How to play Taiwanese mahjong

The goal

A winning hand is five sets of three tiles, plus one pair — “five and one.” You hold 16 tiles during play and win on the 17th, the tile that completes the shape. A set is either a pong (three identical tiles) or a sheung (a run of three consecutive tiles in the same suit). The pair, sometimes called the “eyes,” is just two matching tiles.

The tiles

A set has 144 tiles. There are three numbered suits — bamboo (索), character (萬) and circle (筒) — each running 1 to 9 with four copies, for 108 suited tiles. Then come the honour tiles: four winds (east 東, south 南, west 西, north 北) and three dragons (red 中, green 發, white 白). Finally, eight flower and season bonus tiles sit outside the hand. A full reference, with every tile and its Chinese name, is on the tiles page.

Taking a turn

Turns pass in seat order — east, south, west, north, and back to east. East is the dealer and starts. On your turn you do two things in order: draw one tile from the wall, then discard one tile face-up. Draw first, discard second, every single turn — your hand is only ever allowed 16 tiles at rest.

Claiming and making sets

You don’t have to wait for your turn to take a discarded tile. There are three ways to build a set:

• Pong — hold a pair and claim a matching discard from any player to lock in a triplet.
• Sheung — claim a discard that completes a run, but only from the player on your left (the seat just before yours).
• Kong — a set of four identical tiles. You can claim a fourth from a discard, declare one from your own four, or add a drawn tile to an existing pong. Every kong earns a bonus replacement draw.

Claiming is always optional — you can let a tile go by if it doesn’t suit your plan. See how each pattern scores on the scoring rules pages.

Winning

When you are one tile away from a complete hand, you are ting — “ready,” or listening. The moment the tile you need appears, whether you draw it yourself or another player discards it, you declare “mahjong.” Claim it straight away: if the next turn begins, the chance is gone.

Scoring, in brief

Taiwanese mahjong scores in points called tai. Every winning hand starts at a base of 5, then adds tai for each named pattern it contains — a dragon pong, an all-runs hand, a flush, and so on. A hand must clear a minimum of 20 points to win (higher in later rounds); declaring under the floor is a “false mahjong” and costs you a penalty. Big scores come from many small patterns stacking up. The full method is on how scoring works, and every pattern is listed under scoring rules — the top hand, the all-honours Pure Honour Hand, is worth 140.

Flowers

The eight flower and season tiles never become part of your hand. The instant you draw one it flips out on its own and you take a replacement tile, so you can’t lose it. Each flower you finish holding is worth a bonus point, and a flower matching your seat is worth one more. If you hold none at all, you score a point for “No Flowers” instead — the game always gives you one or the other.

Where to go next

Ready to play? You can play free online right now against bots or friends. To go deeper, read how scoring works, browse the tiles and scoring rules, or see how Taiwanese compares to other styles in Taiwanese vs Japanese, Chinese & American.