Any Mahjong Players?

As the story goes: I go to Virginia Tech and most of my friends are Asian because I met this one girl on Facebook and I met her friends etcetc. But the wonderful world of Mahjong was brought into my life because of this. Honestly, it's poably my favorite game to play. It's challenging and you really need to pay attention to the tiles that you need in order to win. We started playing in like the third week of school when my friend Elliott got his set from home. And we were hooked from then on. We get so loud when we play; it's so awesome. We meaning my group of 16 friends: 11 Asians, 4 Whites and 1 Hispanic.

 Mahjong Rules?

The game itself is easy to play. You first need four players. Then you set up the wall of tiles where each person makes an 18x2 length and height row of tiles. All four push them together to make a square with space in the middle. The dice are rolled and the roller counts counterclockwise starting with the dealer. So if I rolled a 13, it would be back to me. So from my wall of tiles, I could 13 from the right and space it apart. Then from tile sets 14 and 15, each preceding set of two tiles go to the next person in a counter clockwise fashion until everyone has 6 sets of 2. The dealer gives out one more tile to each person in the same way. And then the dealer draws his first tile and the game begins. Every time you draw a tile or take one from the pot you need to discard one. You have to have 13 tiles in your hand and the 14th tile you get from drawing or from the pot is your winning tile.

When playing you'll want to order your tiles accordingly to the three suits. Bamboo, Dot and Stick suits. There are special tiles called flowers and seasons which allow you to pick up from the end of the wall; the deal wall. There are also winds and dragons which are used to boost hand quality (however, we don't use points; we just go to whoever makes a hand first wins). There are three types of calls in Mahjong. And you can only call if the tile you need is put down with a special condition for the Chow. Chow is used for when you have two tiles in your hard and a tile is put out in the center that completes your series of 3. 1,2,3 or 5,6,7 and etc. You need to have them of the same suit though. However, the condition is that Chow can only be picked up from the persosn who discards right before it is your turn. So if you have a 3 and 4 of the dot suit and the person before you puts down a 2 of the dot suit, you can yell Chow and take it then put it in front of your tiles. Pongs and Kongs are different. Pongs anyone can call when a tile is discarded. However, you must call it before the next person draws their tile. Pong is used for when you have two of the same tile in your hand and a third of the same is put down. You would yell Pong, reveal the two tiles you have and take the third. Then move it above your hand of tiles. This is an exposed pong because you called it and took it from the middle. You then discard a tile. A concealed pong would be you drawing said tile, but you would just keep it in your hand. Concealed Pongs can form Kongs which is having four of the same tile. Kongs are used when you have three of the same tile and the fourth one is discarded. You yell Kong! and take that tile and put it in front of your tiles. However, with a Kong, you draw a tile from the dead wall and then discard. If you end up getting 4 of the same tiles by drawing a tile, out it face down in front of your tiles and draw a tile from the dead wall. This way people know you have four of a tile but they don't know what tile it is. It gives them uncertainty as to whether or not they will get that tile. It's also best if you keep a pair in your hand and not wait until the end.

And you keep playing and playing until someone has four sets of three and a pair of tiles. However, if you are waiting on one more tile and it happens to be a pair of part of a Chow, you can take that tile whenever it is discarded only if it is the last tile you need.

So yeah, it's my favorite game. And I bought this super sexy Mahjong set. LOVE IT.