How To Use Mahjong Pushers

Mahjong is a game of both skill and luck that originated in Mainland china many centuries agone and was brought to the West in the 1920's with the publication of Joseph Park Babcock's "Rules of Mah-Jongg." American mahjong (too 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 set can be used to play Chinese Mahjong, the rules that follow are for the American game.

Mahjong is always played with four players seated around a table. Tiles are shuffled, dice are cast, and rituals involving the allocation of tiles and so the exchange of tiles begin. The outset person to match a hand of fourteen 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 brand. Is information technology preferable to discard a tile and thus gain an reward, or would it exist more than prudent to stay with a decent hand? There is the exhilaration of winning a manus as well as regret at not having been bold plenty to take made a different choice. Like poker, yous will larn a lot about your opponents as you play mahjong and accommodate your strategy according to their strengths and weaknesses.

Table of Contents

Equipment
Starting The Game
Picking a Paw
The Charleston
Gameplay
Ending The Game
Subsequently The First Game
Additional Rules
Beyond The Nuts - Online Mah Jongg Resources

Equipment

• 152 tiles
• ii Dice
• 4 Scorecards (non included)
• Scoring Sticks or Coins
• one Current of air Indicator (optional)
• 4 Racks (optional, just highly recommended)
• four Pushers (optional, only preferred by players)

Tiles

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

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

two. HONORS (28 tiles) Winds (16 tiles - 4 Due east air current, 4 S wind, 4 W air current, 4 Northward current of air) Dragons (12 tiles - four white dragons "Soap", 4 Green dragons, 4 cherry dragons). The white dragon tile on the left is also known as "Soap". Soaps tin be used as zeroes when putting together certain easily.

three. FLOWERS and SEASONS (8 tiles - i of each)

4. JOKERS or Wild Tiles (8 tiles - all identical) Jokers tin substitute for whatever tile in a Pung (three identical tiles), Kong (4 identical tiles), Quint (5 identical tiles) or Sextet (6 identical tiles). They cannot exist used to substitute a tile in a Pair (2 identical tiles) or any unmarried tile.

Die

Ii dice are used to determine the dealer (East) likewise as to determine where to break the wall (explained later).

Score Cards

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

Current of air Indicators

Current of air indicators come in unlike variations and are used to display the current wind (the player who starts off the round). The air current indicator is optional and not required for gameplay. Information technology is also referred to equally a better and is alternately used by a 5th person to place bets on which role player will win. For wind indicators with only Chinese characters, the translations are every bit follows:

東 - East (E)
南 - South (S)
西 - Westward (W)
北 - North (North)

Scoring Sticks and Coins

Scoring sticks or coins (round chips) are used to go on track of points and scoring. You can assign whatever indicate or monetary value yous want to them and distribute in whatever quantity you want. The following is a suggested amount to be given to each player earlier the game starts:

QUANTITY	SCORING STICK / Coin	VALUE
one	9 dot / Yellow	200 points
two	5 dot / Blueish	100 points
8	1 dot / Red	25 points
10	8 dot / Green	v points

Racks and Pushers

Racks and pushers, while not mandatory, are highly recommended. Racks are assigned to each actor to hold their hand of tiles. Alternately, yous tin line the tiles up on the tabular array in forepart of yous.

Pushers are "artillery" that attach to each person's rack. They are very helpful when information technology's time to bring your portion of the wall to the centre of the table for playing. Using a pusher too prevents y'all from accidentally exposing your hand while bringing your wall forwards.

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Starting The Game

A. Place ane rack (and fastened pusher, optional) in forepart of each player.

B. All 152 tiles are placed faced downward in the center of the tabular array and shuffled by all players.

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

D. Determining Who is East. Each histrion rolls the dice in plough. The player with the highest number becomes East (dealer). The player to their right is S, followed by Due west and then Northward.

E. Break the Wall. Eastward rolls the die and and then counts off the resulting number from the stack of tiles in front of them, from correct to left, and breaks the wall. For case, if East rolls an 8, East will separate eight groups of two tiles from the right stop of the wall. Then, Due east takes the following four tiles (two from the acme row and ii from the lesser row).

Moving counter-clockwise, each thespian and 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 player has 12 tiles.

When all players have 12 tiles, East (the dealer) takes 2 additional tiles - the first and tertiary tile from the top row (as shown beneath). This gives Due east fourteen tiles. Moving counter-clockwise, the other players accept 1 tile from the terminate (as shown below), giving each of them a full of 13 tiles.

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Picking a Mitt

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

How To Read The Score Card

The hands on a score card are represented in numbers or letters in either cherry-red, blue, or green. The colors are non specific to any i accommodate, and different colors but mean different suits have to be used. Flowers and zeroes are not considered to be part of whatsoever arrange and will always be blueish.

i-ix	Correspond to the specific number on the tile (not including flowers)
Northward,S,East,W	North, South, E, West
D	Dragon
R	Red Dragon
G	Green Dragon
0	White Dragon (Soap)
F	Flower

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

YEAR	Patterns that brand up a yr, such equally 2023. In such case 2'south, 0's, and three'southward would be used. White dragons are always used every bit zeros.
2468	Patterns that require even numbered tiles.
Change-upwardly	This section varies
Quints	Easily that take at least one quint (5 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 air current and dragon tiles.
369	Patterns using 3'due south, 6's, and 9's.
Singles and Pairs	Patterns with unmarried and paired tiles.

Each manus is grouped into several different combinations. Some combinations contain non-matching tiles, but most generally take ii or more than matching identical tiles. These are known as:

Pair	Two identical tiles.
Pung	3 identical tiles.
Kong	Four identical tiles.
Quint	Five identical tiles, with the utilize of Jokers.
Sextet	Half dozen identical tiles, with the use of Jokers.

