Board games
Mahjong
- players
- 4
- minutes
- 90
- years
- 8+
In the box
144 tiles, including flowers and seasons
Box details
- Origin
- Traditional game, with no specific designer or publisher
- Mechanics
- Hand ManagementSet Collection
Where to buy it
Near you
In a shop
Within 50 km.
The basics
Form a hand of four sets and a pair before the other three players, and finish the game with the most points. On your turn, draw a tile and discard one, and you may claim another player's discard to form a chii, a pon or a kan; in riichi, a winning hand must contain at least one yaku. The winning hand is paid according to a scale (han and fu in riichi), and after the set rounds, the highest total wins.
Checked against the official rules · October 2026
The rules, step by step
Setup
144 tiles (136 riichi), 13 tiles, 14 for East
- 144 tiles: three suits numbered 1 to 9, four winds and three dragons, four of each, plus flowers and seasons. Riichi is played without flowers or seasons, with 136 tiles.
- The tiles form a wall. Each player receives thirteen tiles; East, the dealer, has fourteen and starts by discarding.
- In riichi, each player starts with 30,000 points under the EMA rules; many Japanese rule sets start from 25,000.
How to play
Draw, discard, Chii, pon or kan, At least 1 yaku (riichi)
- On your turn, draw a tile and discard one. Play goes anticlockwise.
- You may interrupt another player's turn to claim their discard and form a chii, a pon or a kan. A chii, the sequence, can only be claimed from the discard of the player on your left.
- In riichi, a winning hand must contain at least one yaku, a scoring pattern. Seven Pairs and Thirteen Orphans are also complete hands.
- Declaring riichi, in Japanese riichi, requires a concealed hand one tile from mahjong: you put down a 1,000-point stake and can no longer change your hand.
Scoring
Han and fu in riichi, 300 points per honba
- In riichi, the hand is counted in han and fu, two measures combined in a payment table.
- The dealer, known as East, receives half as much again when winning, and pays double when another player wins by self-draw.
- Each honba counter on the table adds 300 points to the winning hand; the winner also collects any riichi stakes waiting on the table.
- Exhaustive draw with no winner: the players who are not one tile from mahjong pay 3,000 points in total to those who are.
- At the end of the game, the EMA takes 30,000 points off each total, then applies a ranking bonus: +15,000, +5,000, −5,000 and −15,000.
- In classical Chinese mahjong, each recognised pattern scores points according to a separate scale.
End of the game
Tonpuusen: East round, Hanchan: East and South, Highest total
- In riichi, the short game, called tonpuusen, is just the East round, in which everyone is dealer at least once. The standard game, the hanchan, adds the South round: at least eight hands.
- The dealer stays dealer if they win the hand or are one tile from mahjong when the wall runs out. An honba counter is added after a dealer win or an exhaustive draw; they are all removed when another player wins.
- Under the EMA rules, a score dropping below zero does not end the game: the player borrows and plays on. Some Japanese rule sets end the game in that case.
- The highest total wins, however many hands each player has won.
House rules and pitfalls
The schools differ so much that you must agree before starting: Japanese riichi, classical Chinese…
- The schools differ so much that you must agree before starting: Japanese riichi, classical Chinese, or American with its yearly card.
Going further
Variants · Frequently asked questions · Rules on video · In the same family
Variants
School
Riichi (Japanese)
30,000-point starting stack (European EMA rules), scoring in han and fu.
Classical Chinese
Scoring by patterns, no starting stack.
American
Card of valid hands renewed every year.
choose them when you start a game: the scorer adapts
Frequently asked questions
What is the aim?
Complete a hand of fourteen tiles made of four sets (pungs or chows) and a pair — "mahjong" — before the other three players.
How does a turn work?
Draw a tile and discard one. You may also claim the tile discarded by another player to complete a pung or a chow (a chow only from the player on your left), which speeds you up but exposes your hand.
What are the tile suits?
Three numbered suits (bamboos, characters, circles), plus the winds, the dragons and sometimes the flowers. Some combinations of honour tiles score big.
How do you score?
The winning hand is worth points according to its sets (concealed pungs, honour tiles, special hands…), often with multipliers. Scoring scales vary a great deal between traditions.
Is it the same game as the solitaire of the same name?
No: the on-screen tile-matching solitaire only shares the equipment. Real mahjong is a four-player set-collecting game, close to rummy.
Rules on video
Videos in French, hosted on YouTube.