Chinese Official mahjong
Chinese Official mahjong (MCR) scoring and the 81 fan.
Chinese Official mahjong, called MCR for Mahjong Competition Rules, is widely used in international tournaments. It has a published list of 81 scoring patterns called fan, and one fixed rule: a hand must be worth at least 8 fan to win.
Everything else about play is familiar: four players, 144 tiles, draw and discard, chow, pung and kong. The skill is in knowing which patterns to aim for.
The basics
How MCR works
- Eight fan minimum. Add up every fan on the hand. You need 8 or more, not counting flower tiles.
- Flowers. Each flower or season tile is 1 fan, added after the hand has reached 8 on its own. They cannot make up a shortfall.
- No dealer bonus. The dealer position moves one seat after every hand, whether or not anyone won.
- Any winning hand shape. Four sets and a pair, plus a few special shapes like Seven Pairs, Thirteen Orphans and Knitted hands.
- No furiten. You can win on any tile that completes the hand, even one you discarded earlier.
For the general flow of a hand, start with how to play. This page is about scoring.
Payout
How a hand is paid
Every payment is 8 points plus the hand's total fan. The base 8 is why even the minimum hand pays 16 from each loser.
| How it was won | Who pays | Amounts |
|---|---|---|
| Self-drawn | All three other players | 8 + fan, each |
| Off a discard | The discarder | 8 + fan |
| Off a discard | The other two players | 8 each |
Example: a 10-fan hand won by self-draw collects 18 from each of the three players, 54 in total. The same hand won off a discard collects 18 from the discarder and 8 each from the others, 34 in total.
Common hands
The fan you will actually see
Most winning hands are built from a handful of everyday patterns. Pairing a few of these is how people usually reach 8.
| Fan | Pattern | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 24 | Full Flush | All tiles from one suit, no honors. |
| 24 | Seven Pairs | Seven different pairs. |
| 16 | Pure Straight | 123, 456 and 789 in one suit. |
| 8 | Mixed Straight | 123, 456 and 789, one in each suit. |
| 8 | Chicken Hand | A winning hand with no other fan, flowers aside. |
| 6 | All Pungs | Four pungs or kongs and a pair. |
| 6 | Half Flush | One suit plus honors. |
| 6 | Melded Hand | All four sets claimed, winning off a discard that completes the pair. |
| 4 | Fully Concealed Hand | No claimed sets, won by self-draw. |
| 2 | Concealed Hand | No claimed sets, won off a discard. |
| 2 | All Chows | Four chows and a pair with no value. |
| 2 | All Simples | Every tile a 2 through 8. |
| 2 | Dragon Pung | A pung or kong of any dragon. |
| 2 | Prevalent Wind / Seat Wind | A pung of the round wind, or of your own seat wind. |
| 1 | Self-Drawn | Won on a tile you drew. |
| 1 | Pure Double Chow | Two identical chows in one suit. |
| 1 | Mixed Double Chow | The same chow in two different suits. |
| 1 | Short Straight | Two chows in one suit with their starting numbers three apart, such as 123 and 456. |
| 1 | Two Terminal Chows | 123 and 789 in the same suit. |
| 1 | No Honors | No winds or dragons. |
Counting
The non-repeat principle
MCR lets you score many patterns from one hand, but with a rule that stops the same tiles being counted twice. The rule has two practical effects.
- A big pattern swallows the smaller ones it already contains. A Full Flush is one suit with no honors, so you do not also score No Honors or One Voided Suit. Fully Concealed Hand already includes winning by self-draw, so Self-Drawn is not added.
- Sets can be reused, but not for the same combination twice. Once a pair of sets has been used together to score a fan, that same pair cannot score again. Each set can still combine with a different set to score something else.
Example: you hold 123, 456 and 789 in Bamboo (a Pure Straight, 16 fan). Those same chows do not also score as a Short Straight or Two Terminal Chows with each other, because they have already been used together. But if your fourth set is 123 in Dots, it can still score Mixed Double Chow with the Bamboo 123, because that pairing has not been used.
Where more than one way of counting the hand exists, you count the one worth the most.
