Terminology

1. Tiles

There are main classes of Mahjong tiles: Suited Tiles, Honour Tiles, and Bonus Tiles.

1.1 Suited Tiles (序数牌)

Suited tiles run from 1 to 9. There are four copies of each tile.

• Characters Suit (万子):

  (一万)(二万)(三万)(四万)(五万)(六万)(七万)(八万)(九万)

• Circles Suit (筒子 tǒng zi):

  (一筒)(二筒)(三筒)(四筒)(五筒)(六筒)(七筒)(八筒)(九筒)

• Bamboo Suit (索子 suò zi) :

  (一索)(二索)(三索)(四索)(五索)(六索)(七索)(八索)(九索)

1.2 Honour Tiles (大牌)

Honour tiles consists of the 4 Wind Tiles and the 3 Dragon tiles. Again, there are four copies of each tile.

• Wind Tiles (风牌) (1-4):

  (东风)(南风)(西风)(北风)

• Dragon Tiles (三元牌) (1-3):

  (红中)(白板)(青发)

1.3 Bonus Tiles (花牌)

Bonus tiles consist of the flowers, seasons, and animals. There are one of each tile.

• Flower Tiles (花牌):

  

• Season Tiles (季牌):

  

• Animal Tiles (动物牌):

  (猫)(老鼠)(公鸡)(蜈蚣)

2. Classifying tiles

We further classify tiles because they are defined in different winning hands.

• Simple Tiles (中张牌): Suited Tiles between 2 and 8. E.g., .

• End Tiles (老头牌): Suited Tiles 1 and 9. I.e.,

• Terminal Tiles (幺九牌): Include End Tiles and Honour Tiles. I.e.,

• Value tiles (番牌): Honour tiles that gives you 1 Tai in a triplet. Any Dragon Tile , your seat wind (E.g., ), and the prevailing wind (E.g. ) are value tiles.

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References:

• This page is adapted from Riichi Book 1 by Daina Chiba (under CC BY-NC 3.0 License)