Best for groups new to mahjong who want the canonical four-player rules, fast scoring with real escalation, and no wild tiles or printed card to memorize.
Hong Kong uses the full three-suit base set, all of the honours, and one bonus group (flowers and seasons). Nothing is dropped and there are no wild tiles – this is the plain, complete set most people picture when they think of mahjong.
The goal. A winning hand is 14 tiles: four sets, plus one pair – or Thirteen Orphans, the one structural alternative. Between turns you hold 13; the 14th is the tile that completes your hand, whether you draw it yourself or claim it from a discard.
Any combination of these counts. Your hand does not need one of each.
One special shape skips this four-sets-plus-pair structure entirely: Thirteen Orphans, one of every terminal and honour with one of them paired. Defined fully as a scoring pattern in Section 07.
To win, your hand must pass both checks
A hand can pass Shape and still fail Value: a structurally complete hand under the gate – four random chows and a pair scoring nothing, a "chicken hand" (雞糊) – is not a legal win. Keep improving it.
Hong Kong is one of five variants in this book with a true reserved dead wall (alongside Riichi, Sanma, MCR, and Singaporean). Others replace straight from the live wall's tail with no carved-out reserve.
After any claim, the claimed tile joins the exposed set, the claimer discards, and play resumes from the claimer. Players skipped by the claim lose that turn.
This catalog is your hand's Value, itemized. Every pattern below adds faan, and clearing the win gate means qualifying for at least 3 of them: keep this section open while you decide what your hand is trying to become.
Direct settlement: no starting point pool, no running bank. Each hand closes the moment someone wins. Every win produces a faan (番) count from the patterns it satisfies; the faan-laak table converts that count into a base value, which sets the payout.
| Faan | Base |
|---|---|
| 3 | 8 |
| 4–6 | 16 |
| 7–9 | 32 |
| 10+ (laak) | 64 |
Below the 3-faan gate (for tables that drop it): 2 faan = base 4, 1 faan = base 2, 0 faan = base 1. A common table variant doubles the dealer's stake on every hand East sits as dealer; the casual rules on file do not include this by default.
Yes. Unlike several other variants, Hong Kong's All Sequences pattern doesn't restrict the pair at all – any tile works, honors included. You just need four chows and a pair, with no triplets or kongs anywhere in the hand.
No – it scores the same whether you win by discard or self-draw. Self-draw is a separate bonus faan (自摸) that stacks on top if it applies; it isn't a requirement for All Sequences itself.
Depends which ruleset you're playing. In the casual game taught as this chapter's baseline: no, same head-bump rule as most other variants – only the player nearer in turn order after the discarder wins. But the Hong Kong Mahjong Association's competition rules explicitly override this: under HKMA tournament rules, two or even three players actually can all win off the same discard (雙響 / 三響 – “double hit” / “triple hit”), each collecting their own hand separately. If you're playing casually, expect one winner; under tournament rules, check this override is in effect first.
No. Robbing the kong only applies to a kong made by adding a tile to an already-exposed pung – that's the visible moment being robbed. A concealed kong is placed all at once from your own hand, so there's no equivalent “adding a tile” moment for anyone to claim.
East keeps the deal on both a win and a dead draw – full stop, no exceptions based on hand status. Unlike Riichi, where repeating as dealer adds a small per-hand bonus (honba), Hong Kong adds nothing extra for the repeat itself. A common (but non-default) table variant has the dealer pay and collect double on every hand they sit as dealer instead – the casual rules on file don't include it, so treat it as something to agree on, not assume.
No winner, no payment – a dead draw is simply a dead draw, with no other reveal or settlement step. East keeps the deal and a fresh hand begins.
Depends on the table. This chapter's casual baseline has everyone pay: the discarder settles at double, and the other two players each settle at single. But a widespread alternative – and the actual HKMA tournament rule – is “full responsibility” (全銃): the discarder alone settles the entire amount, and the other two pay nothing. These give very different incentives around what's safe to discard, so it's worth confirming which one your table uses before you start.
No – a limit hand skips the faan count entirely and settles straight at the ceiling row of the faan-laak table, regardless of what else the hand might separately add up to. Once you know a hand qualifies as a laak (Big Three Dragons, All Honours, Nine Gates, and so on), there's nothing left to count.
Heavenly Hand (天糊) is the dealer winning on their own freshly dealt hand, before anyone – including the dealer – has discarded a single tile. Earthly Hand (地糊) is a non-dealer winning specifically off the dealer's very first discard. Both are limit hands.
Mostly yes – only the flower and season numbered for your own seat wind score (1 faan each), plus 2 faan bonuses for holding the complete set of all four flowers or all four seasons. But here's the genuinely surprising one: holding zero flowers or seasons the entire hand also scores 1 faan on its own. So bonus tiles aren't strictly a “the more the better” mechanic – going without them entirely is its own small reward.
This is a guide to Hong Kong Mahjong, built from community-sourced Hong Kong mahjong references, cross-checked against the HKMA tournament rules where the two overlap.
Played it differently at your table, or think there's a more common way to run a rule? Let us know – genuinely appreciated, and repeated feedback can shape a revision.
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