Cantonese Mahjong Rules

A practical guide to Hong Kong / Cantonese Mahjong rules, winning hands, flowers, and faan scoring.

Cantonese Mahjong and Hong Kong Mahjong

Cantonese Mahjong usually refers to the Hong Kong style of Mahjong played in Cantonese-speaking families and communities. It uses the full 144-tile set, including suits, winds, dragons, flowers, and seasons. Scoring is based on faan, a point value assigned to patterns in the winning hand.

Table Mahjong uses this Hong Kong / Cantonese ruleset as its foundation, with automatic scoring so beginners can learn without memorizing every payment detail first.

Basic Winning Shape

A normal winning hand has 14 tiles arranged as:

• Four sets: each set is a chow, pong, or kong.
• One pair: two identical tiles, often called the eyes.

A chow is three consecutive suited tiles. A pong is three identical tiles. A kong is four identical tiles, declared as a special set with a replacement draw.

Claiming Discards

When a player discards, other players may be able to claim that tile. Win has the highest priority. Pong and Kong can be claimed by any player. Chow can only be claimed by the next player in turn order. Table Mahjong shows eligible claim buttons automatically.

Faan Scoring

Faan is the score value of a winning hand. Simple bonuses include self-draw, dragon triplets, seat wind triplets, prevailing wind triplets, and flower or season tiles. Bigger patterns include all pongs, mixed one-suit, clean one-suit, all honours, and limit hands.

• 1 faan: common bonuses like a dragon triplet, self-draw, or matching flower.
• 3 faan: common strong hands like all pongs or mixed one-suit.
• 7 faan: pure one-suit hands in many Hong Kong scoring tables.
• 13 faan: limit hands such as Thirteen Orphans or Heavenly Hand.

Flowers and Seasons

Flower and Season tiles are bonus tiles. When drawn, they are revealed and replaced from the end of the wall. They do not stay in the concealed hand, but they can add faan at the end of the round.

Practice Online

The fastest way to learn Cantonese Mahjong rules is to play hands and see how scoring resolves. Solo mode lets you practice against AI, while private rooms let you play with family or friends once you are comfortable.