Guide to Playing Mahjong Online

Rules

You will need to know about the rules of the game before you venture out to the open sea of online casinos for Mahjong.

You will also need to create an account with one of our suggested websites to ensure you can play the game online for better understanding. You might need to add and withdraw money and for that we have you covered in this article.

The main objective of this game is to be able to remove all mahjong tiles from the board before time runs out.

The goal is to get a mahjong which means a hand of 4 sets and a pair or a special hand out of the 14 tiles in your rack. In Mahjong terms it means collecting Chows (3 consecutive tiles of the same suit), Pungs (3 identical tiles of the same suit) and Kongs (4 identical tiles of the same suit).

This is essentially the Hong Kong version of Mahjong I am discussing. The Japanese version is a bit more complex and played with 136 tiles. You can only remove those tiles which are free means. By the word free I mean they are not touching any other tile on the left or right.

Points and their respective monetary value are mutually decided before the game commences.

Points are obtained by comparing the winning hand to various winning conditions. Each winning condition has a specific set of criteria. Different criteria have different point values associated with them.

Even though the rules change only subtly across various versions of mahjong, it will be good to read about the rules in detail at separate articles below.

Strategies

Mahjong is a game of a high level of skill and concentration. To be able to strike it hard in Mahjong you need to have a good eye and good deceptive skills.

Traditionally you would have four players sit according to their tile shuffled amongst them and the person on the east would be the dealer.

Nowadays a simple roll of dice decides the dealer. Before every turn the player needs to allow the other players to choose if required the most recently discarded tile. The person who can utilize a discarded tile to complete a Mahjong wins by displaying a winning hand of 14 tiles.

Interaction with other players: You need to be able to not just read your own hands, but just like in the game of cards understand what the other player has in their hands. Based upon that you need to make the right move whether to go for the big hand or the smaller ones.

Making a Big hand usually ends up in sacrificing speed and aiming for a high score. The best strategy here can only be analyzed by judging the hands of all the four players. You can bluff a player in thinking you have a small hand and letting him for the time taking big hand which can buy you time.

The “Honor Triplet” has fewer options for combinations. It can combine with:

• Mixed One-Suit
• Triplets
• Mixed Lesser Terminals
• or kong the fourth tile for 5 points…

…but in general, it doesn’t combine well with other things. Instead, two identical sequences are the pattern which easily combines with others. It combines with tier 1 patterns for a hand of 15 to 25 points.

In the beginning of the game, after throwing away the guest winds and the terminal numbers, it’s usually a good idea to start with throwing the value honors which others have already discarded.

The key, however, is to understand which strategy to apply to what variation of the game and for that you can go through the articles below to the strategies and variations of Online Mahjong in greater detail.

Variations of the game

There are several types of Mahjong which are played worldwide. Essentially the Cantonese version which is also referred to as the Hong Kong version is most common.

The oldest version is the classical Chinese version.

The Japanese use the Japanese Mahjong which has slightly different from the classical version of the game. It is similar to what is used popularly in Japanese video games. Each player starts with a score variable between 20000 and 30000 represented by a series of bars. These basically are representative of the Chinese tiles and are available in four denominations 10000, 5000,1000 and 100.

When a player runs out of bars the game ends and the player leading in score wins.

The Singaporean Mahjong has similar rules to the classical Chinese Mahjong except for the fact that it uses an extra set of tiles. It consists of 148 tiles and has an additional Animal tileset. There are 19 stacks for the dealer (East), the player opposite to the dealer (West) also has 19 tiles. The other has 18 tiles each.

The Dead wall is made up of 15 tiles.

The American version or the version which will be basically of interest for us Indians is the version where these Chinese symbols have been numbered down. In the year 1917 Joseph P. Babock who was working for the Standard Oil learnt the game of Mahjongg and introduced it to the outside world.

Playing Virtual or Live

Online Mahjong is a completely different experience compared to real Mahjong with live physical players in person. It completely depends upon your taste as to how would you like to play the game in the online casinos in India.

Though there aren’t any virtual Mahjong by which I mean that there is a live dealer dealing out tiles to you over the internet in a studio with cameras located at specific angles to stream you the live feed as if you are right there in person.

You can however easily play it online amongst four ‘live’ real players. These players can be your friends or anonymous players but real humans.

When you play live Mahjong online over the internet, you are basically connected to a room where the game elements are controlled by registered and approved software and randomness is also defined and authorized by authorities to determine pure randomness.

There is no fraudulent activity and you can enjoy the game at your leisure and ease. All you will need is a good enough internet connection and an account at one of the online casinos offering Mahjong. Just be sure to check which casinos have the best payouts before you register for an account there. Also, check for good promotional events such as sign up bonuses when you register.