Rule presets - Taiwanese 16-Tile Mah Jong

This rule preset represents modern Taiwanese Mah Jong, where the most prominent feature is one additional set that is needed in a winning hand. Thus each player is given 16, instead of 13 tiles in the dealt hand (dealer being given naturally one additional tile to start the deal). A winning hand must contain 5 sets of Chows/Pungs/Kongs and a pair.

As for pattern selection, the Taiwanese Mah Jong is fairly classical, though some patterns have been added and some removed because of the additional set (e.g., Nine Gates cannot be collected in 16-tile Mah Jong; on the other hand, a limit is paid for patterns like Five concealed triplets). In addition, certain new patterns typical to New Style have been adopted, e.g., Three Chows of 1 suit, step 3, Two concealed triplets, Little Three Winds, Big Three Winds, Exposed hand and No Honors.

As in all modern versions of Asian Mah Jong, only the winner is paid. But unlike most of the other modern Chinese versions, the Taiwanese rules do not use a faan-laak settling table to determine the final score. Instead, scores for patterns are simply added up. The payoff scheme is unique (though also used in Chinese Official Mah Jong): if the winner goes out self-drawn, all losers pay the winner directly the amount of his final score, but if the winner goes out on a discard, discarder alone pays the amount of the winner's final score (not for all losers but just for himself).

Other features not normally seen in other Chinese versions of Mah Jong include a unique system of rewarding the East winner, especially for going out on continued deals: instead of using the classical East pays/receives double system, a cumulative bonus for continued deals is used. The bonus is paid to the East winner by each loser if the winner goes out self-drawn, and by the discarder alone, if the winner goes out on a discarded tile; on the other hand, if non-East wins self-drawn or if East discard the winning tile, East must pay himself the specified bonus to the winner.

16-tile version of Mah Jong is played also in Philippines, often with more classically oriented rules using a point-double scoring system, where East receives and pays double, and losers pay each other according to the difference of their final scores.

Note: As the Taiwanese Mah Jong does not use a settling table to specify the final score, it is very typical that scoring assignments vary greatly from version to version. For more basic version of Taiwanese Mah Jong, visit Steve Willoughby's web site, and for a classically oriented version of 16-tile game, check the rules described on Mah Jong Cyber Museum.

Tiles	144 (Flowers and Seasons)
Initial points	2000 pts
Limit points	500 pts (practically no limit)
Restrictions for the winning hand	None
Claiming rules for going out	Multiple winners
Passing of the deal	When non-dealer wins
Rule of Ready	None
Dead hand rules	None
Payment	To winner only; Chinese Official/Taiwanese scheme
Discards	Per player, no extended discard information
Specialties	Use of 5 sets and a pair in a winning hand; Dealer bonus; Dealer's extra hands; Missed Discard (Extended); no Dead Wall; multiple winners; concealed Kongs are melded face down
Scoring	Point-based (originally Tai-based; a Taiwanese equivalent for faan)
Basic tile points	None
Scores for basic sets	Melded Kong (1 pt), Concealed Kong (2 pts), Pung of Dragons (1 pt), Kong of Dragons (1 pt), Pung of Winds (1 pt), Kong of Winds (1 pt)
Scores for Flowers and Seasons	Flower 1 pt, Season 1 pt, All Flowers and Seasons (considered as a winning hand, 20 pts if robbed, 30 pts if self-drawn); No Flowers or Seasons 1 pt
Scores for patterns based on Chows	Three Chows of 1 suit, step 3 (5/10* pts) Note: * indicates scoring when the sets are all concealed.
Scores for patterns based on Pungs and Kongs	Two concealed triplets (2 pts), Three concealed triplets (5 pts), Four concealed triplets (15 pts), Five concealed triplets (40 pts); Little Three Winds (5 pts), Big Three Winds (15 pts), Little Three Dragons (15 pts), Big Three Dragons (30 pts)
Scores for the hand	Exposed hand (melded Kongs allowed, 3 pts), Concealed hand (all Kongs allowed; 1 pt), Fully concealed hand (all Kongs allowed, 4 pts – implies Self-drawn last tile), Chicken hand (points for Flowers/Seasons allowed and a maximum of 1 Flower/Season allowed; 5 pts), Chow hand (No Honors allowed, 3 pts), Grand Chow hand (No Honors allowed and no Flowers/Seasons allowed, 10 pts), Pung hand (10 pts), No Honors (1 pt), No Honors/Flowers (3 pts) One suit and Honors (10 pts), One suit only (40 pts)
Scores for miscellaneous patterns	None
Scores for winning	Winning (2 pts), Fully Exposed hand (melded Kongs allowed, 10 pts), Out on a pair (2 pts), Out on a one-chance Chow (2 pts), Self-drawn last tile (1 pt; implied in Fully concealed hand), Out on the last tile of the Wall (1 pt), Out on the last discard (1 pt), Out by robbing a Kong (1 pt), Early winning (going out when more than 5 but less than 10 tiles have been discarded, 5 pts), Early winning 2 (going out when 5 tiles or less have been discarded, 10 pts), Ready on original hand (allowed for East, too, 15 pts).
Rounding	None
Penalties	Faulty out: The offending player pays 40 pts to each of the other players (the deal is passed if the offender is East). False claims: None; Insurance penalties: None
Limit hands	Classical: Little Four Winds (30 pts + components), Big Four Winds (40 pts + components); Serpents: None; Pairs: Seven pairs + a triplet (30 pts + components); Note: Identical pairs are allowed; Special ways of going out: Heavenly Hand (40 pts + components), Earthly Hand (only from East's discard; 40 pts + components); American hands: None; Miscellaneous: None.