2018年9月20日木曜日

Xiamen (Amoy) mahjong rules

It features unique wall layout and rituals for that, as well as somewhat unusual scoring system based on multiples instead of doubles. Although points for sets and flowers may appear slightly complicated, they add varieties to outcome of the game that would be somewhat monotonous otherwise.

(9 November 2018)Added irregularities section and some more variations.
(10 October 2018)Added Quanzhou scoring and a couple of variations.

Equipments

144 tiles of three suits (characters, circles, bamboos), honors (four winds and three dragons) and the eight flower tiles (four seasons and four flowers).
Two dice.

Seating

One of the players, e.g. the youngest, picks four tiles of east, south, west and north, one tile for each direction, places them face down and shuffles them well.
Another player, e.g. the eldest, throws the two dice, counts himself/herself as one, the player to his/her right as two, and so on counter-clockwise, and who is sitting in the seat of the sum of the two dice draws a tile he/she likes, followed by each player counter-clockwise. Who picks east remains seated, or moves to the seat choosen as east by any appropriate means. The south player moves to the right of the east, west opposite, and north left.

Building walls

The four players turn all the tiles face down and shuffle them together. Each player arranges four horizontal rows of eight tiles in front of him/her, with all tiles facing down and neighbouring rows touching each other. Then he/she adds two tiles to each end of the third row from the center of the table to make it twelve tile wide, pushes it forward together with the first and second rows, and puts the second row on top of the first. Finally he/she breaks the last remaining row in two halves, holds each set of four tiles in each hand, and places them at each end of the twelve tile row with leftmost and rightmost ends slanted toward him/herself. There are no distinction between the wing parts and the middle parts of the outer walls. They are arranged in this way so that they can fit comfortably in a mahjong table.


Deal

The banker throws two dice to choose who takes the tiles first. Rolls of the dice are counted from who throws them as one, whose right side neighbour as two, and so on counterclockwise until the sum of the pips are reached. The player chosen by the roll takes first two stacked pairs of each wall, his/her right neighbour the third and fourth, his/her opposite the fifth and sixth, and his/her left neighbour the last two, counting clockwise unlike everything else in the game, which is counterclockwise.

Breaking (outer) wall

The player who took the first two stacks from the wall throws the dice to choose who breaks the outer wall. The player chosen by the roll count tiles of his/her outer wall from the right end (including the wing) as one and clockwise until the sum of the pips, and move the wall slightly so that there is a gap between the last counted tile and the next one. The gap marks the head and the tail of the wall. The banker takes the first tile from the head of the wall to have 17 tiles. Then each player turns his/her tiles up for him/her to see and no one else. Because a player starts with no less than 16 tiles, it is a common practice to arrange them in two rows, front and rear.

Melding flower tiles

The players lay all flower/season tiles in their hands down, in front of him/her or right hand side. Then each player draws same number of tiles from the tail of the wall, starting from the banker and counterclockwise. If a player draws a season or flower tile, he/she lays it down immediately and wait until his/her next turn to draw a supplement tile. This continues until no one has season and flower tiles in his/her hand.

Choosing Gold tile

After melding flowers and drawing supplement tiles, the player who broke the wall throws two dice, counts tiles from the current tail of the wall counter-clockwise, and turns the tile at the sum of the pips face up. This is the Gold indicator, the other three identical tiles are Gold tiles and White Dragons the face value of the Gold indicator. For example, if the indicator is 8 Circles, the other three 8 Circles are Gold and White Dragons 8 Circles. A Gold tile can be substituted for any tiles but seasons and flowers. If a season or flower is turned up as the indicator, it is turned back and the player who broke the wall rolls the dice again.

Winning hand

A winning hand is one pair and five sets. A pair is two identical tiles. A set is a run, a pung or a kong. A run is three tiles of a suit in numerical order, for example, 2 Bams, 3 Bams and 4 Bams. A pung is three identical tiles. A kong is four identical tiles declared and melded. A set of four identical tiles is not a kong without a kong call and melding.

Play of the hand

Starting from the banker and counter-clockwise, each player performs these actions in turn:
(drawing) Except in the first turn of the banker who has one extra tile in his/her hand, the current player draws a tile from the head of the wall; if he/she draws a flower tile, he/she melds it and draw a supplementary tile from the tail of the wall;
(discarding) Unless he/she has a winning hand and wants to win, he/she discards one tile that has not been melded from his hand.

Following discarded honors

If a player has a singleton honor and a tile identical to it has already been discarded in current hand, he/she must discard it before other honors and suit tiles. If there are more than one such honors, he/she can freely choose a tile to be discarded from them.

Chow

If two tiles in player's hand and a tile just discarded by his/her left side neighbour would be a run when put together, he/she can make a run from these tiles by saying 'chow', discarding a tile, laying down the two tiles face up to the left of his/her hand, and adding the discarded tile to them. A chow'ed run cannot contain a Gold tile. No tiles can be added or taken from a chow'ed run. After a chow, turn moves to the right side neighbour of the player who has done the chow.

Pung

If a player has two identical tiles in his/her hand and the same tile is just discarded by any other player, he/she can make a pung by saying 'pung', discarding a tile, laying down the two tiles face up to the left of his/her hand, and adding the discarded tile to them. A pung'ed set cannot contain Gold tiles. No tiles can be taken away from a pung'ed set. After a pung, turn moves to the right side neighbour of the player who has done the pung.

