Mahjong

Components — 136 tiles

Setup — seating, the wall, the deal, and dora

1. 1The four players roll dice to determine seating and who starts as dealer (East). South sits to East's right, West across, and North to East's left.
2. 2Shuffle all 136 tiles and build a wall of 17 stacks, two tiles high, in front of each player; the four walls form a square.
3. 3The dealer rolls to decide where the wall breaks, then tiles are dealt counter-clockwise starting with the dealer: four tiles three times, then one tile each, giving everyone 13 tiles (14 for the dealer).
4. 4The rightmost 14 tiles of the wall are set aside as the dead wall. Flip the third tile from the dead wall's end to reveal the dora indicator; the next tile in sequence is the dora.

Flow — draw and discard

1. 1The dealer discards the first tile from their 14, laying it in front of themselves to start the discard row.
2. 2Play then proceeds counter-clockwise: on your turn, draw one tile from the wall ('tsumo') and discard one tile you don't need ('discard').
3. 3Once a discarded tile touches the discard row, that turn is final — it cannot be taken back, and no tsumo win or kan may follow it.
4. 4Even out of turn, a player may call 'chi', 'pon', or 'kan' on someone else's discard to claim it, and may declare 'ron' to win immediately if that tile completes a yaku.

Hand shape — four sets plus one pair

To win, your 13 tiles plus the winning tile (14 total) must divide into four sets and one pair. A set is one of the three types below, and the pair is two identical tiles.

A 13-tile hand that is one tile away from completion is called tenpai. Waiting shapes include the two-sided 'ryanmen', the edge-blocked 'penchan', the gapped 'kanchan', the 'shanpon' (waiting on either of two pairs to become a triplet), and the 'tanki' single-tile wait. A tenpai hand with no yaku is only a 'formal tenpai' and cannot actually win.

Calls — chi, pon, and kan

• If chi, pon, kan, and ron are all possible on the same discard, pon, kan, and ron take priority over chi.
• Calling (pon or chi) ends your hand's concealed (menzen) status, which locks you out of menzen-only yaku such as Riichi, Fully Concealed Hand, and Pinfu.
• Declaring kan draws a replacement tile from the dead wall; winning on that replacement tile earns the separate yaku 'After a Quad' (rinshan kaihou).

Riichi and furiten

1. 1If your hand is concealed (menzen) and tenpai, you may discard a tile while betting 1,000 points to declare 'Riichi'.
2. 2Riichi itself grants one han, and winning within the first uninterrupted go-around afterward adds the 'Ippatsu' yaku for one more han.
3. 3After Riichi, you may not rearrange your hand; if the tile you draw isn't your winning tile, you must discard it as drawn. On winning, you also reveal the hidden 'ura dora' indicators under the dead wall.

Yaku — at least one is required to win

Even a perfectly shaped hand cannot win without at least one yaku. Here are 11 representative yaku common to both the Korean guidebook and EMA's rules. Han values stack; the value in parentheses applies when the hand is open (not concealed).

Scoring — han and fu

A score is set by two numbers: han (the sum of your yaku plus dora) and fu (minipoints from the shape of your sets, pair, and wait). Fu starts at 20 and is rounded up to the nearest 10 after adding bonuses. Each additional han roughly doubles the score, and from a certain point the score is simply a named fixed amount regardless of fu.

On a ron, the player whose discard was claimed pays the full amount. On a tsumo, the three other players split the payment; the dealer pays double what each non-dealer pays, and a dealer's win is worth 1.5 times a non-dealer's win of the same hand.

Ending a hand — exhaustive draws and all-last

1. 1A hand ends the moment someone wins, or when the wall outside the dead wall runs out (an exhaustive draw, 'ryuukyoku').
2. 2If the dealer won, or was tenpai at a draw, the same seating repeats as a 'renchan', adding one to the honba counter and a small bonus to the next hand's score. Otherwise, the next player becomes dealer.
3. 3Once all four winds have each served as dealer at least once (East 1 through South 4 in a half-game), the final hand, called 'all-last' (oorasu), is reached.
4. 4The game ends at all-last when a player other than the current leader wins, or when the dealer is noten at a draw. Whether a leading dealer chooses to end the game on a win or tenpai, or to continue, depends on house rules.

Tips for beginners

• If your hand is full of unneeded terminals and honors, aim for Tanyao by building around 2-8 suit tiles — it's one of the easiest yaku to complete.
• Even with no yaku in sight, reaching a concealed tenpai lets you declare Riichi to manufacture one. As a beginner, staying concealed generally makes it easier to find a yaku.
• Calling pon or chi speeds up your hand, but it locks out every menzen-only yaku (Riichi, Fully Concealed Hand, Pinfu, Iipeikou) — calling early isn't always the better choice.
• Get in the habit of checking which tiles have already been discarded each turn; picking a tile already seen elsewhere (genbutsu) reduces your chance of dealing into someone else's hand.

Variants — three-player mahjong and local rules

This guide covers four-player Riichi mahjong, which the official guidebook treats as the more widely played format. Three-player mahjong changes some flow and yaku rulings and should be checked separately.

Frequently confused rules

History — from China through Japan to Riichi mahjong

Mahjong is said to have originated in ancient China, and the basic idea of four players building sets from tiles to win is shared across its many variants. Wiki cross-check — English Wikipedia traces its establishment to 19th-century China, spreading worldwide in the early 20th century.

Riichi mahjong developed its own distinct rule set after mahjong spread from Qing-dynasty China to Japan in the early 1900s, and it has continued to evolve since. The spread of internet and online play from the 2000s onward made it more widely accessible, and in Korea, dedicated playing venues have grown since around the 2010s. Wiki cross-check — Namuwiki describes it as having also found a place as a 'mind sport' alongside chess, janggi, and go.

The European Mahjong Association (EMA) first established official rules while preparing for the first European Riichi Championship in Hannover, Germany, in 2008; the 2025 edition takes effect on January 1, 2026. In Korea, the Korea Mahjong League (KML), together with Yostar (publisher of the online mahjong game Mahjong Soul), released an official Korean-language guidebook for free in 2024 to help popularize the game.