Mah Jong

The Game of Mah Jong explained...

“At its roots Mah Jong is a simple gambling game which has long been an addiction amongst Chinese communities”.

Mah Jong has always been surrounded with an aura of romance, partly because of its oriental origins and partly on account of its elaborate formalities, terms and sets of colourfully engraved tiles made traditionally from bamboo and bone.

The truth about Mah Jong is that its romantic associations conceal a basically simple game. The game is only about 100 years old (a baby amongst mind games, though its rules are borrowed from early Chinese games - no one seems to know its exact origins), and its play structure is similar to the uncomplicated card game, rummy.

A cynic once said that there are as many sets of rules for Mah Jong as there are players. Indeed Mah Jong has never regained the popularity it enjoyed when the game blossomed in the West during the 1920s, when in attempting to make the game more acceptable to Western tastes, the rules were elaborated to the point of absurdity. This together with the introduction of contract bridge at that time, led to the eclipse of Mah Jong, although it retained a small following in the United States. Only recently is the game again being played to any extent in Europe.

There are three main play systems, the Chinese, which has many variations, the Japanese and the American, these last two with codified rules. All systems use basically the same equipment, the differences being reflected in the ‘special hands’, the use of bonus tiles and the method of scoring.

Mah Jong sets are readily available but are not cheap. Since a seductive element of the game is the tactile pleasure of handling the tiles, it is recommended to buy the best set one can afford.

Although not normally part of standard Mah Jong sets, a useful accessory is a set of racks used to hold your tiles and store your counting sticks, these racks in themselves can be very ornate and are in keeping with the game's 'seductive side'.

Books for a relatively straightforward game such as Mah Jong might seem unnecessary; however such books, which are available in English, can be extremely helpful with understanding all apsects of the game, including the preliminaries, the game itself, scoring, playing systems and the various rule options and variations.