Chinese Official Mahjong · 1 pt

No Honors in Chinese Official Mahjong (MCR): Points, Examples and Rules

In Chinese Official Mahjong, No Honors (无字) is worth 1 point: your winning hand has no honor tiles at all — no winds, no dragons. The condition is easy, but many fan already include it, so you actually score this 1 point less often than you'd think.

The rules for No Honors

• All 14 tiles, including claimed and kong sets, are characters, dots or bamboo
• Flowers are irrelevant: they aren't honors
• Concealed or with claims, either is fine

Which fan already include No Honors

These fan can't contain honors anyway, so under the non-repeat rule No Honors is not counted with them:

• All Chows (2 points) and All Simples (2 points)
• Full Flush (24 points)
• All Even Pungs, Upper Tiles, Middle Tiles, Lower Tiles, Upper Four, Lower Four, All Fives
• All Terminals, Pure Terminal Chows, Three-Suited Terminal Chows, Nine Gates, Seven Shifted Pairs

So No Honors really scores mostly in hands with pungs or pairs that aren't All Simples: All Pungs, Seven Pairs, a Triple Pung with terminals.

Scoring No Honors

No Honors and the 8-point minimum

It's a common extra 1 point next to All Pungs or Seven Pairs. Building All Pungs with an off-wind pair? Punging it adds only 1 point; swapping it for a suited pung keeps the same points via No Honors and gives you more tiles to wait on.

In 4,000 simulated hands between the site's computer players, No Honors appeared in 13% of winning hands, averaging 17.9 points. Play MCR online — the result screen lists every fan that was "not counted".

FAQ

How many points is No Honors?

1 point in Chinese Official Mahjong.

Why doesn't All Chows score No Honors?

All Chows requires four chows and a suited pair, so it has no honors by definition; under the non-repeat rule No Honors isn't added.

Can All Simples and No Honors both count?

No. All Simples (2 points) already includes No Honors.

Related fan

One Voided Suit 1 pt Exactly one suit missing for 1 point: honors don't matter, flushes don't qualify, Reversible Tiles drops it. All Simples 2 pt Only 2s to 8s, 2 points: rules, what it absorbs, which bigger fans absorb it, and how to use it to reach 8. All Chows 2 pt Four chows and a suited pair for 2 points: looser than in Taiwanese or Riichi mahjong, but it always needs Mixed Straight, Pure Straight or Concealed Hand to reach 8.