Mixed Terminals (混么九)

What is Mixed Terminals?

Mixed Terminals (混么九), pronounced wun yiu gau and sometimes called Mixed Orphans, is a 4-faan Hong Kong Mahjong winning hand consisting entirely of terminal tiles (the 1s and 9s of all three suits) and honor tiles (winds and dragons). Every meld and the pair must contain only these tile types. Because chows require three consecutive numbered tiles, Mixed Terminals automatically forces all melds to be pungs or kongs — so its 4-faan score includes the 3 faan that would otherwise come from All Triplets.

How to score Mixed Terminals

The hand is restricted to:

• Terminal tiles: 1 and 9 of Bamboos (一索, 九索), Characters (一萬, 九萬), and Circles (一筒, 九筒)
• Honor tiles: all four winds (東, 南, 西, 北) and all three dragons (中, 發, 白)

Every meld must be a pung or kong of one of these types, and the pair must also be one of them. No middle-numbered tiles (2–8) are permitted.

Example hand

Faan value: 4

Mixed Terminals is worth 4 faan, paying 16 base units. The faan value already includes the All Triplets contribution — the 3-faan All Triplets pattern is not added on top, since Mixed Terminals is structurally guaranteed to be all-pungs and the rule set treats this as one combined score rather than 4 + 3 = 7.

Common combinations

Mixed Terminals stacks selectively:

• Mixed Terminals + Concealed Hand (門前清) — 4 + 1 = 5 faan, when no pung was claimed.
• Mixed Terminals + Self-Pick (自摸) — 4 + 1 = 5 faan.
• Mixed Terminals + Round Wind / Seat Wind (圈風 / 門風) — 4 + 1 (or 2) faan, when an honor pung in the hand matches.
• Mixed Terminals + All Triplets (對對胡) — does NOT stack additively; the 3 faan is already absorbed.

Mixed Terminals upgrades to All Terminals (清么九, 10 faan) by removing all honor tiles, leaving only terminals. It upgrades to All Honors (字一色, 10 faan) by removing all terminal tiles, leaving only honors. The three patterns form a progression where each restriction increases the faan value sharply.

Strategic note

Mixed Terminals is one of the most “shape-locked” hands in HK Mahjong. The tile pool is severely restricted (just 28 tile types: 6 terminals + 7 honors, doubled for the deck), so accumulating four pungs from this pool requires either substantial luck or aggressive claiming. Most successful Mixed Terminals attempts come from players who started with a strong terminal-honor distribution in the opening hand — committing to it from a balanced opening rarely succeeds.