How Hong Kong scoring works
Every pattern in a Hong Kong hand is worth a number of faan (番, "doubles"). You add them up; if the total reaches the table's minimum you may declare the win, and the total is capped at the table's limit. A points table then turns faan into money or chips. The Hong Kong Mahjong Association (HKMA, 香港麻雀協會), which runs competitions in Hong Kong, plays a three-faan minimum, a ten-faan limit, and makes the player who discarded the winning tile pay for the whole hand. Unlike riichi, the dealer gets no scoring advantage in its rules.
Home games vary more than any other kind of mahjong: the minimum, the limit, whether flowers are used, how points grow and who pays on a discard all change from table to table. That is why the table on this page is editable. It starts from the HKMA's, and you can set your house's numbers before the first hand.
The faan list
These are the HKMA's items. Items marked "flowers" apply only when the table plays with the flower tiles; the concealed-hand faan applies only when it does not.
| Pattern | Chinese | Faan |
|---|---|---|
| All sequences (common hand) | 平糊 | 1 |
| Self-drawn win | 自摸 | 1 |
| Concealed hand, no calls (no flowers only) | 門前清 | 1 |
| Each dragon pung or kong | 三元牌 | 1 |
| Pung of your seat wind or the prevailing wind (both at once: 2) | 門風 / 圈風 | 1 |
| Only terminals and honours, all pungs (also scores all pungs) | 花么 | 1 |
| Robbing a kong; winning on a kong replacement; winning on the last wall tile | 搶槓 / 槓上自摸 / 海底撈月 | 1 each |
| Flowers: each flower of your seat; no flowers at all; a complete set of four | 正花 / 無花 / 一台花 | 1 each |
| Mixed one suit (one suit plus honours) | 混一色 | 3 |
| All pungs | 對對糊 | 3 |
| Small three dragons (plus 2 for the dragon pungs: 5) | 小三元 | 3 |
| Seven flowers, which wins at once (flowers) | 小花糊 | 3 |
| Great three dragons (plus 3 for the dragon pungs: 8) | 大三元 | 5 |
| Pure one suit | 清一色 | 7 |
| Limit hands: all honours, small or great four winds, all concealed pungs, all kongs, all terminals, thirteen orphans, nine gates, heavenly or earthly hand, two kongs in a row, eight flowers | 例牌 | 10 |
From faan to points
The HKMA table pays 32 points for a three-faan win on a discard, then 64, 96, 128, 192, 256, 384 and 512 up to the ten-faan limit. That pattern, doubling up to four faan and then rising by a half and a third in turn, is called half-spicy (半辣). Full-spicy (全辣) doubles at every faan. On a self-draw each of the three other players pays half the discard value, so the winner collects one and a half times as much: 16 from each at three faan.
Two HKMA payment rules are easy to miss. A win by robbing a kong is paid like a self-draw, all of it by the player who added to the kong. And a player can become liable (包): if you discard the tile that lets someone make a fourth exposed set, or their third dragon pung, you pay for everyone when that player then wins by self-draw.
Some tables split a discard win instead: the discarder pays half and the other two a quarter each. Pick "discarder pays half" to use that.
Two worked examples
The example above. A hand of one suit with honours (3 faan), including a pung of red dragons (1), won by self-draw (1): 5 faan. In the HKMA table 5 faan is worth 96, so each of the other three pays 48 and the winner collects 144.
Small three dragons on a discard. All pungs (3), two dragon pungs (2) and a pair of the third dragon, small three dragons (3): 8 faan, so the discarder pays 256. Win it by self-draw instead and it is 9 faan, 192 from each player.
Special wins in the HKMA rules
A few wins have rules of their own. You can rob a kong only when another player adds a tile to a pung they already showed; a concealed kong can be robbed only to complete thirteen orphans. A win on a kong replacement counts only for the tile drawn straight after the kong: if that replacement is a flower and you replace it again, the next tile is an ordinary self-draw. In a flower game, the seventh flower wins at once for three faan, but only if you declare it immediately instead of drawing a replacement; all eight flowers is a limit hand.
Agree these before the first hand
Most arguments at a Hong Kong table come from house rules nobody stated. Settle five things before anyone touches a tile: the minimum faan (three in the HKMA rules), the limit (ten), whether flowers are in play, how points grow (half-spicy or full-spicy) and who pays on a discard (the discarder for everything, or half). Then set the same numbers in the points table above, so everyone's arithmetic matches.
Mistakes to avoid
- Counting the concealed-hand faan in a flower game. The HKMA list gives it only when flowers are not used; with flowers, "no flowers" earns the faan instead.
- Adding faan to a limit hand. A limit hand scores the limit, nothing more.
- Forgetting the minimum. Under a three-faan minimum, a hand with two faan cannot win, however good it looks. Count before you call.
- Counting the dragon pungs twice. Small and great three dragons already tell you to add the pungs; do not add a third time.
New to the game? How to play mahjong walks through a first game, and the tile guide names every tile, flowers and seasons included. To pick seats or the first dealer at random, One Click Sprout rolls dice for you.