This is a popular variant of Mahjong in the Luqiao district, Taizhou, Zhejiang. Although contemporary, it is amazingly close to some oldest documented forms of the game. The only exception is Hangzhou-style wild cards ("Fortune") that do not add anything to scoring elements.
Equipments
- 136 tiles of three suits (characters, circles, bamboos) and honors (four winds and three dragons). The eight flower tiles (four seasons and four flowers) are not used.
- Two dice.
Seating
It is the same as in many other variants of the game. It may be slightly different from one player group to another.
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 (or the top one, when the four tiles are stacked one upon another), 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.
Banker rotation
The first banker is, as in most variants of the game, chosen by roll of dice by the (temporary) east hand. The banker stays only when he/she wins a hand. It moves to his/her right neighbour otherwise, even after a draw. A session of the game is four rounds of the banker rotation.
Building walls
Procedure is the same as in variants that use 136 tiles.
All the tiles are turned face down and shuffled well by the four players. Each player builds a wall of 17 tiles wide and two tiles high with all tiles facing down. The four wall are placed around the center of table to form a rectangle, or the right ends are pushed forward to make the shape slightly rotated counter-clockwise.
Breaking wall
The banker throws two dice. A player sitting in the position of the roll throws them again. He/she, then, counts pairs of stacked tiles from right end of his/her wall as one and *clockwise* until the sum of the pips of the two throws. He/she move the wall to create a gap between the last counted pair and the next one. The wall is used *clockwise* from the gap unlike everything else in the game, that is counter-clockwise. The top tile of the head pair is used before the bottom one, followed by the next pair. Tiles drawn after kong are taken from the tail of the wall, and unlike many other places but like Hangzhou, they are used in the real reverse order, i.e., the bottom tile of the tail pair is taken first before the top one.
Deal and Fortune tiles (财神)
Starting from the banker and counter-clockwise, each player takes four tiles at once from the head of the wall in turn, repeated three times to have twelve tiles in hand. The tiles are arranged in a row and placed face down. Then the banker takes first and fifth tile, i.e. top tiles of the first and third pairs from the head of the wall, and each of the remaining three players takes one tile in turn.
After the banker grabs fourteen tiles and the others thirteen, the players turns his/her tiles up for him/her to see and no one else.
The banker takes the first tile from the top of the wall and places it face up on the wall near its tail for all the players to see. The face up tile is the "fortune" indicator and the other three tile "fortune" tiles. A fortune tile is a wildcard and can be substituted for any tile in a winning hand. A white dragon can be substituted for a wild indicator or it can remain white.
Play of the tiles
Starting from the banker and counter-clockwise, the players repeat the following in turn until one of the players wins or the hand ends in a draw.
- If it is not the first turn of the banker who already has one extra tile in his/her hand, draw the first tile of the wall from its head.
- If the player cannot win or does not want to do so, he/she discards a tile in front of him/her.
Discarded tiles are not arranged to show who discards what. A player must show a tile to be discarded clearly in his/her front for the other players to see before sliding it into the discard pool in center of the table.
Winning hand
A winning hand is an eye and four sets.
- An eye 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.
- A pung is three identical tiles.
- A kong is four identical tiles melded with a kong call.
A player can substitute fortune tiles for any tiles in a winning hand, so long as they are not part of open sets or kong. Only when a player wins a set (but not the eye) can contain a fortune tile and be completed by a discarded tile at the same time.
Chow (吃)
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 an open (or exposed, as opposed to closed or concealed) 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 putting the discarded tile to their right end rotated 90 degrees for easy identification of fresh tiles. A player cannot add or remove tiles to or from open runs. An open run cannot contain fortune tiles or a white dragon as a fortune indicator. After a chow, turn moves to the right side neighbour of who has done the chow.
Pung (碰)
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 an open pung by saying 'pung', discarding a tile, laying down the two tiles face up to the left of his/her hand, and putting the claimed tile together with them.
A player cannot remove tiles from open pung. An open pung cannot contain fortune tiles. An open pung can be made of three white dragons.
If two players say pung and chow simultaneously, the pung wins over the chow. After a pung, turn moves to the right side neighbour of who has done the pung.
A player cannot pung the identical tile as he/she missed before his/her turn comes if he/she missed a tile he/she could have pung'ed. A turn is regarded to have come if it is passed by a pung or a kong.
Kong (杠)
A kong requires a 'kong' declaration, melding and drawing a supplementary tile. A set of four identical tiles is not a kong without these actions. There are three different ways to do a kong.
a) closed 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 face down and turning one of them face up to the left of his/her hand.
b) filling (open) kong. If a player has a tile identical to those of his/her open pung and it is his/her turn, he/she can make a kong by saying 'kong' and adding the tile to the pung.
c) direct (open) kong. 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.
After laying down the tiles, the player who is doing a kong draws a supplementary tile from the tail of the wall and discards a tile. Note that
the bottom tile of the last stack is drawn before the top one when one takes a kong supplement tile.
A player cannot add or remove tiles to or from a kong, open or closed. A kong cannot contain fortune tiles. One can make a kong of white dragons. If two players say kong and chow simultaneously, the kong wins over the chow. After a kong, turn moves to the right side neighbour of who has done the kong.
