How to Play Chinese Official Mahjong (MCR): An Illustrated Beginner's Guide

Chinese Official mahjong (the Mahjong Competition Rules, MCR, also called Guobiao) is the rule set used at the World Mahjong Championship: an 8-fan minimum, 81 scoring elements (fan), and a base of 8 plus fan. This page walks through a whole hand from start to finish. Every rule matches the engine of our free Chinese Official mahjong game, so you can sit down and play as soon as you finish.

1What it is and what you need

The Chinese Official rules were published in 1998 by China's State Sports General Administration and are used at MCR tournaments around the world. Compared with home-town styles, three things stand out:

• 8-fan minimum: a complete hand is not enough — it must be worth at least 8 fan (flowers don't count).
• 81 fan: each scoring element has a fixed value, and an exclusion rule stops the same thing being counted twice.
• Simple payments: a base of 8 plus fan. No dealer bonus, no dealer repeats, no limit.

At a table you need four players, a 144-tile set and three dice. Online you need nothing: open the Chinese Official mahjong home page and three computer players are ready — free, no download, no sign-up.

2The 144 tiles

A Chinese Official set has 144 tiles: 36 of each of the three suits, 28 honors and 8 flowers.

• Suit tiles form chows (three in a row in one suit, such as ) and pungs (three of a kind, such as ).
• Honors only form pungs or pairs, never chows.
• Flowers never stay in your hand: lay them out and draw a replacement. Each is worth 1 fan but does not count toward the 8.

For a closer look at the tiles, see The tiles in the guide.

3Seats, dealer and the deal

1. Pick the dealer: in the first hand, roll the dice for dealer. The dealer is East; going counter-clockwise the others are South, West and North — that is each player's seat wind.
2. Build the wall: shuffle the 144 tiles and build a wall two tiles high in front of each player, forming a square.
3. Break the wall: the dealer rolls three dice and counts round the table from himself to pick the wall where dealing starts.
4. Deal: starting with the dealer, everyone takes 4 tiles at a time for three rounds, then 1 more; the dealer takes one extra. The dealer has 14 tiles, everyone else 13.
5. Replace flowers: starting with the dealer, everyone lays out their flowers and draws replacements from the back end of the wall, again and again until nobody holds a flower.

Chinese Official has no dealer bonus and no dealer repeats: after every hand — win or draw — the deal passes to the next player. Every four hands the prevailing wind changes (East, South, West, North round), and a full match is 16 hands. Online you can play one hand, one round (4 hands) or four rounds (16 hands).

4A turn: draw one, discard one

The dealer starts with 14 tiles and discards first. Play then goes counter-clockwise (to the next player on your right):

1. Draw a tile from the wall, so you hold 14. Flowers are laid out and replaced.
2. Decide: if the tile completes your hand (with at least 8 fan) you can declare a self-drawn win, or you can kong four of a kind.
3. Discard a tile you don't need into the pool in front of you, back to 13.

If nobody wants your discard, the next player draws. It's always draw one, discard one, until someone wins. If the wall runs out with no winner, the hand is a draw and nobody scores.

5Chow, pung and kong: claiming discards

When someone discards, you can claim the tile to complete a set, lay the set face up, and discard:

• Chow: only from the player on your left, and only suit tiles, to make a run with two tiles from your hand. Holding , you can chow a or from your left.
• Pung: holding a pair, you can claim the third tile from anyone.
• Kong: holding three of a kind, claim the fourth from anyone (exposed kong); draw the fourth yourself (concealed kong); or add a drawn fourth tile to a pung you already showed. After a kong, draw a replacement from the back of the wall.

When several players want the same tile, win beats pung and kong, which beat chow.

To see the claim buttons in the online game, read Play your first game.

6Ready hands and winning shapes

The basic winning shape is four sets (chows, pungs or kongs) plus a pair, 14 tiles:

One tile away from winning is called being ready (in Chinese, *tingpai*). You may be waiting on more than one tile — this hand waits on and :

But Chinese Official adds a second hurdle: the hand must also be worth 8 fan. The hand below has a perfectly good shape yet only 4 fan, so it cannot win on a discarded :

So a ready hand needs two things: the right shape and enough fan. The online game's ready-hand hints list every winning tile with its fan, and dim the ones that fall short of 8.

Besides four sets and a pair, there are Seven Pairs, Thirteen Orphans, Knitted hands and Knitted Straight — see Winning hands.

7The 8-fan minimum and counting fan

Where fan come from

After a win, add up every fan the hand qualifies for. The 81 fan run from 88 down to 1; the full list is in the Chinese Official fan table. The ones beginners meet most: All Chows (four chows, pair not honors), Half Flush, All Pungs, Mixed Straight and Seven Pairs.

