Mahjong

Majong or Majiang (Jer. Trad. 麻將 Màh Jeung, Màh Jeung, pinyin: Májiàng, pinyin: Májiàng, Pal.: Majiang) is a four-player Chinese game of dice gambling. It is widely distributed in China, Japan, and other countries in East and Southeast Asia. The game is played with dice resembling dominoes, according to the rules similar to poker, it requires from the players such qualities as experience, memory and observation. There is also a random factor in the game, the role of which, depending on the rules of the game used, can be both small and decisive. The goal of the game is to score as many points as possible by collecting the most valuable combination from a given number of dice.

It is necessary to distinguish the gambling game of Mahjong from Mahjong Solitaire – the latter is a single-player game, an analogue of card solitaire, played with mahjong dice.

Name

The original name of the game is Chinese: 麻雀, lit. "sparrow", now common in the Southern Chinese languages: Kant. maa4 zoek3-2/maczek, Yuzhnominsk. Môa-chhiak or môa-chhiok, hakka mà-chiok. It is also used in Korean. 마작 Majak).

In the Wu language, this word (Chinese: 麻雀 /mo˨ t͡ɕia̱ʔ˦/) was given the diminutive suffix /ŋ̍/, which then became nasalized: wu 麻將 /mo˨ t͡ɕiã˦/. In this form, this word is borrowed into the languages of northern China, including Mandar. Má Jiàng/Majiang.

In modern Japanese, the game is called majyan. 麻雀マージャン) The word itself was borrowed from Northern Chinese during the Meiji period, while retaining the original hieroglyphic writing from the Southern Chinese languages.

Note on terminology

To avoid confusion, this article uses the terminology of the official Russian edition of the rules of sports mahjong, adopted in 2006 by the International Mahjong Organization as international, to name game elements. Terms in other languages and their pronunciations may be provided for reference only.

History

Creation myths

According to one of the myths about the origin of mahjong, the famous ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius invented this game around 500 BC. According to the myth, the appearance of the game in various parts of China is associated with the travels of Confucius, during which he spread his teachings. The game tokens, called the three dragons, also correspond to the three cardinal virtues outlined by Confucius. Zhōng (中, lit. "temperance") - Red Dragon, Fā (發, lit. "prosperity") - Green dragon, Bái (白, lit. "White") – White Dragon – correspond to benevolence, sincerity and reverence for parents. And the name of the game itself is "mahjong" (lit. "sparrow") in the myth is explained by the fact that Confucius was a bird lover.

According to another legend, mahjong was invented in ancient times by a fisherman named Jie, as a means of distracting fishermen from seasickness, which prevented fishing in the open sea. According to another myth, mahjong was played on Noah's Ark during the Flood, and the privileged position of the east direction in the game is supposedly due to the fact that there was a strong east wind blowing during the Flood^.

There are other myths about the ancient origins of the game.

Game Introduction

Despite the many myths, in reality, mahjong is a young game, its age is hardly more than a century and a half. In any case, there is no objective evidence of the existence of mahjong in its current form or its close analogues before the mid-19th century. There is no reason to believe that the game is ancient. There is still an ongoing debate about who exactly created mahjong, as none of the many versions attributing its development to any particular person or group of people has unequivocal evidence.

There is good reason to believe that the game originated in one of the provinces around the cities of Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai, and Ningbo. The author traces the connection between the rules of mahjong and the rules of card games that were in circulation in China at the beginning of the 19th century and earlier, as well as with the game of dominoes known in China. Many historians believe that the immediate predecessor of mahjong may have been a popular card game called Ma-Diao (馬^吊). This game used 40 paper cards, similar to the cards for the game of Ya Pei, which include four suits numbered from 1 to 9 and four flower cards, which is very similar to modern mahjong dice.

According to one theory, the creators of the game were officers of the Chinese army who served during the Taiping Rebellion and invented the game to spend time, according to another, the game was created by a certain nobleman who lived in the vicinity of Shanghai between 1870 and 1875. At first, the spread of the game was quite limited, until the beginning of the 20th century, it was played only in the territory of the lower reaches of the Yangtze and in the suburbs of Beijing, but then there was a sharp jump in popularity: in the first two decades of the 20th century, the game spread throughout China and reached neighboring countries. By 1920, mahjong was already considered a national game, an integral part of Chinese culture, and was known not only in Asia, but also in America and Europe.

