Self-Pick (自摸)

What is Self-Pick?

Self-Pick (自摸), pronounced zi mou in Cantonese, is a 1-faan bonus in Hong Kong Mahjong awarded when a player completes their winning hand using a tile drawn from the wall rather than claiming a discard. It is one of the most frequently scored win-action faans and stacks with nearly every hand pattern.

How to score Self-Pick

The winning condition occurs when the player, on their own turn, draws a tile from the wall (or a replacement tile after a kong) that completes the four-meld-plus-pair structure. The win must be declared immediately on that draw — accepting a self-drawn winning tile is mandatory if the player wishes to claim the round.

Self-Pick contrasts with a discard win (食糊), where the winning tile comes from another player. Discard wins do not earn Self-Pick faan but trigger the discarder-pays-double rule for payment.

Example hand

Faan value: 1

Self-Pick is worth 1 additive faan, meaning it adds to the hand’s total rather than replacing other patterns. It also changes the payment structure: on a self-draw, all three losing players pay the winner the full payout, whereas a discard win has the discarder pay double and the other two pay single.

Common combinations

Self-Pick stacks with virtually every winning pattern in HK Mahjong:

• Self-Pick + All Triplets (對對胡) — 1 + 3 = 4 faan, paying 16 base units.
• Self-Pick + Mixed Flush (混一色) — 1 + 3 = 4 faan.
• Self-Pick + Full Flush (清一色) — 1 + 7 = 8 faan.
• Self-Pick + Concealed Hand (門前清) — 1 + 1 = 2 faan, the basic concealed self-draw.
• Self-Pick + Concealed Hand + All Triplets — 1 + 1 + 3 = 5 faan, a frequently scored stack.

Self-Pick is automatically included in Fully Concealed Hand (門前清自摸), the 2-faan combined version some rule sets count as a single pattern. When using TileBuddy, the app applies whichever scoring convention the table is set to.

Strategic note

Self-Pick discourages opening melds for claims, since concealed hands hold more drawing-deck access. A player who calls multiple pungs from discards reduces both the wall tiles available to them and their chance of self-drawing the winning tile, often trading the +1 Self-Pick faan for the speed of a claim-built hand.