Scoring and table rules

The rules that come up in the last five minutes of a hand, when the table gets quiet and everyone is counting.

Who pays what

Every hand on the card has a value printed beside it. When someone declares mah jongg, the other three players each pay that value, with these multipliers:

• Thrown winning tile. The player who discarded the winning tile pays double. The other two pay the printed value.
• Self-picked. If the winner drew the winning tile from the wall, nobody fed it, so everyone pays double.
• Jokerless. A winning hand with no jokers in it doubles the payment again. Singles and Pairs hands are the exception: they can never hold a joker, so they get no jokerless bonus.

The bonuses stack. Self-picked and jokerless means each player pays four times the printed value.

Calling: how late is too late

You may call a discard until the next player has drawn a tile and racked it. After that the discard is gone. Speak up quickly, and say the tile's name when you throw so others have the chance to call.

Calling replaces your draw. Lay the completed pung, kong or quint face up on your rack, then discard, and play continues to your right from you.

When two players want the same discard for an exposure, it goes to whoever is next in turn after the discarder. A call for mah jongg beats any exposure.

Exposures are final

Once you have discarded after exposing a group, it is locked. A pung never becomes a kong later; the fourth tile stays on your rack or goes to the discards. The one change still allowed is a joker swap: someone hands you the real tile and takes the joker.

Dead hands

A hand that can no longer legally win is dead. The usual causes: an exposure that matches no hand on the card, exposing a group that makes the hand impossible, or declaring mah jongg with a hand that is wrong. A dead hand stays at the table to draw and discard, but cannot win, and still pays the winner like everyone else (double, if it threw the winning tile). Check the card before you expose, not after.

A wrong mah jongg

Once a wrong hand is laid down, it is dead. The other three keep playing, and the player who called it still pays whoever eventually wins. Be sure before you say the word.

Wall games

If the wall runs out before anyone wins, nobody pays. The tiles are reshuffled and the next hand is dealt. Wall games happen more often than beginners expect, which is why chasing a hopeless hand to the end costs nothing, and also earns nothing.

Safe tiles and hot tiles

Late in a hand, defense matters more than your own rack. A hot tile is one that plainly helps someone, usually because their exposures point at it: two even pungs on a rack means every even tile you throw is risky. A safe tile is one already discarded twice with no reaction, or one that clashes with every exposure on the table. Keeping a safe tile in reserve for the endgame is a habit worth building early.