MJ Rush › How to play
How to play Hong Kong Mahjong
A plain-English guide to the most popular Mahjong variant: the tiles, how to build a winning hand, the flow of a game, and how faan scoring works. New to the game? You can learn every rule below hands-on in MJ Rush's guided Practice Mode.
The goal in one sentence
Hong Kong Mahjong is a four-player game of skill and luck. On your turn you draw a tile and discard one, slowly shaping your 13 tiles toward a complete hand. You win the moment your hand forms four sets and a pair — a total of 14 tiles — and meets the table's minimum score.
The tiles
A full set has 144 tiles. You only need to recognise a few groups:
- Three suits, each numbered 1–9 (four copies of every tile):
Dots (筒), Bamboo (索),
and Characters (萬).
六萬
- Winds (風) — East, South, West, North.
東南西北
- Dragons (箭) — Red (中),
Green (發), and White (白).
中發
- Bonus tiles — four Flowers and four Seasons. These don't form
sets; they're set aside and can earn a small bonus.
梅春
Winds and dragons together are called honor tiles. Because they have no neighbours, they can only be used in pairs and triplets, never in runs.
The four kinds of set
A winning hand is four sets plus one pair. The sets you can build are:
- Chow (上 / sheung) — three consecutive
tiles in the same suit, e.g. 4-5-6 Bamboo. Honors can't form chows.
- Pung (碰) — three identical tiles,
e.g. three Red Dragons.
中中中
- Kong (槓) — four identical tiles. A kong
counts as one set; you draw a replacement tile whenever you declare one.
八萬八萬八萬八萬
- The pair (眼 / "eyes") — two identical
tiles that complete the hand.
How a game flows
- Each player starts with 13 tiles. The dealer (East) takes the first turn.
- On your turn you draw one tile from the wall, then discard one face-up. Play passes counter-clockwise.
- You can claim a discard out of turn to complete a set:
- Anyone may claim for a pung, kong, or to win.
- Only the player to the discarder's right may claim for a chow.
- The hand ends when someone wins, or in a draw ("goulash") if the wall runs out. Then the next hand begins and the deal rotates.
Winning & the minimum faan
You win either by drawing your final tile yourself — a self-draw (自摸) — or by claiming the exact tile someone else discards. But a complete hand isn't always enough: most Hong Kong tables require a minimum of 3 faan (起糊 / "going out") to win. Faan are scoring points your hand earns from special patterns, so part of the skill is steering toward a hand that's worth enough to declare.
How faan scoring works
Each scoring pattern in your hand is worth a number of faan (番). You add them up, and the total converts to a payout — each faan roughly doubles the stake, up to an agreed limit hand (滿糊). Win by self-draw and all three opponents pay; win on a discard and conventions vary on who pays. Common faan values look like this:
| Pattern | Faan |
|---|---|
| Self-draw (自摸) — you draw your own winning tile | 1 |
| All Chows (平糊) — every set is a run, plus a pair | 1 |
| Dragon pung (三元) — a triplet of any dragon (each) | 1 |
| Seat or round wind pung — a triplet of your wind (each) | 1 |
| All Pungs (對對糊) — four triplets and a pair | 3 |
| Mixed One Suit (混一色) — one suit plus honors | 3 |
| Pure One Suit (清一色) — a single suit, no honors | 7 |
| Limit hands (滿糊) — e.g. Thirteen Orphans, All Kongs | max |
Exact faan values and the limit vary by house rules; the table above reflects the widely used Hong Kong "old style" scoring that MJ Rush follows.
A quick glossary
- Faan (番) — a scoring point; more faan means a bigger win.
- Pung / Kong / Chow — triplet / four-of-a-kind / run.
- Self-draw (自摸) — winning on a tile you drew yourself.
- Honors — the wind and dragon tiles.
- Ready hand (聽牌) — one tile away from winning.
Learn by playing
The fastest way to learn is at the table. MJ Rush's Practice Mode is a guided solo game against AI opponents — no coins or rank on the line — so you can try claiming, building sets, and reading the discards at your own pace. When you're ready, jump into a Quick Match against real players.
Frequently asked
Which Mahjong variant is this?
Full Hong Kong Mahjong — four players, traditional tiles, and faan-based scoring. It differs from Japanese Riichi, Taiwanese 16-tile, and American Mahjong in its tile count, scoring, and minimum to win.
Do I need to memorise every scoring pattern?
No. You can win with simple hands, and the app totals the faan for you. Knowing the common patterns above just helps you aim for bigger wins.
Can I learn without risking anything?
Yes — Practice Mode is solo against bots with nothing on the line. See Support for more on game modes.