Beyond the tiles, a comfortable game needs a few small tools: dice, a wind indicator, scoring sticks or chips, and a mat. Here is what each one does and which styles need them.
Mahjong tiles are dealt in blocks of four, not one at a time. Here is the standard deal, why East takes a fourteenth tile, and how American, Hong Kong and Japanese deals differ slightly.
Winds and dragons are the honour tiles. They cannot form runs, they often carry bonus value, and they appear in many of the game's most famous hands. Here is how to read and use them.
Mahjong seats are named after the four winds, but in a surprising order. Learn why East sits where it does, how the dealer rotates, and what prevailing and seat winds mean for your score.
Mahjong groups are everywhere once you know where to look: community centres, synagogues, libraries, cultural associations, university clubs, game cafés and online meetup groups.
Japan has a whole genre of mahjong manga and anime, from the gambling thrillers of Akagi to the high-school tournament drama of Saki. They have introduced riichi to millions of fans worldwide.
The discard pile is a record of what each player does not need. Learning to read it tells you what they are collecting, how close they are, and which tiles are safe to throw.
Nine gates is the rarest of the classic limit hands: 1-1-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-9-9 in one suit, plus any tile of that suit. In its pure form it waits on nine different tiles.
A worked example of Hong Kong scoring: identify each faan element in the winning hand, add them up, check the minimum and limit, then convert to payment.
American Mah Jongg and Japanese riichi are perhaps the two most different popular styles: card hands and jokers on one side, yaku, riichi declarations and furiten on the other.
Sichuan mahjong removes all honour and bonus tiles, forbids chows, forces each player to abandon one suit, and keeps playing after the first win until three players have won — a "bloody battle to the end".
The 81 fan of Chinese Official mahjong range from one-point basics to 88-point limit hands. Learning the most common eight-point building blocks is the key to playing MCR.