There is also no consensus on the origin of the game's name. The original name translates as "sparrow". According to one version, the clatter of chips resembles the chirping of a sparrow. Some researchers attribute the name to the fact that in China the sparrow symbolizes ingenuity or look for other parallels in culture and mythology.

Mahjong in China

By the 1920s, mahjong had spread throughout China and had become a national game. The rules of the game differed significantly from region to region. By that time, the "classic" version of the game had already taken shape, but other versions were also common. "Shanghai Mahjong" and "Cantonese Mahjong" were quite popular, the rules of which are simpler than the classic ones. They are believed to be more archaic forms of mahjong rather than simplifications of the classic version. Further development of the game went in two ways. The "Old Style" (or "Hong Kong Mahjong") retained almost all the winning combinations of the classical rules, but introduced additional rules of the game and changed the order of settlement between players in the direction of complexity. The "New Style", while generally preserving the order of calculations of classic mahjong, introduced new combinations and an additional "Joker" dice.

The development of mahjong in China was interrupted in 1949, after the founding of the People's Republic of China. The communist government discouraged all gambling activity, considering it a symbol of capitalist decay. Of course, mahjong did not disappear during the years of the ban, but it was played in a narrow circle of close acquaintances and there could be no talk of any development and popularization of the game. It wasn't until the end of the Cultural Revolution that the ban was lifted, and the game began to regain popularity, becoming a favorite pastime in China, including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

Until the beginning of the 21st century, the Chinese authorities did not fight mahjong, but did not encourage its development either. But in the last decade, there has been a revival of mahjong culture in China. In January 1998, the Sports Council under the Government of the People's Republic of China officially recognized mahjong as a sport and initiated the development of a single set of rules of the game, convening a committee of the country's most qualified players for this purpose. The result of their two-year work was a brochure containing the rules of the game of mahjong, which became known as the Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR, Chinese Official Rules, ^COR). These rules contain a set of 81 winning combinations and set a complex (table) scoring system. At the same time, a number of simplifications have been made to the game.

Mahjong in Japan

Mahjong came to Japan from China in 1907. As in China, by the 1920s, the game had spread everywhere and was very popular. As in China, the game did not escape political bans: between 1937 and 1945, when Japan was at war with China, mahjong was officially banned. After the end of the war, mahjong quickly regained its position as one of the most popular board games. In the 1950s, the Japan Mahjong Association was established and issued a set of official rules. By 2007, the association had about 20,000 players^.

Initially, the rules of Japanese mahjong were very close to those of China (this variety is now known as "Japanese traditional mahjong"). However, since the 1950s, the rules have changed and a version of mahjong has emerged, which is now called "Japanese modern", "reechi mahjong" or "dora riti mahjong". Of the features of this type of mahjong, the most famous is the rule of "rithi" - the announcement by the player of the obligation to collect a winning combination with a deposit of 1000 points, as well as the use of "dor" - special dice, the presence of which in a winning hand increases its value. Some players in Russia use the names "riichi mahjong" and "riichi", derived from reading the English transcription. リーチ ri:chi), arguing that the Japanese Japanese. リーチ comes from the English word to reach — to reach (meaning reaching a pre-winning state).

In Japan, there are several organizations dedicated to the development of the game of mahjong and adhere to different sets of rules. The Japanese Mahjong Professional League^, founded on March 6, 1981, organizes professional competitions according to modern Japanese rules, assigns professional ranks, and conducts a variety of commercial activities related to mahjong. The Japan Sport Mahjong Association (JMSA) founded in 1999, develops the game of sports mahjong according to official Chinese (international) rules.

Mahjong in the United States

The first surviving recording of a non-Chinese mahjong game was made in 1895 by American anthropologist Stuart Kline. In 1900, the White brothers introduced mahjong to English clubs in Shanghai, where foreign residents of China began to get acquainted with it for the first time.

