahjong is associated with a significantly decreased risk of dementia.

What is the difference between American and Chinese mahjong?

What is the difference between American and Chinese mahjong? Traditional Chinese mahjong sets have 144 tiles, while American version is played with eight additional joker tiles and different score cards.

Can you play mahjong without knowing Chinese?

There's no way around this, HSK haters: in order to play, you need to be able to read some Chinese and pronounce numbers in Mandarin, plus a few extra words to name the suits and announce your actions.

Does mahjong improve IQ?

In this study, children who continuously participated in the Mahjong classes for 1 year demonstrated increased IQ scores. By subscale index, the increase in VCI and PSI was large, whereas the increase in PSI was significant compared with the historical control group (p = 0.02).

Is playing mahjong good for the brain?

Studies show that mahjong can be a great way to keep your mind sharp. It is also recommended for the elderly to help maintain good brain health. Mahjong and chess are great brain games for the elderly, as they can improve the memory skills of people with degenerative brain diseases.

How hard is it to learn mahjong?

Mahjong is a tile-based game that's been played in Asia for over 300 years and is gaining global popularity. Although the game is hard to master, it's fairly easy to learn the basics.

What do you yell in mahjong?

You can win mahjong by either yelling 'mahjong' and stealing the last tile you need from someone who has just discarded it, or by drawing the last tile from the deck. A single tile cannot be used in two sets at once.

What is the 1 4 7 rule in mahjong?

o The "1-4-7 rule" is a good playing strategy (for all forms of Mah-Jongg except American (style similar to NMJL) in which there are no "chows"). If the player to your right discards a 4, and you don't have another of those to discard, you /might/ be all right if you discard a 1 or a 7.

Why is it called crack in mahjong?

“There are Dots, which represent coins, there are Bams, or bamboos, which represent strings of coins, and then there are Cracks, the Chinese word for character, which represents lots of money.