Mahjong
(Mahjong) was originally called 麻雀 (pinyin: máquè)—meaning sparrow—which is still used in several Chinese languages, mostly in the south, such as Cantonese and Hokkien. It is said that the clacking of tiles during shuffling resembles the chattering of sparrows.
Source
I take no responsibility for making these rules accurate or "authentic".
Dealing. Everyone shuffles face down, east (dealer, winner of dice roll) decides when shuffled enough. Form four two-storey walls of 36 tiles (18 across). East will deal 13 tiles to everyone else and 14 to themselves. To deal, east rolls, starts dealing chunks of 4 (2x2) from the wall starting at the index of their roll. After three chunks to each player, north south and west take 1 tile (their 13th), and east takes 2 tiles. East discards one tile to bring their hand back to a total of 13, and north begins the game.
Turns. You take a face down tile in the centre and look at it privately. If you want to keep it, you can swap it for one of your tiles. Discard one tile (the one you picked up or one from your hand).
Claiming discards. You may take a discard from the previous player (chow) or any player (pung, kong or mahjong) to complete a meld. You must call your meld (chow, pung, kong, mahjong) and expose it (lay it face up). If you kong, the game proceeds from you (skipping the other players). You cannot promote an exposed pung to a kong; you may only kong if you have a concealed pung. Otherwise, discards cannot be claimed; they are out of the game forever. Note that if you kong, and your discarded tile allows you to win, you can also claim your own discard for the win.
Ending the game. You win (mahjong) with three melds (from suits) and one pair (from winds or dragons).
Meld
= Chow (X X+1 X+2) -- three consecutive tiles, can claim from left
| Pung (X X X) -- three identical tiles, can claim from left
| Kong (X X X X) -- four identical tiles, can claim from any discard
Concealed hands. For beginners, play with everyone exposed. For intermediates, if you want to claim discards this game, you must expose them (declare your melds as soon as they form). If you want to earn more points, you can play concealed, but then you cannot collect discards.
For scoring:
- Sequences = 0
- Pung
- Terminal (1s or 9s): 4 exposed, 8 concealed
- Other: 2 exposed, 4 concealed
- Kong
- Terminal (1s or 9s): 16 exposed, 32 concealed
- Other: 8 exposed, 16 concealed
- Wind/dragon pair = 2
- Season (4 flowers) = 4