The original Chinese mahjong was introduced to the United States in the 1920s by Joseph P. Babcock. The first English-language rules published in the U.S. were a simplified version of Chinese mahjong, reducing the set of special winning combinations and introducing scoring for losers for incomplete combinations. The author of these rules was Babcock, who actively promoted the game and sold game sets. Babcock registered the name "Mah-Jong" in an attempt to monopolize the game. He is also believed to have invented adapted game sets that added Arabic numerals and Latin letters in addition to the Chinese traditional designations. As the game's popularity grew, other manufacturers and importers, in order to circumvent Babcock's exclusive rights, began to sell game sets under other names ("Pe-ling", "Pung Chow", and so on), accompanied by specially modified rules. This led to a huge number of variations of the rules, many of which had little in common with the original ones.

The peak of the popularity of mahjong in the United States was in 1923: it was played everywhere, the demand for game sets was enormous, almost all suitable cow bone from Kansas was sent to China, to factories for the production of mahjong bones. In the United States itself, several factories for the production of game sets were opened, which, operating at full voltage, 24 hours a day, barely managed to meet the demand. The theme of mahjong began to be widely used in advertising, specialized mahjong clubs appeared, and the game became a new national hobby. The result is a huge variety of rules of the game. In an attempt to standardize the rules of the game, the "Committee for the Standardization of American Official Mahjong Laws" was organized, consisting of Robert Foster, Joseph Babcock, Lee Hartman, and J. S. Smith. H. Smith. The committee issued a set of rules in 1924 called the American Code of Laws for Mah Jong. This set was approved by Parker Brose, which had by then bought the rights to use the name "Mahjong" from Babcock, making the book the "de facto standard" for Mahjong rules in the United States. The "code" laid out rules close to those in China, with additional "clean hand" and "one doubling" rules as permissible additions.

Although the standard was published, it failed to gain universal acceptance, and the emergence of new versions of Mahjong continued. The American modifications of the rules had a lot to do with the fact that American players had a tendency to make "expensive" hands. Following this inclination, several non-standard winning hands have been introduced into the rules and the requirements for a winning combination have been tightened. First of all, these were the rules of "clean hand" and "one doubling" (according to the first, a winning hand, except for special hands, should not mix several suits, and the second required at least one doubling combination in the winning hand).

The wave of mahjong craze in the United States subsided quite quickly. Some researchers attribute the decline in interest to the variety of rules, while others explain it by the fact that as a result of numerous ill-conceived innovations, the game has become too mechanical, and the winnings have become almost entirely determined by luck.

In 1935, the "National Mahjong League" was formed. The association continued to modify the rules by proposing the Charleston and the Joker, releasing a new list of special winning hands each year, introducing other non-classical rules. At the same time, the Wright-Patterson rules and the Jewish-American rules appeared and spread in the United States. The original, Chinese mahjong continued to be cultivated.

In most modern American versions, the rules are based exclusively on non-standard combinations, with the "clean hand" rule, in which the main way to win is to make special hands.

Mahjong in Western Europe

In most Western European countries, mahjong came from the United States, so both the rules and the nature of the game in Europe are similar to those in the United States. On the other hand, European rules sometimes include elements that have hardly or never been applied in the U.S., but are consistent or similar to those found in Asian variants of mahjong. The reason for this confusion of rules is not entirely clear, it is possible that some of the rules came to Europe directly from South Asian variants of mahjong, and there is also an assumption that they are related to Europeans' erroneous interpretation of the original rules of the game or their confusion with the rules of common card games (gin rummy, kanasta, bridge, poker). In addition, European rules may have been shaped by American mahjong manuals in the early years of the game's spread in the United States, when the variety of rules was very large.

The "official" European versions of the rules are those published and promoted by the local officially registered players' associations, so it is not necessary that the majority of players in the respective countries actually play by them.

Now there are mahjong federations in most major European countries, including Russia. In October 2005, the World Mahjong Organization (WMO) and its European Mahjong Association (EMA) were established on the initiative of the mahjong federations of China, Japan, the United States, Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Hungary. The official rules of these organizations are the rules of Sport Mahjong.

In the 2009 European Championship, 160 players took part^. Also, Japanese riichi mahjong is quite popular in Europe. Competitions are also held on it.

Game inventory

When playing mahjong, either a set of mahjong dice or special playing cards with images corresponding to the dice are used. One of the brands that produces such cards calls them Mhing. Playing cards are often used on the road because they are lighter and more compact than traditional dice. Traditionally, Chinese characters and symbols are drawn on the dice to show the type, suit and denomination of the dice. Dice from sets produced for the Western market (so-called "adapted") are additionally marked with small Arabic numerals and Latin letters in the upper left corner of the face of the dice, for ease of perception by Western players (the illustration at the beginning of the article is played with an unadapted set, the illustration on the right in this section shows a typical adapted set). In addition to the mahjong dice, the game requires at least two regular dice (dice) with dot marks from 1 to 6 on the faces. Other equipment included in the game kit can make counting easier and more comfortable to play, but is not necessary.

