Calling mahjong, and the game nobody wins
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Mahj School › Your First Game · Lesson 10 of 10 · 28 seconds
Ten lessons, one evening, one set. Free shipping on every order, no minimum.
Shop mahjong setsEvery other card game rewards you for collecting more. This one does not. You win by matching one printed line, exactly, and a hand that is nearly right is worth nothing at all.
Full transcript
You do not win by having a lot. You win by matching one line on the card exactly — the right tiles, in the right groups, in the right suits.
When your fourteenth tile lands, say Mahjong, and turn your rack around so everyone can check it. If the wall runs out before anyone does, it is a wall game. Nobody wins, and you deal again.
Exactly means exactly
The card is a list of fourteen-tile hands, and a winning hand has to match one of them down to the groups and the suits. Not a similar hand. Not the same tiles in a different arrangement. That is why the last lesson of this series is the same advice as the fourth: keep reading the card, because it is the card that decides, not the pile in front of you.
You say Mahjong out loud and then you turn your rack so the table can see the whole hand. Everybody checks it — that is normal and it is not an insult. A hand called wrong is a dead hand, so the checking protects you as much as it protects them.
And sometimes nobody gets there. When the wall is exhausted and the last tile has been drawn, the hand ends with no winner. It is called a wall game, and it happens often enough that it deserves a name. You shuffle, you build four walls again, and the dice come out.
- Fourteen tiles, matching one line on the card, exactly.
- Say “Mahjong” out loud before the next discard.
- Turn your rack around so the table can check it.
- A hand called wrong is dead. Check before you call.
- Wall runs out first? Wall game. Nobody wins. Deal again.
Mahj School is a free video series from ALOXO. The tiles and tables in this video are illustrations drawn for teaching, not photographs of a particular set. Any hand shown on screen is an example only — not the official NMJL card.