Hong Kong Old Style Scoring
Hong Kong Old Style Overview Gameplay Scoring Penalties & Errors Resources

Initial Points

Because HKOS mahjong is also a gambling game, no initial points are specified. If you are playing casually everyone can start arbitrarily with 500 points.

Criteria

The hand must contain 14 tiles and be composed of four sets and a pair (with the exception of special limit hands). If two players call mahjong for the same discard, the player sitting closest to the discarder in turn order is given the tile. An exception to this is when a player completes a Thirteen Orphans hand the turn order does not matter.

Decide on a minimum number of fan needed before calling mahjong (3 fan is common). When declaring a win on a discard, the player must display his hand first before adding the discarded tile. In case of a self-drawn win, the drawn tile is displayed first followed by his hand.

Miss Win

Should a player fail to declare a winning tile, he/she cannot claim any identical discarded tile until his next draw.

Outline

If the winner wins by self-draw, then all other players pay him however much his hand is worth (or double its worth depending on the variation).

If the winner wins by discard, the player who discarded the winning tile (known as the discarder) is penalized. One common method of penalizing the discarder is forcing the discarder to pay the full value of the winning hand, while the other two players only pay half. Alternatively, the discarder must pay one or two times the value of the winning hand, while the other players pay nothing. Make sure your mahjong group agrees on a method of payment before starting a game.

  • Win by a discarded tile: Discarder pays winner double the full score.
  • Win by self-drawn tile: All player's pay double the full value of the winner's hand.

Scoring Table

Only the winning hand is scored. Determine which scoring elements apply to the winning hand then add. Use the table to convert the fan into points. However, different sources use different tables.

Value Hand Description Pattern Type
1 fan No Flowers and no Seasons Hand contains no flowers and seasons. Special
1 fan Seat Flower Hand contains player's flower. Special
1 fan Seat Season Hand contains player's Season. Special
1 fan All Chows Hand consists only of chows and a pair of suit tiles.
b1.gifb2.gifb3.gif b3.gifb4.gifb5.gif d2.gifd3.gifd4.gif d6.gifd7.gifd8.gif c3.gifc3.gif
Chow-Based
1 fan Dragon Pung Hand includes a pung (or kong) of dragons.
e1.gife1.gife1.gif
Terminals/Honors
1 fan Seat/Prevalent Wind Hand includes a pung (or kong) of the player’s seat or round wind.
w1.gifw1.gifw1.gif
Terminals/Honors
1 fan Self-drawn Win Winning on a tile drawn from the wall. Going Out
1 fan Last Tile Draw Self-drawn win on the last tile of the wall. Going Out
1 fan Last Tile Discard Win by discard on the discard after the last tile of the wall is drawn. Going Out
1 fan Robbing the Kong Winning off the tile that somebody adds to a melded pung. Going Out
1 fan Out on Replacement Winning on the replacement tile drawn after declaring a kong. Counts as self-drawn. Going Out
2 fan All Flowers Hand contains all flower tiles. Implies Seat Flower.
f1.giff2.giff3.giff4.gif
Special
2 fan All Seasons Hand contains all seasons tiles. Implies Seat Season. .
s1.gifs2.gifs3.gifs4.gif
Special
3 fan All Pungs Hand consists all pungs.
d3.gifd3.gifd3.gif b4.gifb4.gifb4.gif d8.gifd8.gifd8.gif e3.gife3.gife3.gif w4.gifw4.gif
Pung-Based
3 fan Half Flush Hand consists only of honors and suit tiles of one suit.
d3.gifd3.gifd3.gif d4.gifd5.gifd6.gif d8.gifd8.gifd8.gif e3.gife3.gife3.gif w4.gifw4.gif
Suit-Based
4 fan Little Three Dragons Hand has two dragon pungs and a pair of the third dragon.
e1.gife1.gife1.gif e2.gife2.gife2.gife3.gife3.gif
Terminals/Honors
4 fan Seven Pairs Hand is composed of seven pairs of tiles.
b6.gifb6.gif b9.gifb9.gif c2.gifc2.gif d5.gifd5.gif d7.gifd7.gif e1.gife1.gif e3.gife3.gif
Special
6 fan Full Flush Hand consists only of suit tiles of one suit.
b2.gifb2.gifb2.gif b2.gifb3.gifb4.gif b4.gifb5.gifb6.gifb8.gifb8.gifb8.gif b9.gifb9.gif
Suit-Based
Limit Four Concealed Pungs Hand has four concealed pungs and a pair and self-drawn win. Pung-Based
Limit Big Three Dragons Hand has three dragon pungs.
e1.gife1.gife1.gife2.gife2.gife2.gife3.gife3.gife3.gif
Terminals/Honors
Limit Little Four Winds Hand has three pungs and a pair of winds.
w1.gifw1.gifw1.gif w2.gifw2.gifw2.gif w3.gifw3.gifw3.gifw4.gifw4.gif
Terminals/Honors
Limit Big Four Winds Hand has four pungs of winds.
w1.gifw1.gifw1.gif w2.gifw2.gifw2.gif w3.gifw3.gifw3.gif w4.gifw4.gifw4.gif
Terminals/Honors
Limit All Honors Hand consists only of honor tiles.
e1.gife1.gife1.gif e2.gife2.gife2.gif w2.gifw2.gifw2.gif w3.gifw3.gifw3.gif w4.gifw4.gif
Terminals/Honors
Limit All Terminals Hand consists only of terminals.
b1.gifb1.gifb1.gif b9.gifb9.gifb9.gif d1.gifd1.gifd1.gif c1.gifc1.gifc1.gif c9.gifc9.gif
Terminals/Honors
Limit Nine Gates Concealed hand of 1112345678999 in one suit and winning on any tile of the same suit.
c1.gifc1.gifc1.gif c1.gifc2.gifc3.gif c4.gifc5.gifc6.gif c7.gifc8.gifc9.gif c9.gifc9.gif
Suit-Based
Limit Thirteen Orphans Hand made of single tiles of 12 honors and terminals, plus a pair of the 13th.
b1.gifb9.gifc1.gifc9.gifd1.gifd9.gife1.gife2.gife3.gifw1.gifw2.gifw3.gifw4.gif w4.gif
Special
Limit All Kongs Hand has four kongs and a pair. Kong-Based
Limit Jade Dragon Hand is composed of pungs (or kongs) of bamboo tiles and a pung of green dragons.
b1.gifb1.gifb1.gif b2.gifb2.gifb2.gif b4.gifb4.gifb4.gif e1.gife1.gife1.gifb7.gifb7.gif
Suit-Based
Limit Ruby Dragon Hand is composed of pungs (or kongs) of character tiles and pung of red dragons.
c1.gifc1.gifc1.gif c2.gifc2.gifc2.gif c4.gifc4.gifc4.gif e2.gife2.gife2.gif c7.gifc7.gif
Suit-Based
Limit Pearl Dragon Hand is composed of pungs (or kongs) of dot tiles and a pung of white dragons.
d1.gifd1.gifd1.gif d2.gifd2.gifd2.gif d4.gifd4.gifd4.gif e3.gife3.gife3.gif d7.gifd7.gif
Suit-Based
Limit Blessing of Heaven East wins with initial hand. Going Out
Limit Blessing of Earth Non-east player wins on East's first discard. Going Out