Mahjong dice

A mahjong bone is a rectangular box made of opaque material, on one of the large sides of which there is an image that defines the value of the bone. The size of the bones can vary, the height varies from 20 to 38 mm, the width is about 1.5 times less than the height, and the thickness is 2 times, but the thickness can be even less (up to 7-8 mm).

At first, bones were hand-carved from animal bones and bamboo, but such production is labor-intensive, inefficient and expensive, so when the game became popular in many countries and the demand for sets grew, bones began to be made in a mechanized way from various types of wood, and a little later from plastic. Plastic bones are often made of two layers: the front side is made of white plastic, and the back side is made of some colored plastic. This makes it possible to immediately highlight the bones lying face up when mixing, and also ensures that the designation is not visible through the white plastic on the back side.

The sets of dice required to play by different rules may vary. Most sets include a minimum of 136 dice, a full Riichi Mahjong set of 140 dice, a Chinese Mahjong set of 144 dice, and American, Singaporean, or Vietnamese Mahjong sets of even more.

"Classic" is considered to be a set of 144 bones, including 6 types and 42 varieties of bones. The types can be divided into three categories: suits, noble dice (trumps), and flowers.

Suits

The three suits are Coppers (銅 tong), Bamboo (索 sō), and Darkness (萬 wan), and each suit is numbered from one to nine.

For each suit, the set includes 4 dice of each value, for a total of 108 dice.

Noble bones

Four Winds: East, South, West and North.
The Three Dragons are Red, Green, and White.

(In the Japanese set, the white dragon has a different look—it's just a white bone without an image.)

There are 4 pieces of each noble bone in the set, i.e. 16 Winds and 12 Dragons, for a total of 28 bones.

Flowers

Flowers – plum, orchid, chrysanthemum and bamboo
The seasons are spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

Unlike the suits and noble bones, the flowers in the set contain one bone of each type, for a total of 8 bones.

Additional bones

Some varieties of the rules require additional dice, in particular, many variants may require an additional Joker dice, in Thai Mahjong there are four original animal dice, in Japanese Riichi Mahjong (using a classic set without flowers, i.e. 136 dice) additional "red fives" ("red doors") can be used - four additional fives of suits (one for symbols and one for bamboo, two for dots). Visually, the red fives differ in that the designations on them are drawn only in red. Typically, large universal mahjong sets (designed to be played according to Chinese or American rules) contain 144 "classic" dice and one or more empty dice that can be used as a joker. Animals and red fives are usually only available in specialized sets (for Thai and Rity Mahjong, respectively).

Additional items

In addition to the dice, most mahjong kits also include additional equipment needed to play:

At least two regular dice.
The Wind Gauge is a flat token with "East" and "South" on the sides. It is placed on the game table next to the declarer and shows the current round of the game - east or south.
Cardinal Direction Indicators are tokens that show the cardinal directions of the players.
Sets of tokens or counting sticks to simplify scoring. Tokens and sticks represent a certain number of points, and instead of constantly keeping a record as the game progresses, players exchange counting items.
Planks for bone placement. One of the bars can be different from the others to serve as a pointer to the declarer at the same time. Planks may be convenient or even necessary if the thickness of the bones is small and does not allow them to be placed firmly on the table.

Table

Mahjong is usually played at a square table with a side of 700 mm, which gives enough space for each player to line up a wall and place a hand. Specialized mahjong tables have small boxes on each side designed to place tokens or counting sticks. There are also special mats (mats) — soft pads on an ordinary table, sometimes with a hard frame that limits the playing space, preventing accidental falling of the dice, sometimes with trays or pockets for counting equipment.

Automatic table

In recent years, automatic mahjong tables have come into use. In such a table, there are mechanisms that provide mixing of dice, automatic laying out of the wall, throwing dice (the mechanism throws dice placed in a bowl closed with a transparent lid in the center of the table). Such tables are quite complex and expensive (about 2-5 thousand dollars), but they allow you to significantly reduce the time for preparing for the game and exclude the possibility of using some fraudulent methods of the game associated with placing known dice at the stage of mixing and forming a wall.