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

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The Charleston

Before bodily play starts, it'southward time for The Charleston...

The Charleston is a ritual unique to American mahjong with roots to its beginnings in the early 1920'southward. It is an exchange of tiles that gives each role player a chance to ameliorate their paw by passing unwanted tiles face downwards to other players.

1)	Each player passes 3 unwanted tiles to the histrion to the right.
ii)	Each histrion passes three unwanted tiles to the opposite facing histrion.
three)	Each player passes 3 unwanted tiles to the player to the left, known equally 'commencement left'. The player is immune to 'blind pass'. A blind pass is taking the tiles received and passing up to three of without looking at them. If less than three tiles are blindly passed, unwanted tiles from your mitt are added for a full of iii tiles.

The Charleston may continue a 2nd time if all the players agree. The 2nd Charleston gain in the following sequence:

1)	Each player passes 3 unwanted tiles to the thespian to the left.
2)	Each player passes iii unwanted tiles to the contrary facing player.
3)	Each player passes 3 unwanted tiles to the thespian to the right, known as 'last right'. The player may bullheaded pass these tiles.

At the end of the 2d Charleston, a thespian may brand an optional 'courtesy pass'. The histrion may agree with the player across from them to substitution up to three tiles.

No jokers may be passed during the Charleston and courtesy pass.

During the Charleston you may want to modify the hand yous are aiming for. As tiles are exchanged y'all may find another hand might be more ideal than the original i y'all had in mind.

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Gameplay

The goal of each player is to win the game by being the first person to declare "Mahjong" by correctly creating a mitt that exactly matches a mitt on the score card.

Drawing and discarding tiles

Now the excitement begins equally each player tries to improve their paw. Since Eastward has fourteen tiles, E starts the game by discarding a tile. If the discarded tile is non called (claimed by other players), the turn continues to the next player on the right. The next player draws a tile from the wall. The tile is taken from where the breaking of the walls was left off. When a histrion draws a tile from the wall, they accept the top tile if the next tile in the stack is two tiles high, otherwise, they take the bottom tile.

The thespian either decides to discard the fatigued tile or to place information technology in their hand and and so discard another tile from their mitt. The proper name of the discarded tile is appear and placed confront in the center of the tabular array. Caution must be used here since each tile yous discard is seen by the other players and it won't exist long earlier they effigy out what kind of hand you are trying to build.

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

Calling Tiles

The well-nigh contempo discard may be called by whatsoever actor if the tile completes a pung, kong, quint, sextet, or some other combination of an exposed hand (a manus marked with "X" adjacent to its value on the score carte du jour).

• A tile may not exist called to complete a combination of the hand that requires merely a single tile.

• A tile may not exist called to complete a pair unless it completes a mahjong hand.

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

If a player calls to take a discarded tile and it does not outcome in mahjong, the combination it completes must be exposed face up on top of their rack for anybody to see and cannot be changed for the rest of the game. The player and so discards a tile and if information technology isn't chosen by another histrion, the turns keep with the player to the right. Note that some players may have their turns skipped when a tile is chosen.

There are provisions when more than one person calls:

• The player who calls a tile to consummate a mahjong hand trumps calls past whatever other player to complete a set up.

• When none of the calls are to complete a mahjong paw, the player nearest in plow 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 paw must be drawn from the wall. None of them may be called tiles except for the last tile which would let you lot to declare Mahjong.

Joker Rules

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

If a player has an exposed combination with a joker substituting a tile and you lot have the actual tile the joker is substituting, you lot may commutation that tile for the joker in the following fashion:

• Call a discard or draw a tile from the wall on your plow equally you commonly 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 hand.
  Later on exchanging for a joker, it is non necessary to expose tiles if that joker creates a combination in your hand. Jokers exposed in expressionless easily (easily that are out of the game due to violating rules), may exist exchanged.

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Catastrophe The Game

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

Mahjong

When a 14th tile drawn from the wall or called from a discard completes a manus on the score bill of fare, a mahjong is created. The player 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 draw from the wall.	Each player pays double the value of the hand.
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 manus. All other players pay double value.
Mahjong made off a describe from the wall, contains no jokers, and is non from the Singles and Pairs category.	Each player pays 4 times the value of the hand.

Describe

If mahjong has non been called and all the tiles have been drawn from the wall and the last discard has been made and then the game ends in a draw. No payouts are made.

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After The First Game

Now that the first game is complete, the position of Eastward (dealer) moves to the person on their right. After each game, the position of Due east continues to move counter-clockwise. The process of shuffling the tiles, rebuilding the walls, and dealing is repeated until the games end.

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Additional Rules

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

ERROR	Penalty
An accidentally discarded tile has touched the table or been announced.	Tile cannot exist taken back.
A tile has been announced incorrectly.	Tile cannot exist claimed.
A tile is called but no exposure has been made.	The call may be retracted.
An incorrect exposure has been made.	The exposure may be corrected prior to discarding.
A player has too few or too many tiles.	The actor'due south mitt is dead (out of the game) but will pay the winner just like all the other players at the end of the game.
3 players have as well few or likewise many tiles.	The game is replayed.
A player's hand is discovered past another to exist impossible, based on the tiles exposed on their rack.	The actor's hand is dead.
Mahjong is declared in error but the paw has not been exposed.	No penalty and the game continues.
Mahjong is declared in error and the hand is exposed.	The player's paw is dead. The histrion pays the winner of the game.

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Beyond The Basics - Online Mah Jongg Resource

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How To Use Mahjong Pushers,

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