Hobbies And Interests
Tiles
The most difficult part of Mahjong is learning the tiles. There are 144 tiles in the basic set that fall into different groups: bamboo, wheels, characters, winds, dragons, flowers and seasons. The bamboo tiles, also called bars, are numbered from 1 to 9 and there are four of each of these. The same numbering is used for the wheels, also known as dots or circles, and the characters. The winds are North, South, East and West and the dragons are red, green and white---with 4 tiles for each of these. The final eight tiles are the bonus tiles: four flowers---plum, orchid, Chrysanthemum and bamboo---and the four seasons---spring, summer, autumn and winter. There is only one each of these tiles. When they are encountered, they are put face up on the player's side to be counted at the end of the game and another tile is drawn.
Dealer
Play begins with all the tiles face down in the center of the table. Each player makes a double row of tiles in front of himself. There is one row of 18 tiles and another row of 18 tiles on top of the first row. The dice are rolled and the high roller becomes East. All the other players are named with a direction in relation to East. The deal rotates counterclockwise unless the dealer wins. In that case, it stays with the dealer for another hand. If the winning number is a 10, the next deal starts with the 10th pile of tiles in front of East. According to the rules, 13 tiles are dealt to each player and 14 to the dealer. When the wall in front of East is exhausted, tiles are dealt from the wall in front of the next player counterclockwise, which is North.
Melds
Each player either picks up a discard and must lay down a meld or draws a new tile. The player must discard a tile. Discards are not stacked as they would be in a card game. A meld can be either a pung, a kong or a chow. A pung is three of exactly the same tile, such as three green dragons. A kong is four of exactly the same tile. If you pick up a tile that another player discarded and make a kong with it, you get to draw another tile. A chow is three tiles in sequence, like the 6, 7 and 8 of wheels.
Winner
The game ends when one player produces a pair, two identical tiles, and three melds. Only the winner's points are counted. If the winning tile was a discard, only the player who discarded the winning tile loses. If the winning tile was drawn, the other three players are all losers. Pairs and chows count zero points, suit pungs count 2, honor pungs count 4, suit kongs count 8, honor kongs count 16. The bonus tiles are four points each. A game of Mahjong consists of 16 hands.