Game variants

There are many variations of the rules of the game of mahjong, of which 13 are usually the most common. Other variations differ in small details, most of them only in the rules of scoring. In different places, players often prefer one option and avoid or consider other versions of the rules to be incorrect. The main rule options are as follows:

Chinese Classic Mahjong: The oldest variant of mahjong. This version of the game was distributed in America in the 1920s, and is still used by a small number of players in the West and some players in Asia. Features: played with 136 dice (no flowers or seasons), points are awarded for collected sets, the value of the set depends on whether the hand is open or not, there are doubling combinations, it is allowed to take the dice from the stake, penalties are applied for the player who folded the dice that allowed the other to win, if the win on this discard was obvious.

Hong Kong or Cantonese Mahjong: Probably the most common variant of the game, slightly different from the classic one in terms of scoring rules.

Sichuan Mahjong: A variant of mahjong that is gaining popularity, especially in the south of China, excludes the possibility of taking a bone from the horse, does not use the dice of the Red and Green Dragon, and some others. It plays very fast.

Taiwanese Mahjong: The prevailing version of the rules in Taiwan is that players initially have 16 dice, compared to 13 in other versions. There are also special bonuses for the Leader (East), and the ability to win multiple players with the last broken dice.

Japanese Mahjong (or "Riichi Mahjong" or simply "Riichi/Riichi"): A modern Japanese version of mahjong, popular in Japan and prevalent in video games. It uses a set of 136 bones (no flowers, seasons, or Jokers). It differs in the rules of counting and the unique rules of ri: riichi and dora. By agreement, the so-called aka-dors can be introduced into the game, for which the usual "fives" are replaced by red ones. In this way, the number of dice remains the same, but the number of dors increases by 3 if one red "five" of each suit is used, or by 4 if one red "five" of the so and mana suits and two "fives" of the pin are used.; In 2008, the first Riichi Mahjong Championship was held in Hanover^.

Korean Mahjong: Korean mahjong with and without the use of Seasons, with 104 bones, all four winds are usually present in the game. There must be at least 2 points or more wins. The South Korean variant of Mahjong contains some Chinese and Japanese combinations, some of which are not currently used, and contains some classic combinations. It is characterized by a very dynamic flow of the game. Korean mahjong is not widely used, and even in Korea it is rarely played according to these ^rules.

Western Classic Mahjong: A development of a simplified version of the rules common in America in the 1920s thanks to Joseph Park Babcock's book Joseph Park Babcock's Rules of Mah-Jongg. Today, the term refers to the Wright-Patterson rules used by the U.S. military, and other U.S. versions of the rules that are close to Babcock's.

American Mahjong: Standardized by the National Mahjong League and the American Mahjong Association a variant of the game that differs most from traditional (Chinese Classical) Mahjong. It uses the Joker dice, the Charleston rule, combinations of five or more chips, does not use Chow and the declaration of a standard hand. This leads some to consider American Mahjong to be a standalone game.

Sport Mahjong (also Mahjong Competition Rules, MCR, Chinese Official Rules, COR, Chinese Official, International Rules): A version of the rules developed in 1998–2000 in China and standardized by the International Mahjong Organization in 2006 as a set of rules for international competitions. Based on the rules of Chinese Classic Mahjong, played with a full classic set of 144 dice, points are awarded for hands containing one of 81 standardized combinations. There are no doublings, no "dead wall", no loose dice, some of the point combinations are unique.

Malaysian Mahjong: A simplified three-player variant that uses a set of 84 dice, including the Joker. The advantage of this version is a faster course of the game.

Singapore Mahjong: A variation of Mahjong common in Singapore, similar to Cantonese Mahjong. Distinctive features are the presence of unique bones of four animals (a cat, a mouse, a rooster and a centipede) and some changes in the counting rules, which allow under certain conditions to be calculated in the middle of the game.

Fujian Mahjong: A joker is used.

Vietnamese Mahjong: With 16 varieties of the joker.

Filipino Mahjong: With a Window Joker

Rules of the game

In different rules, the details vary, sometimes quite significantly, so here is only a general scheme of the game for most sets of rules and some of the most important options are indicated.

