Mahjiku › Questions › What are the different types of mahjong?
One game, many rule sets — the biggest are Hong Kong, Japanese Riichi, Chinese Official (MCR), Taiwanese 16-tile, American, and Singaporean, each with its own tiles, hands, and scoring.
Mahjong is not one game but a family of regional rule sets built on the same tiles. They differ in the tile count, the size of a winning hand, and — most of all — in how a hand is scored. The major ones:
| Variant | Scored in | Hand | System |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hong Kong | faan (番) | 13 tiles | faan-counting |
| Riichi | han + fu | 13 tiles | han-fu scoring against a point table |
| Chinese Official | points (the "81 patterns") | 13 tiles | cumulative fan-counting against a standardized 81-pattern list |
| Taiwanese | tai (台) | 16 tiles | additive tai-counting, no exponential doubling |
| American | points (card-assigned) | 13 tiles | fixed point value per card pattern |
| Singaporean | fan/tai (doubling) | 13 tiles | exponential doubling with a house-configurable minimum and limit |
Last reviewed 2026-08-23.
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