Question about Mahjong Gameplay...

[MariposaNegra17]

Many, many years ago, my grandfather bought me a mahjong set at a flee market and I never really learned how to play it...that all changed about a month ago. I was doing a test on a patient (I am a receptionist/tech at an eye doctors office) and asked her what she had planned for the day. She then told me that she was going to play mahjong with her friends. We talked for a few minutes about it and I was finally inspired to learn!


I printed out instructions and guides and after some time, I began to understand the game...to an extent Unfortunately I never have four people to play with but I have my grandmother who is the only person willing to play with me The few times that we played, we came across the same issue...after we start to put down our "pungs" and "kongs" one of us always ends up running out of tiles (and end up with one) in our hand...how can we avoid that? And when you put down a "pung" or "kong" do you discard a tile respectively? You're not supossed to have a certain amount of tiles in your hand at all times, right?


Thank you so much in advance,


Miranda

[Shirluban]

Welcome!

There are many guides, and I think you may have choose the wrong one.
I suggest you to read the Mahjong Made Simple site to have a good first step in mahjong.

There are also many mahjong rules. Most of them have a very similar gameplay, safe for the American rules.
You can check the site Sloperama to identify the rule you are using.

I'm sorry to not give you an accurate answer, but I'm not quite sure what you're doing and what exactly is your problem.

[MariposaNegra17]

Thank you! I can go from there ^__^

[Tom Sloper]

Hello Miranda, you wrote:

1. I printed out instructions and guides and after some time, I began to understand the game...to an extent
2. The few times that we played, we came across the same issue...after we start to put down our "pungs" and "kongs" one of us always ends up running out of tiles (and end up with one) in our hand...how can we avoid that? And when you put down a "pung" or "kong" do you discard a tile respectively? You're not supossed to have a certain amount of tiles in your hand at all times, right?

And Shirluban wrote:

3. There are many guides, and I think you may have choose the wrong one.
4. I suggest you to read the Mahjong Made Simple site to have a good first step in mahjong.
5. There are also many mahjong rules. Most of them have a very similar gameplay, safe for the American rules.
You can check the site Sloperama to identify the rule you are using.

1. If you printed more than one set of instructions, you are probably confused -- because of Shirluban's #5. There are many different mahjong variants. Who knows which ones your printouts describe!

2. A player holds 13 tiles in the hand (including exposed pungs) and takes a 14th tile into the hand on every turn (and discards a tile at the end of each turn, unless declaring mahjong). It's not exactly Rummy. If you're not playing American rules, a kong that's been melded counts as 3 tiles, and a flower is not counted for your 13 or 14 hand count. So whenever you meld a kong or flower, you have to take a replacement tile from the back end of the wall. Note: not all variants even use the flowers in play. When just beginning, you can take the flowers out of the set, and build walls just 17 stacks long.

3. Yes. Some sites (I assume that's what you were printing) are better written than others.

4. That website describes Japanese rules. Not the easiest variant to learn, if you're a beginner. And only recommended if you're going to play with others who already play Japanese rules.

5. Thanks, Shirluban. Miranda, I suggest you first check FAQ 7a, 7b, 7d, and 7e to familiarize yourself with your mahjong set. Then read FAQ 10 for a primer on the basics. http://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq.html

[Shirluban]

4. That website describes Japanese rules. Not the easiest variant to learn, if you're a beginner. And only recommended if you're going to play with others who already play Japanese rules.

5. [...] Then read FAQ 10 for a primer on the basics.

Oh yeah, FAQ 10 is much better to get the general basics without caring about Japanese-specific stuff.