Mahjong - Four Winds Rule Collection - European Classical: Tiles

Four Winds Rule Collection – European Classical

1. Tiles

The complete Mah Jong tile set consists of 144 tiles of which 136 are regular playing tiles and 8 are bonus tiles (Flowers and Seasons). The bonus tiles are optional and normally not used by advanced players. The regular tiles are divided into two main groups: Suits and Honors.

1.1 Suits

There are three suits: Bamboos, Characters and Dots. Each suit consists of 36 tiles: four 1’s, four 2’s, and so on up to 9. Total of suit tiles is thus 108.

**Bamboos (a.k.a. Sticks, Ch. sou-zu)**

**Characters (a.k.a. Wans or Craks; Ch. man-zu),**

**Dots (a.k.a. Balls or Circles, Ch. pin-zu)**

Suit tiles from 2 to 8 are called Simples (or Minor tiles, as opposed to Terminals and Honors, which are sometimes called Major tiles), 1’s and 9’s are called Terminals. Sets composed of Terminals pay generally more than sets composed of Simples.

1.2 Honors

Honors consist of Dragons and Winds. There are three Dragons four of each: Green Dragon, Red Dragon and White Dragon, and four Winds, four of each: East, South, West and North. Total of honor tiles is thus 28.

Dragons

Winds

Letters on the Dragon tiles are based on the Chinese terms fa (meaning "flourishing manifestation" and symbolizing Earth), chun (meaning "centre" and symbolizing Man), and pai pan (meaning "white plank", "white tile").

1.3 Flowers and Seasons

In addition to the regular tiles, four Flowers and four Seasons can be used as bonus tiles. Flowers and Seasons are not used in tile combinations: when received, they are immediately exposed, put aside and replaced with regular tiles. Each bonus tile is associated with a wind as follows:

Flowers: Plum (East), Orchid (South), Chrysanthemum (West) and Bamboo (North).

Seasons: Spring (East), Summer (South), Autumn (West) and Winter (North).

Note: Some European rules might specify non-classical variations to the use of bonus tiles. E.g., in Italian Mah Jong a player is allowed to keep the Flowers and Seasons temporarily in hand though a winning hand cannot contain them (that is, a player must replace the Flowers and Seasons with regular tiles in order to be able to collect a legal winning hand, but he is not forced to replace them immediately as they are picked).

1.4 Tile identifiers

When the game was introduced in the United States, numbers and letters were added on the tiles to make them easier to recognize. In Asian tile sets identifiers are normally used only in bonus tiles.