Rule presets

This rule preset represents Hong Kong style Mah Jong (also known as Chinese Old Style or Hong Kong Old Style), which is a sort of plain vanilla version of modern Chinese Mah Jong and probably the most popular version of Mah Jong played today.

In Western introductions to the game the later developments of Mah Jong (both in China and elsewhere) have often been considered as a degradation of the classical rules, resulting from the popularization of the game in the hands of non-educated players not aware of the underlying classical culture and philosophical and symbolical aspects of the game. But it seems that the classical Mah Jong continued to develop in a direction that is known as “Old-Style” and “New-Style” already before the Second World War, and above all amongst the upper class of Shanghai and Peking. This development continued later in Hong Kong and Taiwan (where a special 16-tile version of the game was developed) and today the classical Mah Jong has practically no adherents in the Asian countries.

The innovations of the “Old-Style” are mainly related to the payoff scheme. First, only the winner is paid (settlement of scores between the losers has been abandoned). In addition, East does not pay and receive double as in the classical rules. Instead, a player going out self-drawn is rewarded (each loser pays double the winner's final score). Furthermore, the discarder of the winning tile pays twice as much as other losers individually.

As for scoring system, point scoring for basic sets has been completely abandoned along with disposal of the point unit. Doubles, or faan, on the other hand, no longer multiply scores linearly, but in a way that is regulated by a settling table. A concept of multiple limits (laak) is also introduced. The scoring patterns, however, are pretty much the same as in the classical rules (excepting the point-scoring bonus for ways of going out, double for Three concealed triplets, and Limit hands Fully Concealed Suit Hand and Dealer's Consecutive Wins, which are normally not acknowledged).

Note: These rules differ slightly from the Hong Kong rules included in Four Winds 1.x, so if you load a version 1.x game in Four Winds 2, the rules will be displayed as "customized" rules.

Tiles	144 (Flowers and Seasons)
Initial points	2,000
Limit points	16; the maximum final score determined by the settling table is 3 laaks (16 points doubled twice, i.e., 64 points) earned by hands worth 10 faan or more.
Restrictions for the winning hand	None (though a minimum faan from 1 to 3 is a common option)
Claiming rules for going out	Player first in turn wins
Passing of the deal	When non-dealer wins and when the deal ends in a draw
Rule of Ready	None
Dead hand rules	None
Payment	To winner only; Chinese Modern scheme
Discards	In random order, no extended discard information
Specialties	None
Scoring	Faan-Laak system
Basic tile points	None
Scores for basic sets	Standard but faan instead of doubles
Scores for Flowers and Seasons	Own Flower or Season (1 faan), All Flowers or Seasons (2 faan), No Flowers or Seasons (1 faan)
Scores for patterns based on Chows	None
Scores for patterns based on Pungs and Kongs	Little Three Dragons (4 faan)
Scores for the hand	Chow hand (no traditional value pairs allowed; 1 faan), Pung hand (3 faan), One suit with Honors (3 faan), One suit only (6 faan).
Scores for miscellaneous patterns	None
Scores for winning	Self-drawn last tile (1 faan), Out on the last tile of the Wall (1 faan), Out on the last discard (1 faan), Out on a supplement tile (1 faan) and Out by robbing a Kong (1 faan).
Rounding	None
Penalties	Faulty out: Deal ends and the offender pays 100% of Limit points to each of the other players, East does not pay/receive double (the deal is passed if the offender is East); Faulty claims: None; Insurance penalties: Classical, Nine tiles error and Last five tiles error
Limit hands	Classical: Hidden Treasure (400%, fully concealed, out on a pair, no Kongs), Three Great Scholars (400%), Little Four Winds (400%), Big Four Winds (400%), All Honors (7 faan + components), All Terminals (400%), Nine Gates (400%) and Thirteen Orphans (400%); Serpents: None; Pairs: Seven pairs (4 faan + components), Special ways of going out: Heavenly Hand (400%), Earthly Hand (400%); American hands: None; Miscellaneous: Jade Dragon, Ruby Dragon and Pearl Dragon each 400% of the Limit points.

Ffaan	Discarded	Self-drawn
0 (Chicken hand)	1+1+2=4	–
1	2+2+4=8	4+4+4=12
2	4+4+8=16	8+8+8=24
3	8+8+16=32	16+16+16=48
4–6 (1 laak)	16+16+32=64	32+32+32=96
7–9 (2 laaks)	32+32+64=128	64+64+64=192
10– (3 laaks)	64+64+128=256	128+128+128=384

Hong Kong Mah Jong

Note: These rules differ slightly from the Hong Kong rules included in Four Winds 1.x, so if you load a version 1.x game in Four Winds 2, the rules will be displayed as "customized" rules.

Payment table

The actual payments are determined by using a simple settling table where a certain amount of faan gives a fixed final score. The following table shows the final payments per loser (notice that all losers pay double on a self-drawn winning tile, otherwise only the discarder pays double).