How to score Hong Kong mahjong, step by step

For the table game: four players, real tiles, Hong Kong style — not the solitaire puzzle.

Add the hand up, check it against the minimum, then settle. A win starts with a base of 1 faan on Mahjiku's default sheet, every named pattern adds its own value, and the total must reach the table minimum — 3 faan there — before the hand may be declared. Then the losers pay: on a discard the player who threw the winning tile pays, and on a self-draw all three opponents pay.

The five steps

Check the hand is complete. Four sets and a pair: fourteen tiles, plus one for every kong. A set is a run of three in one suit (a chow) or three of a kind (a pung).
Name every line the hand earns. Its shape (all triplets, one suit plus honours, one suit only), its honours (a pung of dragons, of your seat wind or of the round wind) and how it was won (self-drawn, fully concealed, on a kong replacement). A bigger reading absorbs a smaller one: a hand in one suit scores Full Flush, not also Half Flush.
Add them up, starting from the base. Flowers and seasons are added too, but they never help a hand reach the minimum.
Check the minimum. A hand below the table's minimum is not a win. That is the minimum faan, and 3 is the common choice.
Settle. Off a discard, the thrower pays. Self-drawn, every opponent pays. How much depends on the table's conversion — on Mahjiku's default sheet the faan total is the payment.

A worked hand

South holds this hand — a run of characters, a pung of nines, a pung of red dragons and a pair of East — with East dealing in the East round:

Self-drawn and fully concealed, Mahjiku's scoring engine reads it on the default sheet as:

Line the engine found	中文	Faan
Half Flush	混一色	6
Dragon Pung	箭刻	1
Base	底	1
Concealed Hand	門前清	2
Total		10

That clears the minimum of 3, so it is a win. Self-drawn, all three opponents pay: East (dealer) pays 10, West pays 10, North pays 10 — South collects 30.

Won off West's discard with sets claimed from the table instead, the same tiles lose the Concealed Hand line:

Line the engine found	中文	Faan
Half Flush	混一色	6
Dragon Pung	箭刻	1
Base	底	1
Total		8

Now West, who threw the tile, pays alone: West pays 8 — South collects 8. Same tiles — 30 against 8, decided by how the hand was won. That gap is the whole subject of self-draw vs discard.

Why your table might get a different number

Every value above is one sheet's. On the Half Spicy 半辣上 sheet the app also ships, the same self-drawn hand counts 7 faan, and that sheet converts faan on a doubling curve, so the payments become: East (dealer) pays 48, West pays 48, North pays 48 — South collects 144. Neither is wrong; they are two tables. Agree yours before the first hand — here is the checklist.

Half Flush 混一色 Dragon Pung 箭刻 What each faan tier pays Free faan calculator Cara hitung faan mahjong Hong Kong (Bahasa Indonesia)

Last updated: 2026-10-08 · editorially reviewed 2026-10-08. Every number on this page is computed from Mahjiku's rule sheets when the page is built.

Game points only. Mahjiku records the points of a friendly table — points, not money, and nothing to cash out.

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