The exclusion rule: count each thing once

A key principle: if one fan already implies another, the implied fan is not counted. All Chows requires four chows and a non-honor pair, so the hand can't contain honors and No Honors isn't added. Seven Pairs is always concealed, so Concealed Hand isn't added either.

You don't need to memorise this — the game and the results screen apply it for you, and list the excluded fan separately.

Flowers: points, but not toward the minimum

Each flower is worth 1 fan, counted in the total and in payments, but not when checking the 8-fan minimum. Three flowers plus a 6-fan hand still can't win.

A hand scored live

This hand is a Mixed Straight: 1-2-3 Characters, 4-5-6 Dots, 7-8-9 Bamboos, one more chow and a pair, plus two flowers, winning on a discarded :

Who pays what

Payments are simple: a base of 8 plus fan.

• Win on a discard: the discarder pays fan + 8; the other two pay 8 each.
• Self-drawn win: all three pay fan + 8.

Payments for the hand above:

8The easiest 8-fan routes

Eight fan sounds like a lot, but you only need one good route. Look at your starting hand and see which it's closest to:

Small fan stack up too: Concealed Hand 2, All Chows 2, All Simples 2, Dragon Pung 2 — add a couple to a 6-fan pattern and you're there.

9Special rules of Chinese Official

• Head bump: if several players can win on the same discard, there's no multiple win — the first player in turn order after the discarder wins.
• Robbing the kong: when someone adds a tile to a pung to make a kong, and that tile completes your hand, you can rob it (Robbing the Kong, 8 fan). Concealed kongs can't be robbed.
• No self-drawn win after a claim: a claimed tile isn't drawn, so you must discard; only the dealer's opening 14 tiles count as self-drawn.
• Draws don't score: if the wall runs out with no winner, nobody pays and the deal still passes on.
• No limit: you pay exactly what the hand is worth — an 88-fan hand is 88 plus 8.
• Practice minimum: when starting a new game online you can lower the minimum to 4 or 0 fan to practise; the official rule is 8.

10Beginner tips

1. Pick a route early: see whether you're closest to Mixed Straight, Mixed Triple Chow, Half Flush or Seven Pairs, and follow one road instead of chasing everything.
2. Throw lone honors first: unless you're going for Half Flush or All Pungs, a single wind or dragon is your least useful tile.
3. Keep dragon pairs: a pair of Red, Green or White can become a Dragon Pung worth 2 fan — a great helper toward 8.
4. Chow sparingly: a chow costs Concealed Hand, and many hands then end up exactly 2 fan short. Check you can still reach 8 first.
5. Check fan before you wait: when you could wait on two different tiles, choose the wait that scores enough. The online hints show the fan for you.
6. Watch the player on your right: only they can chow your discards, so don't feed them the run they need.
7. Be careful once someone shows three sets: tiles nobody has discarded yet are the dangerous ones.

For more, see The 81 fan and the FAQ in the guide.

11Play a game now

You know the rules — the fastest way to learn is to play. Our free online Chinese Official mahjong has beginner, normal and expert computer players, and its hints show how many fan each winning tile is worth, and warn you when a complete hand falls short of 8.

Start a game — for your first try, choose Beginner and a single hand.

12FAQ

Why do you need 8 fan to win?

The 8-fan minimum is at the heart of the competition rules: it rewards building real hands instead of rushing out. Flowers don't count toward it. Online you can lower it to 4 or 0 fan to practise.

Do flowers score?

Yes. Each flower is worth 1 fan, added to the total and to payments — they just don't count toward the minimum.

How does scoring work?

A base of 8 plus fan. On a discard win, the discarder pays fan plus 8 and the other two pay 8 each; on a self-drawn win all three pay fan plus 8. No dealer bonus, no limit.

What does "not counted" (exclusion) mean?

When one fan already includes the conditions of another, the included fan is not counted — All Chows doesn't add No Honors, Seven Pairs doesn't add Concealed Hand. The game applies this automatically.

Can I chow from anyone?

No — you can only chow from the player on your left. Pung and kong can be claimed from anyone. If one player wants to win, another to pung and another to chow, the win comes first, then pung or kong, then chow.

Does the dealer stay on after winning?

No. The deal passes to the next player after every hand, and the prevailing wind changes every four hands — four rounds, 16 hands in all.

What are the easiest 8-fan hands for beginners?

Mixed Straight and Mixed Triple Chow are 8 fan each, enough on their own; Mixed Shifted Chows with All Chows, Half Flush with a Dragon Pung, and Seven Pairs are also common. See which your starting hand is closest to.

Is it free to play online?

Yes. Chinese Official mahjong is completely free in your browser — no download, no sign-up — and your stats stay in your browser.