The basics

Winning hands

Four sets and a pair, Seven Pairs, Thirteen Orphans, Honors and Knitted Tiles, Knitted Straight — and the most important rule: 8 points to win.

On this page

Four sets and a pair

The basic winning hand is four sets plus a pair: 14 tiles (one more for each kong).

Three chows, a pung of Red Dragons and a pair of 1 bamboo

Chow: three in a row in one suit, such as . Honours cannot form chows.
Pung: three identical tiles, such as .
Kong: four identical tiles; it counts as one set and you draw a replacement.
Pair: two identical tiles, such as .

MCR has several hands that are not “four sets and a pair”. They must be fully concealed (no chow, pung or exposed kong):

Seven Pairs (24 points)

Thirteen Orphans: one of each terminal and honour plus one more (88 points)

Lesser Honors and Knitted Tiles: 14 different tiles, suits only from 147, 258 and 369 in three different suits (12 points)

A Knitted Straight is 147, 258 and 369 in three different suits — those nine tiles plus one set and a pair also win (12 points):

Knitted Straight + a chow + a pair

The most important rule in MCR: a complete hand must also be worth at least 8 points, not counting flowers.

If you have claimed a chow, this hand is only All Chows (2 points) — not enough

Common routes to 8 points:

Mixed Straight (8): 123, 456 and 789 in three different suits.
Half Flush (6): one suit plus honours; add Concealed Hand or a Dragon Pung.
All Pungs (6): four pungs.
All Types (6): characters, dots, bamboo, a wind and a dragon all in the hand.
Mixed Triple Chow, Mixed Shifted Pungs (8 each): the same or stepped numbers across the three suits.

What each fan is worth is in The 81 fan.

Being one tile from a win is called “waiting” (ready). You may wait on more than one tile:

Single wait on the 9 dot

Two-sided wait on 5 or 8 bamboo

The game’s wait hint lists the points for each tile you wait on. If every wait is under 8 points, change your hand.