| World Series of Mahjong: | Overview | Gameplay | Scoring | Penalties & Errors | Resources |
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| World Series of Mahjong |
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| World Series of Mahjong |
| Length | 8 hands |
| Tiles Used |
| Wall | 136 tiles |
| Hand | 13 tiles |
| Dead Wall | 14 tiles |
| Scoring |
| System | Pattern-based |
| Unit | Points |
| Minimum | 5 |
| Maximum | 480 |
| Payout | Winner only |
World Series of Mahjong (WSOM) uses an additive, pattern-based scoring system, Zung Jung, developed by Alan Kwan. It is similar to Chinese Official or Hong Kong New Style, but with far fewer scoring elements, making it much easier to learn. Unlike CO or HKNS, Zung Jung does not have a minimum score requirement for winning a hand, although the World Series of Mahjong adopted a five point minimum in its 2008 and 2009 tournaments.
Development
Zung Jung rules have been in development for over a decade, and it aims to be an international rule set that is simple to learn and teach. The pattern-focused payoff scheme takes a scientific approach, awarding points for logical patterns and ignoring obscure patterns that appear in regional variants of mahjong.
The WSOM uses Zung Jung mahjong rules, along with their own regulations to adapt the game for tournament play.
Tournaments
Preliminaries
Equipment
| Bams | Cracks | Dots | Winds | Dragons | Flowers | Seasons | Jokers | Red tiles | |
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Optional accessories:
- Pushers/straighteners
Terminology
- Chi
- Declared when claiming a sequence of three.
- Pong
- Declared when claiming a triplet.
- Kong
- Declared when claiming four of a kind.
- Win
- Declared upon winning.
- Dead wall
- The last fourteen tiles of the wall that are not played.
- Seabed tile
- The last tile drawn before the dead wall.
- Riverbed tile
- The last tile discarded before the dead wall.
Seating
For casual play any seating arrangement will do. Seat winds apply, however prevalent winds do not.
Main Article: Seating
Before the tiles are shuffled and the wall is built, each player sits down arbitrarily at the table. Set aside one of each wind tile, an even, and an odd numbered tile. Shuffle the wind tiles face down and arranged them sandwiched in between the odd and even tile as seen below.
Example
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| Random wind tiles face down |
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Any arbitrary player rolls two dice and counts off, starting with him/herself as one, the next player as two, etc. continuing counterclockwise. The indicated player, then rolls the dice once more noting both the total and if the total is an even or odd number. This will determine who draws first and from which side. Again, he/she counts off starting with him/herself.
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| Wind tiles face up for illustration purposes. |
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If the number is odd, for example, the indicated player draws the face down wind tile closest to the odd-numbered tile (in this case South). The next player in turn draws the next wind tile (North), and so on (East and last West). The wind tile drawn is your seat wind. The player who is east remains stationary while the other players arranges themselves accordingly. Shuffle up all of tiles and build the wall.
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| Playing order: East, South, West, North |
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Dealing
Tiles are then dealt accordingly to each player. The wall will be 17 tiles in length. The last 14 tiles are set aside as the dead wall.