The table below is called a fan-laak table. In this one, certain fan values convert to the same amount of points. This helps to limit the scores.

This variation uses:

  • Win by a discarded tile: Discarder pays winner double score and the other players pay normal the winner's score.
  • Win by self-drawn tile: All player's pay double value of the winner's hand.
Scoring Table
Fan Points By discard Self drawn
0 1 $1+1+2=4$ n/a
1 2 $2+2+4=8$ $4+4+4=12$
2 4 $4+4+8=16$ $8+8+8=24$
3 8 $8+8+16=32$ $16+16+16=48$
4, 5, 6 16 $16+16+32=64$ $32+32+32=96$
7, 8, 9 32 $32+32+64=128$ $64+64+64=192$
10+ 64 $64+64+128=256$ $128+128+128=384$

Scoring Examples

Example 1

Consider the following example. East (東) round; South (南) position.

e3.gife3.gife3.gif b2.gifb2.gifb2.gifb3.gif b5.gifb6.gifb7.gif b7.gifb7.gifb7.gif b1.gif
melded pung concealed tiles melded chow melded pung out on
Half Flush 3 fan
Dragon Pung 1 fan
No Flowers 1 fan
5 fan
Payment 64 (32 + 16 + 16) points

The hand has a total of 5 fan. The discarder would pay 32, while all other players pay 16 points each.

Example 2

Consider the following example. East (東) round; East (東) position.

w1.gifw1.gifw1.gif b4.gifb6.gif c4.gifc5.gifc6.gif d7.gifd7.gifd7.gif b2.gifb2.gif b5.gif
melded pung concealed tiles melded chow melded pung pair self-drawn
Seat Wind 1 fan
Prevalent Wind 1 fan
Self-Drawn Win 1 fan
No Flowers 1 fan
4 fan
Payment 96 (32 x 3) points

The hand is worth 4 fan but was completed with a self-drawn tile. Each opponent would have to pay 32 points each.

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