Mahjong 101 Installment One

As promised (to a kid), here is the mahjong 101 guide for beginners. The following installments and that below are typed out by me and is by no means an official guide. Any reproduction of any part of the guide is at your own risk. Do not attempt to quote this document because none of it will be acceptable at the table. I'll skip the part on the history and go straight to the practical guide.

To start playing, you'll need a set of titles which can be purchased from some shops in the neighbourhood. If you cannot find any within your new town, try visiting the pearl centre at china town, saw a few there. These sets come at various prices from the cheapest travel set to the exquisite white gold and ivory ones. There are couple of standard sizes with the smallest for travelling at about less than an inch in height to those standard size at about slightly over an inch. Then of course you'll the table which also comes at various price ranges. A standard foldable one with plastic surface (those removing the need for paper) will set you back by about $40. Personally, I prefer those with paper top and the good old thumb tacks to keep the whities in place.

Each set of mahjong titles has at least 136 titles to 148 titles. The ones which i usually play with consist of 148. The break down is pretty simple. There are three suits to begin with; Circles (Tong zi), Bamboos (suo zi) and Character (Wan zi). For each suit, there are a total of 36 titles with numbers one to nine, each number repeating four times (e.g. 4 one circle titles, 4 two circle titles...4 nine circle titles.) Each title can be identified by counting the number of patterns on the face or by the inscription except that of the first bamboo which has been traditionally characterised by a bird. The three suits with their repetition tiles account for 108 titles.

Following closely to the suits, there are the "big" titles known more appropriately as the Wind titles. They can be easily identified on a compass as East (dong), South (nan), West (xi) and North (bei). Similarly, each of these are repeated four times and in addition to the suits, totals up to 124 titles. Also commonly categorised with the "big" titles are the Dragon titles which consists of Red title (hong zhong), Green title (fa cai) and White title (bai ban), all in sets of four. The calculator now reads 136 and is now the minimum no. of titles you need to start a game.

Then there are the perks which adds to the "tai" or score of the player - flower titles and animal titles. Traditionally, the flower titles are in sets of two and number off 1 to 4. One set of the flowers is red and the other is blue. The way the flowers and animals add to the points will be discussed under the points section later. There are only four animal titles, namely the cat, the rat, the chicken and the centipede. Adding these to the number we have earlier gives the grand total of 148.

Before you start the game proper, it is only courteous to visit the loo, off the handphones and get the necessary snacks and beverages. Then, pick out the four diffferent wind titles and lay them down. One of the player throws the dice and the persons on the left of the thrower shuffles the four titles. The shuffler then deals a title first to the player which the dice indicates and the rest follow in counterclockwise. The wind titles will determine the seating of the players with primary choice sitting on the shoulders of the "dong". After choosing the seats, the players will sit themselves down and the wind indicator (usually triangularly shaped) is placed on the right hand corner of the "bei" player.

The wind titles have special meaning to the game, in particular the prevailing wind and the game wind. The prevailing wind will be that indicated by the triangular thingie besides the "bei" player while the game wind follows that of the player. Each mahjong round consists of four prevailing winds (dong, nan, xi, bei) and each prevailing wind consists of at least four game winds. I know it's complicated but stick with me here. The game wind indicates who is the banker or the dong player, changing which only when some player other than the banker winds or when the game runs into dead end and none of the players "gang"-ing (term explained later). The nan player sits on the right of the dong and the xi on the right of the nan. Each prevailing wind ends when the original "bei" player passes his banker dice over to the original "dong" player. The dice always sit on the left of the game wind player for clarity (pls take note).

The game starts by shuffling or "washing" the titles. Some believe that certain techniques of washing the titles bring good luck to the player but i believe it is just to randomise the titles. Do not attribute too much of the "luck" element in this game because truthfully, there isn't any. Whether you win or you lose depends a whole lot on your skills and secondarily on that of your opponents. You may have lousy cards for all the rounds but losing a few dims or your whole bank account depends on your skills. More on that later.

Titles are arranged in double decker fashion with 19 columns for the banker or the "dong" player and the player opposite the banker (the "xi" player). The remaining two takes 18 columns of two rows of titles. They are lined up in rose pattern (google it if you have to, i can't describe with mere words) and the dice is thrown.