Mahjong

十亿人民九亿麻，还有一亿在观察

Among a billion people, nine hundred million are playing mahjong, and the rest are watching.

— Chinese saying taken from Mahjong for Dummies

From smoke-filled parlors to kitchen tables, Mahjong is a game with a long history that spans countries and centuries. There are many variations of mahjong. Here, I've created and collected some resources for learning and playing old Hong Kong mahjong¹ (and riichi mahjong, marked with a fleuron).

Learn

• Old Hong Kong mahjong rules and scoring from Wikipedia
• ❁Riichi mahjong rules and scoring also from Wikipedia
• Green Tile Social Club's "Setup + Play Instructions" and "Official Points System" on Google Drive
• Victoria Mahjong Club's "Resources" page contains cheat sheets and a beginner's guide
• Mahjong 101: A Beginner’s Crash Course (Hong Kong Style) from Wong Side of History on YouTube
• How to Mahjong (Basic Hong Kong style) and How to Mahjong with points (Advanced Hong Kong style) from Mahjong Sparrow also on YouTube

Play

• PlayMahjong.io for online play
• MahJongo also for online play
• Four Winds Mah Jong for offline play
• ❁Yakuman for Game Boy (with English translation patch or using this translation guide)
• Hong Kong Mahjong Club for Android (also for iOS)
• Let's Mahjong for Android (also for iOS)
• ❁The Mahjong Master List for Consoles, Handhelds and Arcade

Buy

• Yellow Mountain Imports
• Chop Suey Club

More

• Unicode Mahjong Tiles

1: Also called Cantonese mahjong. I think. As far as I can tell, old Hong Kong and Cantonese mahjong are the same. There is also some blurring of the line between them and new Hong Kong mahjong. I think. Listen, I'm still learning.↩︎

Last updated on Mon Mar 02 2026