Full Flush (清一色): How to Score This 7-Faan Hand in Hong Kong Mahjong
One of the most satisfying victories in Hong Kong Mahjong comes from sweeping the table with a hand built entirely from one suit. That is the essence of Full Flush (清一色, pronounced ching yat sik in Cantonese): a winning hand where every tile, in every set, including the pair, belongs to a single suit family. No dragons. No wind tiles. Nothing but bamboo, or nothing but characters, or nothing but circles, all the way down.
At 7 faan, Full Flush is one of the most powerful non-limit hands you can build. It rewards commitment and patience, punishes hesitation, and makes opponents very nervous once they notice your discards trending toward a single suit.
What Is Full Flush?
Full Flush means every tile in your winning hand comes from one suit only. That covers all four sets (whether chows, pungs, or kongs) plus the pair. Honor tiles (wind tiles and dragon tiles) are not allowed. A single West Wind (西) anywhere in your hand, even as the pair, disqualifies you.
The three suits in Hong Kong Mahjong are:
| Suit | Chinese | Tiles |
|---|---|---|
| Characters (Wan) | 萬子 | 1-Man through 9-Man |
| Bamboo (Suo) | 索子 | 1-Bamboo through 9-Bamboo |
| Circles (Tong) | 筒子 | 1-Circle through 9-Circle |
Each suit contains 36 tiles (four copies each of 1 through 9). A Full Flush hand draws exclusively from one of those three 36-tile groups.
How Many Faan Is Full Flush Worth?
Full Flush scores 7 faan in standard Hong Kong Mahjong. To see where it sits among common hands:
| Hand | Faan |
|---|---|
| Common Hand (平和) | 1 faan |
| Concealed Hand (門前清) | 1 faan |
| Mixed One Suit (混一色) | 3 faan |
| All Triplets (對對和) | 3 faan |
| Small Three Dragons (小三元) | 5 faan |
| Full Flush (清一色) | 7 faan |
| Great Dragons (大三元) | 8 faan |
| Thirteen Orphans (十三么) | Limit |
Seven faan on its own puts you well into high-payout territory. Most games cap at 13 faan (the limit), so Full Flush alone gets you more than halfway there before you count a single flower tile or bonus element. See the Complete Faan Guide for a full breakdown of how faan translates into payments at the table.
Building a Full Flush Hand
Commit Early, Commit Completely
Full Flush is not a hand you drift into. It requires an early decision and the discipline to discard everything outside your chosen suit. The moment you decide to chase it, every wind tile, dragon tile, and off-suit number tile becomes a discard candidate.
Yes, you are giving up potential faan from dragon pungs and wind pungs. That trade-off is worth it: 7 faan from the hand itself beats the 1 or 2 faan you might earn from honor tile pungs, and you avoid the fragmented hand that results from trying to do too much at once.
Choosing Your Suit
Pick the suit where you already hold the most tiles. Count your starting hand and ask which family has the deepest concentration. If you hold five bamboo tiles, three circles tiles, and one characters tile, bamboo is almost certainly your suit.
Two other factors are worth checking:
- What opponents are discarding. If the table is throwing away circles tiles in the first few draws, the availability of circles for your hand goes up.
- Which suit has your most complete sets. Three tiles forming a partial chow or pung are worth more than three unconnected tiles in the same suit. Connectivity matters.
Managing Honor Tiles
The hardest part of building Full Flush is letting go of honor tiles early. A pair of Green Dragons (發發) represents potential faan, but keeping them means you cannot win with Full Flush. They have to go.
The rule of thumb: if you hold three or more tiles in your target suit and commit to Full Flush, discard all honor tiles within the next two or three turns. Waiting gives opponents the chance to call pungs on those discards, which is fine since you do not want the tiles anyway. But holding honor tiles longer signals indecision, and observant opponents will read it.
Full Flush Combinations
Because Full Flush requires no honor tiles, it stacks cleanly with other pattern-based bonuses:
| Combined hand | Total faan |
|---|---|
| Full Flush only | 7 |
| Full Flush plus self-draw (自摸) | 8 |
| Full Flush plus All Triplets (對對和) | 10 |
| Full Flush plus All Triplets plus self-draw | 11 |
| Full Flush plus two flower or season tiles | 9 |
The Full Flush plus All Triplets combination deserves special attention. Four pungs all in one suit is a demanding construction, but it is a realistic goal in a long game. Our All Triplets (Dui Dui Hu) guide explains how to build a pung-based hand and why this combination stacks so powerfully.
Defending Against Full Flush
When an opponent is only discarding honor tiles and off-suit tiles in the first few turns, Full Flush (or its lower-scoring cousin, Mixed One Suit) should be your first thought.
Track the discards. If an opponent has discarded three bamboo tiles in the first six turns, bamboo flush is unlikely. But if they have been discarding characters and circles tiles while keeping every bamboo tile, the signal is clear.
Dangerous tiles are tiles in their suit. If the opponent appears to be going for a circles flush, any circles tile in your hand becomes a potential discard they can win from. Bamboo and characters tiles are safer.
Watch for the upgrade mid-game. Some players start by building Mixed One Suit and only discard their honor tiles once the suit concentration is strong enough to aim for Full Flush. If an opponent who was holding wind tiles suddenly starts throwing them away mid-game, they may be upgrading. Tighten your discards of their target suit immediately.
Using safe tiles as blockers is acceptable. In the late game, if you are sitting on a tile in the opponent’s suit that you know is dangerous, holding it one turn longer to let the wall run down can save a large payout.
Full Flush vs Mixed One Suit
Full Flush and Mixed One Suit (混一色, 3 faan) share the same core requirement: focus on one suit. The critical difference is that Mixed One Suit allows honor tiles alongside the suit tiles, while Full Flush forbids them entirely.
Mixed One Suit is more flexible and more forgiving to build. Full Flush demands strict suit discipline. The payoff is more than double the faan (7 versus 3), which makes the upgrade almost always worth pursuing when the tiles cooperate.
The decision is simple: if you are already at Mixed One Suit territory and your only remaining honor tiles are a pair or a partial pung, ask whether you can replace them with suit tiles. If yes, you could gain 4 faan from a single strategic discard and redraw. Our Mixed One Suit vs Full Flush comparison walks through exactly when to make that call.
A Note on Sequences vs Pungs in Full Flush
Full Flush has no requirement about the type of sets in the hand. You can build it with chows (sequences), pungs, or a mix of both. This is what makes it accessible to players at every level:
- Chow-heavy Full Flush is easier to build and more concealed, since you rely less on calling opponents’ discards.
- Pung-heavy Full Flush (combining with All Triplets) scores more faan but requires more aggressive calling and reveals your hand faster.
- Mixed sets are the most common in practice, typically two or three chows and one or two pungs within the same suit.
Full Flush is one of those hands that separates players who track their tiles from players who just react to what they draw. When you know what suit you are committing to and why, every draw and every discard becomes a clear decision. Let TileBuddy handle the faan arithmetic so you can stay focused on the tiles. Download it free on the App Store.