The full list
All 81 fan
Every official fan, grouped by value. Names follow the English names used in the official rules, and some tables use slightly different translations.
| Fan | Patterns |
|---|---|
| 88 | Big Four Winds, Big Three Dragons, All Green, Nine Gates, Four Kongs, Seven Shifted Pairs, Thirteen Orphans |
| 64 | All Terminals, Little Four Winds, Little Three Dragons, All Honors, Four Concealed Pungs, Pure Terminal Chows |
| 48 | Quadruple Chow, Four Pure Shifted Pungs |
| 32 | Four Pure Shifted Chows, Three Kongs, All Terminals and Honors |
| 24 | Seven Pairs, Greater Honors and Knitted Tiles, All Even Pungs, Full Flush, Pure Triple Chow, Pure Shifted Pungs, Upper Tiles, Middle Tiles, Lower Tiles |
| 16 | Pure Straight, Three-Suited Terminal Chows, Pure Shifted Chows, All Fives, Triple Pung, Three Concealed Pungs |
| 12 | Lesser Honors and Knitted Tiles, Knitted Straight, Upper Four, Lower Four, Big Three Winds |
| 8 | Mixed Straight, Reversible Tiles, Mixed Triple Chow, Mixed Shifted Pungs, Chicken Hand, Last Tile Draw, Last Tile Claim, Out with Replacement Tile, Robbing the Kong |
| 6 | All Pungs, Half Flush, Mixed Shifted Chows, All Types, Melded Hand, Two Concealed Kongs, Two Dragon Pungs |
| 4 | Outside Hand, Fully Concealed Hand, Two Melded Kongs, Last Tile |
| 2 | Dragon Pung, Prevalent Wind, Seat Wind, Concealed Hand, All Chows, Tile Hog, Double Pung, Two Concealed Pungs, Concealed Kong, All Simples |
| 1 | Pure Double Chow, Mixed Double Chow, Short Straight, Two Terminal Chows, Pung of Terminals or Honors, Melded Kong, One Voided Suit, No Honors, Edge Wait, Closed Wait, Single Wait, Self-Drawn, Flower Tiles |
Fan are worth 88, 64, 48, 32, 24, 16, 12, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 points. There are no 5-fan or 3-fan patterns.
Fan to look at first
- Keep a Full Flush or Half Flush in mind from your first few draws. They are the easiest big fan to build.
- Pure Straight (16) and Mixed Straight (8) turn up often and stack easily with other fan.
- Seven Pairs (24) is the fastest route to the minimum when you have many pairs early.
Quick answers
Common questions
- What is the minimum score to win in MCR?
- Eight fan. Flower tiles do not count toward the eight. If your hand is worth less, it is not a winning hand yet and you keep playing.
- How many fan are there in Chinese Official mahjong?
- The official rules list 81 fan, worth from 1 to 88 points each. Most hands that reach 8 are built from a few of the mid-sized fan, and the largest ones are rare.
- What is the non-repeat principle?
- It stops you from counting the same tiles twice. Once a set has been used with other sets to score a fan, it cannot score the same combination again, and a smaller fan that is already implied by a bigger one is not added on top.
- How is a hand paid in MCR?
- Every payer owes the winner 8 points plus the hand's fan total. On a self-draw all three other players pay. On a win off a discard, the discarder pays 8 plus the fan and the other two pay 8 each.
- What is the difference between MCR and Hong Kong mahjong?
- MCR has a published, fixed list of 81 fan and a flat 8-fan minimum, so there is no table to negotiate. Hong Kong play has a smaller set of faan, a variable minimum, and house payout tables.
Keep going
More mahjong guides
- Mahjong styles compared
Hong Kong, Riichi and Chinese Official side by side.
- How to play mahjong
A beginner's walk through one hand: the wall, drawing, discarding, claiming and calling a win.
- Mahjong tiles guide
Every suit, honour and flower, how many of each there are, and what the tiles are called.
- Hong Kong scoring and faan
The faan list, minimums, a payout table and a calculator for working out what each hand pays.
- Riichi scoring calculator and yaku list
Han, fu, dora, limit hands and a points calculator for any hand.
- Mahjong solitaire
The one-player tile-matching game: free tiles, pairs and layouts.