Taiwanese Mahjong (tournament rules)　Rules

Overview

Taiwanese Mahjong (tournament rules) is the rule set of Mahjong (Taiwanese mahjong), an event shared by the TCGA computer game tournament, the TAAI Game Tournament and the ICGA Computer Olympiad: four players, 136 tiles with no flowers, five sets plus one pair to win, and a 0-tai win is allowed; no dealer repeat, no ready declaration, no multiple winners on one discard, no robbing a kong, and a passed win only blocks self-draw. It follows how the tournament platform actually judges games; the official rules are as announced by the organizers.

• Players: four per table.
• Tiles: 136 (characters, dots and bamboo 1–9, plus East, South, West, North, Red, Green, White; four of each). No flowers.
• Goal: complete 17 tiles as five sets plus one pair.
• A hand: from the deal until someone wins or the hand is drawn. A drawn hand counts as a hand and scores 0.
• Time limit: in the tournament, each action is limited to 3 seconds.

This differs a lot from Taiwanese Mahjong under Douque rules: no flowers, no ready declaration, no dealer repeat, no multiple winners on one discard, no robbing a kong, and different tai and payments.

Tiles and dealing

• Deal: the dealer takes 17 tiles from the front of the wall, then each player from the dealer's right takes 16. The dealer does not draw first: with 17 tiles the dealer may win (heavenly win), declare a concealed kong, or discard.
• Draws: normal draws come from the front of the wall; kong replacement tiles from the back.
• Reserved tiles: the last 16 tiles of the wall are never drawn. The tile whose draw leaves only those 16 is the "last tile" (haidi).
• Dealer: no dealer repeat — the dealer passes to the next player every hand.
• Seat wind: follows the dealer — dealer East, the dealer's right South, across West, left North.
• Round wind: decided by hand number; in the tournament, the platform arranges the starting dealer and round winds by hand number.

Winning

• The only winning shape is five sets plus one pair. No seven pairs, thirteen orphans or "lìgū" hands.
• A 0-tai win is allowed (no minimum).
• No ready declaration: no qiāngtīng, MIGI, heavenly or earthly ready.

Play

Your turn

After drawing you may win by self-draw, declare a concealed kong (four in hand), add to a pung (the fourth tile of a pung you made), or discard.

Someone discards

• Priority: win first, then pung or exposed kong, then chow.
• Chow: only the discarder's next player may chow.
• Exposed kong: the discarder's next player may not make an exposed kong on that tile (only pung or chow); the other two may.
• No multiple winners: if several players want to win, the first one counting from the discarder's next player wins.
• Near the end of the wall: when fewer than 4 drawable tiles remain (excluding the 16 reserved), no chow, pung or exposed kong — only winning.

After a chow or pung

• After a chow or pung you discard right away: no draw, no self-draw win, no concealed or added kong that turn.
• After a pung, you may not discard a tile of the same kind that turn.
• After a chow, only the chowed kind is banned that turn; the tile at the other end (e.g. 6 after chowing 3 with 4-5) is allowed.
• You may not chow a tile of the same kind as your own last discard (pung is not restricted).

Kongs

• All kongs draw a replacement from the back of the wall.
• No robbing a kong: an added kong completes immediately.
• Four kongs do not abort the hand.

Passed wins (furiten)

• Entering: if you could win (on a discard or by self-draw) but don't, you enter the passed state; choosing chow, pung or exposed kong when you could win also counts as passing.
• What it blocks: only self-draw wins. You can still win on another player's discard.
• Clearing: discarding any tile or making an added kong clears it; a concealed kong does not.
• After an exposed kong: the replacement tile cannot be won by self-draw (no "win on kong replacement" after an exposed kong); this stays even after a following concealed kong, until an added kong or your own discard.
• Passed pung: after declining to pung a kind (or choosing chow when you could pung), you cannot pung that kind until your next discard.

Last tile, last discard and draws

• Last tile: after drawing it you may win, make an added kong, but not a concealed kong; an added kong still draws a replacement and you discard.
• Last discard: the tile discarded on the last-tile turn can only be won on, not chowed, punged or konged. If nobody wins, the hand is drawn.
• Four winds: in the first go-round (no chow, pung or exposed kong yet), if all four players' first discards are the same wind, the hand is drawn at once after the fourth.
• Those are the only two ways a hand is drawn.

Tai table

• Only one of three, four or five concealed pungs counts; big and little three dragons, big and little four winds are exclusive. Heavenly, earthly and human wins add to other items.
• All terminals does not cancel All terminals and honors; both count.
• On a concealed self-draw, "concealed hand" and "self-draw" become "concealed self-draw" (3 tai); so pure double chow, twice pure double chow and the concealed doubling of mixed triple chow and pure straight only apply when winning a concealed hand on a discard.
• First go-round (heavenly = dealer self-draw, earthly = non-dealer self-draw, human = winning on a discard): nobody has chowed, punged or made an exposed kong, and the winner has not discarded yet. Concealed and added kongs do not end it.
• Sets are split the way the tournament judge does: one fixed way of splitting the hand, not the highest-scoring one. Honor pungs (including concealed ones) are always counted in the split as exposed, whether or not the eye is an honor pair (so the hand is not concealed; with an honor eye you can still score All pungs). A pung completed by the winning discard counts as exposed.
• Items that cannot occur under tournament rules: flowers, seasons, seven robbing one, eight immortals, robbing a kong, heavenly or earthly ready.

Scoring

• Base 1000, 500 per tai.
• Self-draw: all three others pay; win on a discard: only the discarder pays.
• Each payer pays "base + total tai × 500".
• When a non-dealer wins by self-draw and the dealer pays, the dealer pays 1 extra tai (only when the total tai has no "dealer" item); when the dealer wins or deals in, the dealer item is already in the tai and nothing is added.
• Example: a non-dealer self-draws 3 tai; each of the other two non-dealers pays 1000 + 3 × 500 = 2500, and the dealer pays 1000 + (3 + 1) × 500 = 3000.