Winning (胡牌)
When a player can win by his/her hand, open sets, kong and a tile just drawn from the wall (自摸), or a tile just discarded by another player (放冲,点炮), he/she can declare win by saying 'hu' (胡) or whatever all the players can understand as such.
When a player wins by a tile from the wall, he/she does not bring it into his/her hand when he/she declares win but place it on the table besides his/her hand. Both tiles drawn from the head or the tail of the wall (i.e. kong supplement) can be used.
A discarded fortune tile cannot be claimed for winning. A player has to wait for his/her turn after he/she misses a winning tile. Some allow win by claiming a discarded tile before that if winning hand scores higher than the win by the missed tile. Similarly, an eye calling hand with a wild tile can only be won by a wall tile because it calls any tiles and therefore has always missed wins since it is ready. Some allow a wild eye calling hand to win by claiming if it scores higher than win by the tile discarded by the player. There are no other restrictions or minimum requirements. Except in a draw, there is always exactly one winner and three losers. When multiple players declare win by a same discarded tile, the player whose turn is closest to the discarding player wins and the other(s) loses.
A player can also rob a kong to win, that is, when he/she can win with the tile another player attempts to add a tile to his/her open pung to make it a kong. A robbed kong is not regarded as successful when the robbed hand is scored.
A hand ends when a player wins.
Dead wall and draw
The dead wall is number of tiles never used in a hand, 14 tiles initially and grows by one tile whenever a supplementary tile is drawn for a kong, thereby making the last tile always in the bottom row. A hand ends in a draw and no payments are made for that hand if no one has won until the dead wall is reached.
Scoring
If someone wins, all players that include three losers score their hands. Each loser pays to the winner certain amount based on points of the winning hand. A lower scoring loser pays to a higher scoring one certain amount based on the difference in their points. Full points are paid if payer or receiver is the banker, and a half of the points if both are non-bankers. If the winning hand is 100 (the limit) points, it is not halved into 50 points even if the payment does not involve the banker.
A hand is worth total set count doubled (number of tai) times.
Winner can use substitute tiles (wild tiles and white) while losers cannot. When a hand can be scored differently by using these tiles differently, the highest scoring interpretation should be used.
Set count is score given for pairs, trios and kongs in all hands and certain conditions in winning hands.
Tai means "to raise" and is exactly the same thing as faan in the Cantonese mahjong.
The limit is 100 points. Any points above the limit are ignored. It is the hard limit and there are no such things like double limit and quadruple limit.
Set count (胡头, "hu" count)
a) For winner and losers
The winner can use substitutes (wild and white). He/she can score a pair or a pung completed at the time of winning.
Terms
major: 1s, 9s, winds, red, green or white dragon.
minor: 2s through 8s.
open: containing a discarded tile.
closed: not containing a discarded tile.
- A pair of red, green, white dragon or seat wind: 2
a loser can count as many pairs as they are in his/her hand.
- An open pung: 2 if minor, 4 if major.
- A closed pung: 4 if minor, 8 if major.
- An open kong: 8 if minor, 16 if major.
- A closed kong: 16 if minor, 32 if major.
b) Additional set counts for winner
- Base: 10 given unconditionally for any winning hand
- All pung hand: 4
- Self draw: 2
a win by a wall tile either from the head or the tail, i.e. kong supplement
- Gap call: 2
a win by completing the middle tile of a run.
There are no points for an end call (12+3 or 89+7) or an eye call.
(Note for those who are familiar with Japanese rules--There are no points for closed hand, of course.)
Tai count (台数)
a) For winner and losers
The winner can use substitutes (fortune and white)
- A pung of red, green or white dragon: 1 tai
- A pung of seat wind: 1 tai
Each player is assigned one direction as his/her seat wind. It is east for the banker, and south, west and north counter-clockwise. There are no other kinds of tai-awarding winds in Mahjong variants around this part of China.
- Some recognise Four Winds: 13 tai for winner, 4 tai for loser. Both are large enough to be scored as the limit; three open wind pung are 12 hu, doubled four times to get to 192 hu that is well over 100. Some say it needs to form Major Four Winds (four sets of the winds) to score 13 or 4 tai. Some accept Minor Four Winds (three sets and a pair of the winds), with some requiring a pair of seat wind.
b) Additional tai for winner
Substitutes (fortune and white) can be used.
- Mixed one suit: 1 tai. A winning hand made of a suit and honours.
- Pure one suit: 3 tai. A winning hand made of a suit.
If the fortune indicator is the same suit as that of pure one suit, a player can mix a closed pung of white dragon into pure one suit. If the pung of white dragons is open, the hand becomes mixed one suit.
No tai for no point hand, self draw, fully closed hand, kong supplements, robbing a kong, last tile or whatever else.
Responsible discards
A responsible player pays all the payments on behalf other players.
When two of red, green and white dragon are pung'ed open, a player is deemed responsible if he/she discards a fresh tile of the remaining one to let that player win.
When three sets of a suit are exposed, a player is deemed responsible if he/she lets him/her win by pure one suit by discarding a tile of that suit. A tile need not to be fresh in this case.
When a player is more than one tile away from ready hand, he/she is deemed responsible if he/she discards a fresh red, green or white dragon to let another player win. Some may not require the tile to be fresh.
References
The first one has some very interesting details. I'm not sure if its tai rules for red/green/white/seat wind pung can be used in real situations without causing much confusions, though.
