One of China’s most popular games is Mahjong. If you enter China and visit a park or a garden of a temple, you will find many young and old people playing mahjong in tables lined up one by one. This is a game made up of four players which involves all kinds of skills such as mathematics, strategy, and of course a little bit of luck. It has become a very popular gambling game throughout Asia as well as the Western world with thousands of mahjong sets and tiles being sold in the market. The game can be played with either a set of Mahjong tiles or Mahjong playing cards. For people who normally travel, they would usually bring a Mahjong set as it takes up less space in their carry-on bags. Overall, it’s a fun game that you can play with your family and friends plus the suspense over the pot money you can earn is exciting.
So how does the game of Mahjong work? Up to four players can participate in Mahjong and each player is dealt either with thirteen or sixteen tiles in a hand. Each turn involves a player drawing a tile or a card from the draw pile. In the case of Mahjong tiles, the player draws from the “wall” and places it in his or her hand. After this, the player will choose a tile in his or her hand and discards it from the table. This signals the end of the turn and the next player begins his or her move. Throughout the game, the number of tiles maintained or held by each player should always be either 13 or 16 pieces. It is important that every player discards one tile from the hand after picking one up or he or she is disqualified from winning.
Each Mahjong tile has a suit and each suit is money-based. There are 5 different suits, namely stones, bamboos, numbers, honors, and flowers. Honors are divided into wind tiles and dragon tiles.
Stones are also known as wheels or circles and are numbered from one to nine based on the number of stones in each tile. Each stone represents a copper coin.
Bamboos are also numbered from one to nine and are based on the number of bamboo sticks in each tile. Each bamboo stick represents a string of 100 copper coins.
Numbers represent ten thousand coins and are labeled from one to nine.
Wind tiles under the Honor suit are labeled as East Wind, South Wind, North Wind, and West Wind.
Dragon tiles under the Honor suit are labeled as Red Dragon, White Dragon, and Green Dragon. Red means passing or clearing the way to officialdom, green means wealth, and white means freedom.
Flowers are the last suit or category and contain various artworks. The function as bonus points though many people prefer not to use these tiles as they make it easier for their opponents to win.