American Penalties & Errors
American Mahjong: | Overview | Gameplay | Scoring | Penalties & Errors | Resources |
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Death Challenge
A player may have a dead hand, or a hand that is not eligible to win, for several reasons:
- Player has too many or too few tiles.
- The current exposed sets do not match any on the scoring card.
- Exposed tiles clearly show a hand cannot be completed.
- Erroneous melded set.
- Playing out of turn.
A challenge can be made by declaring a player dead. The challenge should be made declaratively. The challenged player may:
- Acknowledge the hand is dead and stop playing. If the challenged player's hand is indeed dead, he pays the challenger the value of the lowest-scoring hand on the card.
- Deny the hand is dead and continue. No explanation is needed. At the end of the hand it will be revealed why. If the challenged player's hand is indeed valid, the challenger pays the challenged the value of the lowest-scoring hand on the card.
Players who realize that they are dead should not bring this to the attention of others. A player who is declared and found dead does not pick or discard. If declared dead prior to the declaration of an erroneous exposure those tiles must be returned to his hand.
Penalties & Errors
Erroneous Discard
- Discards cannot be taken back if the name is called or the tile touches the table.
- A mispoken discard must be corrected. If a player calls mahjong off the mispoken discard the hand ends with the discarder alone pays 4x the value of the hand.
Erroneous Exposure
- If a tile is called for but no exposure is made, the call maybe retracted without penalty.
- If a tile is called for and tiles were exposed the player must take the discarded tile even if it results in a dead hand.
- If a player makes a bad exposure (e.g. selected the wrong tiles from the hand) it maybe corrected prior to discarding without pentalty.
Erroneous Mahjong
- If an exposed mahjong is incorrect the hand is dead.
- If an erroneous mahjong is called and a single player throws in his hand. His hand is dead. The other two players continue.
- If an erroneous mahjong is called and a two players throws in their hand. The player alone who erroneously declared mahjong pays the live player twice the value of the hand that mahjong was declared on.
- If an erroneous mahjong is called and a player begins to take down the wall before the error is discovered, this player pays the two live players the lowest card value to the other live players.
Change of Heart
Under certain circumstances calls can be withdrawn:
- Touching a tile. - A player is not commited to drawing from the wall if s/he touches the tile.
- Calling a tile - A player may withdraw a claim as long as no exposure from the hand was made.
- Exposure size - A player may change the size of the exposure to promote a pung to a kong (or vice versa) as long as it is prior to his discard.
- Calling mahjong - A player may withdraw a claim to mahjong as long as no exposure from the hand was made.
Under no circumstances can these calls be withdrawn:
- Discard - Only if the name was called or the tile touches the table.
- Death Challenge
page revision: 3, last edited: 09 May 2009 03:56