General Provisions

A game of mahjong is played by four players, with each player playing against everyone else. There are modifications to the rules for threesomes, but they are very unbalanced.
A game consists of one or more game sessions, each session consists of at least two rounds, and each round consists of at least four hands. The number of sessions is determined in advance. In official competitions, there may also be a time limit: the game ends after a certain amount of time, regardless of how many rounds have been played.

Preparation for the game

The position of the players at the table and the choice of the declarer (dealer) is determined by lots.
The bones are mixed in a closed form (pattern down) and a wall two bones high is laid out of them. The wall has the shape of a closed square, the sides of which are located opposite each of the players.
The roll of the dice determines the place of the break, starting from which the wall is dismantled during the game.
Players take an equal number of dice from the wall (usually 13) and place them vertically on the table, facing them. This set is called the player's hand. The dealer takes one dice more — this is due to the fact that the dealer moves first at the beginning of the hand and saves time on taking a tile from the wall after the start of the hand.

Giveaway

Players take turns, counterclockwise. The dealer acts first.
On each turn, the player adds a new bone to his hand from the edge of the wall (the wall is dismantled sequentially, from the previously selected break point, clockwise), and then must discard one of his dice (you can discard the one you just took). In this way, the player builds his hand by adding suitable dice and discarding inappropriate dice. The discarded dice are laid out open on the center of the table opposite the player. On the first turn, the dealer has one more tile than the others, so he does not take a tile from the wall, but simply discards one of the available tiles.
The winner of the hand is the player who manages to be the first to collect a "winning hand" - one of the special sets of dice defined by the rules. After collecting a winning hand, the player can open it and declare a win (Mahjong). The winning hand contains at least one more dice than the player has at all times, meaning it can only be received on your turn, after the dice have been drawn from the wall and before the discard. It is not necessary to declare a win, but if the player does not do so, he will be forced to fold one of the dice (and therefore "break" the winning hand) and continue playing. This may be necessary if a player needs to score more points than the currently winning hand gives to win the hand.
A player can get additional points by collecting one or more small groups (sets) during the hand:
- Chows are three consecutive dice of the same suit.
- Pang – three identical dice (either of the same denomination and suit, or three identical dragons or winds).
- A Kong is four identical tiles.

Having received one of these groups on the next turn, the player has the right to open (declare) it, for which he can be awarded additional points. An open set remains part of the player's hand, but the dice must not be discarded. An open set is placed face up in the right corner of the table.

Usually, the player, after collecting a cong, must take an additional tile from the wall. Most of the rules apply the principle "an undeclared kong is not a kong", according to which only the four identical bones that have been declared are recognized as a kong.

The hand ends when one of the players has built and announced a winning combination, or when the dice in the wall have run out.

The most characteristic differences in the gameplay in the different rules are in the following details:

Set of Winning Hands: In most rules, winning hands are those containing four sets and a couple of identical dice. Since a kong contains four dice instead of three, each kong in a hand increases the size of the hand by one dice, so winning hands can be of different sizes. In some of the rules, there are also special winning hands that do not fall under the general scheme.
Declaring a win or collecting a set on a fold: A number of rules allow you to use the dice from the discard: if one of the players discards a die on his turn that the other does not have enough to win or before the completion of one of the sets, the other can declare a win or a set, adding the discarded dice to his dice. Having collected a set on someone else's discard, the player is obliged to open it. In the event of a Kong, the player also takes an additional bone from the wall. Then, as after a normal turn, the player discards one of his dice, and the turn of the turn goes to the player to his right.; It is permissible to take the discarded dice only immediately after it has been discarded, i.e. before the person who has discarded it takes the dice from the wall. You can't take a dice from a discard without declaring a win or set. There are variants of the rules in which only the one who sits to the right of the discarder can declare the chow on the discard.; If more than one player claims the same rolled dice, priority is determined by the combination to be collected (usually the caller has an advantage over the Kong or Pang, the Kong or Pang has an advantage over the Chow) and the place (if the declarations are the same, either the closest or farthest from the discarder, counting counterclockwise, has the advantage).; If all three other players declare a win on the rolled dice, then the hand can be considered a draw.; A win on someone else's discard may be valued or paid differently than on a dice taken from the wall. A player who folds a dice on which another has declared a win may be additionally penalized.
Limits on winnings: Rules may restrict the announcement of winnings. For example, in Japanese mahjong there is a rule called "furiten", according to which a player has no right to declare a win on someone else's discard if he himself has already folded one of the expected dice and from that moment he could not change his expectation. There are restrictions related to the closed hand: if a player has already opened a chow, pang or kong on this hand, he loses the opportunity to win with some of the winning hands. In some variants of the rules, there is a "begging hand rule": the player who has one dice left to win must declare himself a "begging hand"; Without such a prior announcement, he is not entitled to declare a win, even after collecting a winning hand.
Set Announcements: Not all rules allow you to declare all three types of sets. In a number of rules, it is possible to modify an already announced three (pang) to a four (cong).
The Dead Wall: A small part of the wall (usually the size of one arm, i.e. 14 bones) is separated during construction. Dice from it are taken by players only in special situations, for example, after a cong is declared. The presence of a dead wall complicates the game: even at the end of the hand, it is impossible to say exactly which dice are left in the wall and will not be played.
Additional Rules: Some rule sets have original features. For example, in Rithi Mahjong, the player who has one dice left before the winning hand can call Rithi, betting a thousand points. For winning, this player will receive additional points, however, declaring riti is not safe: the player can no longer change his hand, and in the event that someone else wins this hand, the deposit of 1000 points goes to the winner, but at the same time, by announcing the riti, the player can win the hand even if he does not have any yaku in his hand.

