How to Score Hong Kong Mahjong

Scoring a hand in four steps

1. Check the shape. A winning hand is four sets and a pair. A set is a chow, three in a row of one suit (), a pung, three of a kind (), or a kong, four of a kind.
2. Add up the faan. Find every pattern from the table below that your hand has, and add them. If a bigger pattern contains a smaller one, usually only the bigger one counts: a Full Flush is 7, not 7 plus the 3 for a Half Flush. The table notes the exceptions.
3. Check the minimum. Most tables need 3 faan, and a complete hand worth less can’t be called. That’s the rule that catches new players most often.
4. Look up the payout. Your table’s payout ladder turns faan into points.

The faan table

Most Hong Kong tables use these values, and so does Mahjong Sensei. Where tables differ, it’s usually over flowers, the limit (the most a hand can score), and a few rare hands.

How you won

These score how the hand finished, not what’s in it.

Flowers and seasons

Many home tables score flowers. The HKMA rules don’t count them.

Dragons and winds

A pung of dragons always scores. A pung of winds scores only if it’s your seat’s wind or the round’s.

What the hand is made of

Flushes, all pungs, and the other patterns built from the tiles themselves.

Limit hands

Rare hands worth 10 or 13 faan, capped at your table’s limit. Only the biggest one counts.

One hand, added up

You’re sitting East in the South round with no flowers, and you draw the winning tile yourself.

• Dragon Pung 番子: 1
• Seat Wind Pung 門風: 1
• No Flowers 無花: 1
• Self-Draw 自摸: 1
• Fully Concealed 門前清: 1

That’s 5 faan, from five patterns worth one each. HKMA rules don’t count flowers, so No Flowers drops out and it’s 4.

Why a complete hand can’t win

Four sets and a pair is the shape of a winning hand, but it isn’t a win until it’s worth the table’s minimum, usually 3 faan. Short of that, you can’t call it, and play goes on.

A chicken hand

Three suits, three chows and a pung, and a flower for another seat. None of it scores, so it’s a chicken hand (雞糊), worth 0. Keep the same shape in one suit with a pung of winds and it’s a Half Flush, worth 3:

Short off a discard

At a table that counts flowers, All Sequences and No Flowers make 2. Off someone’s discard, that’s not enough. Drawn from the wall, Self-Draw makes it 3 and it wins. That’s why players sometimes let a winning discard go by and wait to draw it themselves. Under HKMA rules it’s 1 off a discard and 2 drawn, so it can’t win either way.

The wrong wind

A pung of winds only counts if it’s your seat’s wind or the round’s. Sitting East in the East round, three Norths score nothing, and this is a chicken hand. Three Easts would score 2 faan, seat wind and round wind, and still be one short.

Ask before you play

Seven pairs is a winning hand in other styles, but at most Hong Kong tables it isn’t one. Before the first hand, ask four things: the minimum, whether flowers count, whether seven pairs can win, and whether the limit is 10 faan, as HKMA plays, or 13, as many home tables do.

From faan to points

Faan turn into points on a ladder that climbs fast. Half-spicy (半辣) doubles with each faan up to 4, then every two faan. Full-spicy (全辣) doubles with every faan.

Off a discard, the HKMA rule is that the player who threw the winning tile pays it all: a 3-faan hand on the half-spicy ladder costs them 8. At many home tables everyone pays instead: the discarder 16, the other two 8 each. When you draw the winning tile yourself, everyone pays at every table.