Kong

If a player has four identical tiles in his/her hand and it is his/her turn, he/she can make a kong by saying 'kong' and laying down the four tiles to the left of his/her hand. If a player has a tile identical to those of his/her layed down pung and it is his/her turn, he/she can make a kong by saying 'kong' and adding the tile to the pung. If a player has three identical tiles in his/her hand and the same tile is just discarded by any other player, he/she can make a kong by saying 'kong', laying down the three tiles face up and adding the discarded tile to them. In all of its three variations, the player who does kong draws a supplementary tile from the tail of the wall and discards a tile. After a kong, turn moves to the right side neighbour of the player who has done the kong.

Win

If tiles in a hand of a player and laid down for chow, pung or kong form a winning hand together with another tile, the player can declare win. A hand ends when a player wins. The winning tile is a tile drawn from the wall, either from its head or tail, just discarded by other player, or a tile to be added to a pung in an (failed) attempt at a kong. The last way is called robbing a kong. One cannot win by a discarded Gold tile. There is only one winner in a hand. If more than one players declare win by a same discarded tile, one whose turn is closest to the player discarding the winning tile wins. Some play that a player who has a gold tile in his/her hand can only win by a wall tile.

Dead wall and draw

16 tiles in the wall are always left unused. If nobody wins when there are only 16 tiles are left in the wall, the hand ends in a draw.

Scoring

The winner receives score of his/her hand from each of the other players. Score of a winning hand is (base + flowers) x multiplier. The base is 2 in case of payment between the banker and a non-banker, and 1 between non-bankers. The banker's base is doubled each hand he/she stays and reset to 2 when the banker changes.

Flowers (it's "water" in Xiamen but water is uncountable in English...) are number of flower and gold tiles (discarded gold tiles do not count) as well as these scores for each set in winner's hand:
  • honor: open pung 1, closed pung 2, open kong 3, closed kong 4
  • suits: open pung 0, closed pung 1, open kong 2, closed kong 3
"Open" here means a set containing discarded tile, and "close" those made solely of tiles drawn from the wall.
A set of four seasons or flowers is worth 8 flowers instead of 4.

Multipliers are:
  • Common Win: x1. A win where none of the below apply. A win by a discarded tile.
  • Win by a wall tile or robbing a kong: x2.
  • Three gold knocker: x3. This is an exception to the winning hand rules, in that it only requires three gold tiles and the rest does not have to form sets or a pair, but it is only allowed just after a deal or last turn before a draw. If a player have them after deal and melding of flowers, it becomes x4 instead of x3.
  • Gold float: x4. When a player has five sets completed and waiting for an eye with a Gold tile. He/she can win with any tiles this way, but, in this particular case, he/she can only do so with a tile from the wall.
  • Robbing a gold: x4. The other exception to the winning hand rules. It is when a player can win by claiming the gold indicator right after a deal and melding of flowers, and in case of the banker, first discarding. When more than one player can rob a gold, non-banker wins the banker.
  • Heavenly and earthly win: x4. Heavenly win is when the banker has a winning hand right after deal and melding of flower tiles. Earthly win is when a non-banker wins by the banker's first discard in a deal. 
  • Double float: x8. When a player discards a gold tile and win by Gold float in his/her next turn. During a float round, the floating player cannot win by claiming a discarded tile and the other players cannot claim discarded tiles for chow, pung, or kong. Some allow non-floating player to win by a discarded tile during a float round, while others forbid that.
  • Triple float: x12. When a player attempts double float, draws a tile he/she substitutes a gold tile for or a gold tile itself, and discards the float tile again to do another round of float to win by gold float.

Irregularities

Long or short hand. A player who has too many or too few tiles in his/her hand,  e.g. 11, 12, 15 etc, cannot win in that hand.

Wrong chow, pung, kong or drawing. A player who did a wrong chow, pung, kong or drawing cannot win in that hand.

False win. A player who declares a false win has to pay each player the amount he/she could have received from him/her if it were a valid win.

Variations

Quanzhou (泉州) scoring. They use slightly different scoring in Quanzhou:
  • The base of banker is increased by one when he/stays. Some increase it by one times multiplier of banker’s win instead.
  • An open kong made from an open pung has the same number of flowers as a closed pung.
  • Some count the same number of flowers in an open pung as a closed pung.
  • There are no bonus flowers for set of four flower/season tiles.
  • The multipliers are 1x for Common win, 2x for Win by a wall tile or Robbing a kong, 3x for Gold float, 6x for Double float, 9x for Triple float, 3x for Three gold knocker. Robbing a gold and Heavenly win are not recognised. When a player collects all the eight flower and season tiles, he/she wins immediately regardless of his/her hand with 3x multiplier.

Restriction on common win. Many play that a player who has gold tile in hand cannot win by claiming a discarded tile.

Missed win or pung. Some play that a player who missed a win or a pung (including an open kong) has to wait until his/her turn to come or pass before winning by claiming or doing a pung on the same tile.

Required float. Some play that a player who has three gold tiles has to win by three gold knocker, gold float or better.

False float. Some play that discarding a gold tile and not floating is an offense and who does so forfeits his/her right to win in that hand.

Inflated bases. Some multiply the bases by 5 (10 for banker, 5 for non-bankers), 8 (16 for banker, 8 for non-bankers) and so on, to reduce influence of flower counts over payouts.

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