COME AND LEARN TO PLAY

 STARTING THE GAME

The tiles are set up as 4 ‘walls’ from which they are dealt.

Build the walls – 18 tiles long by two in height  - but leave them a bit apart.

The two dice are thrown – the highest total score is the East wind – allocate the other winds and then push the walls together so that the East and West wind walls are inside the other two.

The East Wind then throws the two dice and counts around the walls clockwise, starting from ‘their’ wall, according to the total dice score. The wall they finish on is the one that will be broken.

The person at this wall throws the two dice again and counts along the wall from the left

according to the total dice score – The two tiles at this position are lifted and place on the wall to the right.

The tiles are then dealt from the left of this point, in blocks of 4, East wind first and then clockwise, until each player has 12 tiles, then one more to each player and one extra one to the East wind.

Players arrange their tiles ( on their walls ) hidden from the other players.

Any ‘gardens’ – flower or season tiles are laid out in front and players take a replacement from the spare tiles on top of the wall to the right of the gap. – East first.

PLAYING THE GAME

The game is started by the East wind throwing out one tile.

Then the South wind picks up the tile from the left of the gap and discards an unwanted one etc.

If a player  has 2 or 3 identical tiles and someone discards another they can pick it up at any stage and the set is then shown openly – otherwise they  stay hidden in your hand.

Every time a pung ( set of 3) is put down the player throws another tile out.

Every time a kong ( set of 4) is put out the player also picks a tile from the right of the gap.

If a garden is picked up it is put down in front and replaced by a tile from the right of the gap.

 Players should always have a total of 13 tiles – a 14^th when picked up will complete the hand   - this can be done from the wall or from any discard - the game ends when the first player has a full hand – all their tiles in sets of 3 or 4 plus one pair – and goes ‘Mahjong’.

Each hand is then scored and the other three all pay the winner.

Then each loser pays the other two losers the difference in their scores.

The score of a hand is doubled if the hand contains only one of the basic three types of tile -is ‘clean’

and also doubled for each pung or kong of dragons / the persons own wind or the wind of the round.

Also doubled for your own garden East = 1, South = 2, West = 3, North = 4

 A full game consists of 4 rounds of 4 games  - one for each wind.

SCORING

This is the basic game – which the Chinese add interest to by betting.

 Interest can be added by playing the first ( East ) round like this, then swapping two tiles with each other person , opposite first, in the second round, swapping 3 each in the third round and 4 each in the fourth. This improves hands and makes it easier to collect special hands.

SPECIAL HANDS

1. one of each wind, one of each dragon, one of each 1 and 9 – one paired.

 2. ?

 3. run of 1 to 9,

    pung of 1’s and 9’s  plus a pair

 4. Wriggly Snake – one of each 1 to 9 of the same suite, one of each wind and one of each dragon plus a pair.