Scoring

The points scored by the players are counted after each hand. The general scoring procedure is as follows:

Before the first game, players receive a certain number of points.
The winnings have a certain value, which is calculated from the composition of the winning combination.
The winning player receives the value of their winning combination.
Players add the points won to their principal and pay the loss from the same amount.

Variations in the counting order for different rules:

Cost of combinations: All the rules in their own way award points for winning hands, announced sets, and some additional factors. For example, many rules have some kind of "doubling combinations" — dice or sets of dice, if you have them in a winning hand, its value is doubled. According to a number of rules, only a hand that has at least one such combination wins.
Differences for the point guard: According to a number of rules, declarer gets more points than any other player if he wins, but if he loses, he has to pay more.
Discard Win Fee: In rules where a win can be declared on a discard, a condition may be used that the player who folds the winning dice pays for all. There may also be additional penalties for the player who folded the winning dice if the hand of the hand winner was open and the fold obviously gave him the opportunity to win.
Settlements between losers: According to some options, the losers pay only to the winner, according to others, the losers also pay among themselves.
Settlement in case of a tie: If the hand is not won, it may be voided, but points may also be awarded. Points for a tie can be awarded to the dealer and/or to those players who have a winning combination without a dice at the end of the round.

The points scored by the players can simply be recorded during the game, but traditionally, to simplify the counting procedure, special equipment is used: tokens or counting sticks indicating a certain number of points.

Game Summary

The game ends when all scheduled sessions have been played. If, at the end of the next hand, it turns out that one of the players did not have enough points (according to some rules, the player must "go into the red" for this, according to others, he must have 0 points or less), the game ends ahead of schedule.

In the case of a time limit, the game is stopped at the end of the limit. In this case, the current hand can be completed or canceled, it depends on the rules of the tournament.

The winner is the one who has the most points at the end of the game.

Tactics and strategy

The game of mahjong has the following features:

The influence of the random factor with a large size of the game set (136-144 dice versus 36-54 cards in most commercial card games).
The presence of several winning options, the ability to switch from one expected option to another during the game.
Players can use the broken dice.
Different costs of different options for winning a hand.

General course of the game

The presence of the randomness factor limits the predictability of the game. Even the best professionals, playing against much weaker opponents, cannot guarantee winning all hands - with a certain amount of luck, a beginner in a single game can defeat an experienced player. Therefore, the class of the game is primarily expressed in the ability to determine the probability of a particular outcome and, according to the situation, either to take risks for the sake of a highly probable big win in a favorable position, or to strive to minimize losses when there is little or no chance of winning. The large number of tiles in the set further increases the uncertainty.

Having received the initial set of dice when dealing, the player tries to turn it into one of the winning hands with his moves. At the same time, he must keep track of the open dice, predict the composition of the opponents' hands based on them and prevent the development of their hands. With a successful development, the player's hand after some time comes to a state where he only needs to receive one specific dice before declaring a win. This is called waiting. The waiting player is one step away from winning the hand. When several players are waiting at the same time, the first player to receive the expected dice from the wall or from the discard of one of the opponents wins in the end.

If the possibility of winning with a die from the wall is determined by luck, then a win on a discard may be the result of carelessness or lack of professionalism on the part of the opponent who folded the expected dice. In order to avoid being carried "into the hand" of the opponent, the player must be able to "read the discard" - by the dice discarded by the opponent determine what is left in the opponent's hands.

Expectations and their types

When the player has to take the last dice to complete a winning combination, this game state is called tempai. A player can wait for one particular dice to appear to complete a winning hand. Such an expectation is called "one-sided" and, in general, is unlikely: the appearance of the desired bone is entirely left to chance.

Due to the precariousness of one-sided expectations, players tend to build sets of dice that can be turned into as many winning combinations as possible. In such cases, the player does not wait for one particular tile to appear, but for one of two, three or more tiles. If none of the expected dice are out of play yet, this expectation is called a multi-sided expectation.

The difference in the value of winning hands requires the player to consider the price of the possible winnings. In some cases, the player has to give up a more probable expectation in favor of a less probable one, but in case of a win, the one gives a more expensive hand. Another reason for refusing the best wait may be a situation where in order to save it, the player is forced to fold a dice that is highly likely to be used by one of the opponents to win.

One-sided expectations include edge expectation (for example, for set 1, 2 wait 3 and, respectively, for set 8, 9 waiting 7), waiting in the middle or in the hole (for set 1, 3 waiting 2) and waiting in pairs, when 4 sets and one unpaired die are collected in the hand.

One of the least likely cases of waiting is waiting on one particular die, when all but one of its dice instances are either out of play or in players' open sets (hellish waiting) because that die can be used by one of the players face-down, is in a dead wall, or has not been reached by the other player's turn.

If you win for uncomfortable waiting, additional points are awarded.

Reset reading

Being able to take a missing tile from a discard means that the player, when folding the dice, has to assess how likely it is to play into the hands of one of the opponents. Skilled play requires careful observation of the discard, the ability to determine what is in the hands of opponents. Determining the composition of an opponent's hand by what they fold is sometimes referred to as "folding reading." There is a whole set of special heuristics that allow you to read players' folds. For the most part, they are based on the well-known principles of collecting sets and hands, and proceed from the assumption that the player will primarily fold the dice that he considers safe and useless for himself.

Mahjong Solitaire

As with cards, there is a variant of the game for one person with mahjong dice – Mahjong Solitaire. The principle of construction and the mechanism of the game is very similar to the card one: a certain configuration of pre-mixed dice is laid out on the table (there are several dozen classic layouts, most of them are multi-layered). The goal of the game is to completely dismantle the structure by removing pairs of identical tiles from it, following certain rules. As with solitaire card games, not all layout options are solvable.

Almost all computer games for one person with the name "mahjong" implement mahjong solitaire, and not a game of mahjong for several opponents. In them, the user sets the initial conditions (type of configuration, difficulty), the program generates the configuration, and the player disassembles it, indicating the pairs of tiles to be removed with the mouse.

Divination with mahjong dice

There is a technique of divination (predicting the future or getting answers to problematic questions) with the help of mahjong dice. The technique of divination is similar to the technique of divination on cards. Each bone is assigned a certain symbolic meaning. For divination, a question is formulated, the diviner randomly selects a certain number of bones from a complete or limited set of bones, lays them out in the form of a figure, and then opens the dice in a certain order and forms a prediction based on the symbolism and position of the bones in the layout (see, for example,).

Unicode characters

The Unicode standard for Mahjong tiles has a range of codes from U+01F000 to U+01F02F^.

Reflection in culture

Touhai Densetsu Akagi: Yami ni Maiorita Tensai
Saki
Mudazumo Naki Kaikaku
Legendary Gambler Tetsuya

Computer games

The Isle of Four Winds: Rune War: A mixture of mahjong and turn-based strategy^.

A mahjong scene plays a key role in the film Crazy Rich Asians^.

Books

In Agatha Christie's detective novel "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", there is a separate chapter "An Evening at Mahjong" that mentions the rules and terms of the game. In the course of mahjong, the heroes share their opinions about the crime committed.