Mahjong Variants · 臺灣麻將
Taiwanese Mahjong: Rules and Tai Scoring
Taiwanese mahjong (臺灣麻將, Táiwān Májiàng), also called 16-tile (十六張, shíliù zhāng), is the dominant style across Taiwan. Each player holds 16 tiles and wins by building five melds and a pair. Instead of Hong Kong faan, hands score in tai (台, tái), converted to money by a base-plus-per-tai formula. It's the first of TileBuddy's per-variant reference pages.
A little history
Mahjong took shape in 19th-century China as a 13-tile game, and that's the form that spread to Hong Kong and most of the world. The 16-tile version is Taiwan's own. Somewhere in the early-to-mid 20th century, players there added a fifth meld to the hand, and the longer, higher-scoring game stuck.
With the extra meld came the conventions that still define the style: scoring in tai instead of a doubling table, the 底/台 (dǐ/tái) payout, and the 連莊 (lián zhuāng) dealer streak that rewards a dealer for holding the seat. It travelled with the Taiwanese diaspora, and today it's the default game across Taiwan and a fixture in Taiwanese communities abroad.
How it differs from Hong Kong Mahjong
If you already know Hong Kong Mahjong, most of the tiles and melds carry over. The differences are structural: a bigger hand, a different scoring unit, a dealer streak that HK has no equivalent for, and a harsher discard penalty.
| Hong Kong | Taiwanese (16-tile) | |
|---|---|---|
| Hand size | 13 tiles → 4 melds + a pair | 16 tiles → 5 melds + a pair |
| Scoring unit | Faan (番, fān), run through a doubling table | Tai (台, tái). Base points plus a flat amount per tai, no doubling |
| Flowers | 8 flowers, each a bonus faan | 8 flowers always in play; your own-seat flower (正花, zhèng huā) scores 1 tai |
| Dealer streak | None. The dealer just re-deals | 連莊 / 拉莊 (lián zhuāng / lā zhuāng). A winning or drawing dealer keeps the seat and adds 2N+1 tai |
| Discard win | Discarder pays double, the other two pay single | 放槍 (fàng qiāng). The discarder pays the whole settlement alone |
| Self-draw | All three losers pay the full payout | 自摸 (zì mō). All three pay the full amount, so the winner collects 3× |
| Minimum to win | House threshold, often 3 faan | None. A 0-tai chicken win (屁胡, pì hú) is legal |
The five-melds-and-a-pair shape gives the tai table patterns Hong Kong doesn't reward the same way (Five Concealed Pungs, for example). The dealer streak and the discarder-pays-all rule are what most change how a night settles up.
The tai (台) table
Tai are additive: you total every pattern the hand qualifies for, with no HK-style doubling table. The values below are TileBuddy's defaults, anchored to the 神來也 app-standard and cross-checked against 明星3缺1 (see Sources). A few genuinely vary table to table. Those are marked house rule and covered below.
| Pattern | Pinyin | English | Tai |
|---|---|---|---|
| 屁胡 | pì hú | Chicken win | 0 |
| 莊家 | zhuāng jiā | Dealer | 1 |
| 自摸 | zì mō | Self-draw | 1 |
| 門清 | mén qīng | Fully concealed | 1 |
| 門清自摸 | mén qīng zì mō | Concealed self-draw | 3 |
| 圈風台 / 門風台 | quān fēng tái / mén fēng tái | Round or seat wind pung | 1 ea |
| 三元台 | sān yuán tái | Dragon pung | 1 ea |
| 正花 | zhèng huā | Own-seat flower | 1 ea |
| 獨聽 | dú tīng | Single-tile wait | 1 |
| 搶槓 | qiǎng gàng | Robbing a kong | 1 |
| 槓上開花 | gàng shàng kāi huā | Kong-replacement win | 1 or 2 |
| 海底撈月 / 河底撈魚 | hǎi dǐ lāo yuè / hé dǐ lāo yú | Last-tile win | 1 |
| 半求人 | bàn qiú rén | All melds claimed, self-drawn win | 1 |
| 全求人 | quán qiú rén | All melds claimed, discard win | 2 |
| 平胡 | píng hú | All sequences | 2 |
| 三暗刻 | sān àn kè | Three concealed pungs | 2 |
| 花槓 | huā gàng | All four of one flower set | 2 or 1 |
| 混一色 | hùn yī sè | Half flush | 4 |
| 碰碰胡 | pèng pèng hú | All pungs | 4 |
| 小三元 | xiǎo sān yuán | Small three dragons | 4 |
| 地聽 | dì tīng | Declared listen, first go-round | 4 or 8 |
| 四暗刻 | sì àn kè | Four concealed pungs | 5 |
| 清一色 | qīng yī sè | Full flush | 8 |
| 字一色 | zì yī sè | All honors | 8 or 16 |
| 大三元 | dà sān yuán | Big three dragons | 8 |
| 小四喜 | xiǎo sì xǐ | Small four winds | 8 |
| 五暗刻 | wǔ àn kè | Five concealed pungs | 8 |
| 八仙過海 | bā xiān guò hǎi | All eight flowers | 8 |
| 七搶一 | qī qiǎng yī | Seven flowers, rob the eighth | 8 |
| 人胡 | rén hú | Non-dealer wins on the first discard | 8 or omit |
| 大四喜 | dà sì xǐ | Big four winds | 16 |
| 地胡 | dì hú | Non-dealer's first self-draw | 16 |
| 天胡 | tiān hú | Dealer wins on the deal | 24 |
A few stacking rules the scoring has to respect: 門清自摸 is a flat 3 tai (never 門清 plus 自摸 counted separately); 字一色 supersedes 混一色; 清一色 and 混一色 are mutually exclusive; and the concealed-pung ladder (三暗刻 2 → 四暗刻 5 → 五暗刻 8) needs the pungs to actually be concealed.
Contested values (house rules vary)
Taiwanese mahjong has no single canonical rulebook, so a handful of high-value hands are scored differently table to table. TileBuddy ships these as toggles with the app-standard as the default, rather than silently picking one.
| Hand | Values seen |
|---|---|
| 字一色 (zì yī sè, All honors) | 8 ↔ 16 |
| 槓上開花 (gàng shàng kāi huā, Kong-replacement) | 1 ↔ 2 |
| 花槓 (huā gàng, Flower kong) | 2 ↔ 1 |
| 地聽 (dì tīng, First-turn listen) | 4 ↔ 8 |
| 人胡 (rén hú, First-discard win) | include (8) ↔ omit |
How tai becomes money: the 底/台 system
Where Hong Kong runs total faan through a doubling table, Taiwanese uses two numbers agreed before play:
- Base (底, dǐ): a flat amount every settlement starts from.
- Per-tai (台, tái): the amount added for each tai the hand scored.
The payment for one settlement is base + (total tai × per-tai). Common presets run from 底30/台10 up to 底600/台100, with 底100/台30 as TileBuddy's default and 底1000/台200 for tournament play. Who pays that settlement depends on the win:
- Discard win (放槍, fàng qiāng): the discarder pays the whole settlement alone. The other two pay nothing.
- Self-draw (自摸, zì mō): all three losers each pay the full settlement, so the winner collects it three times. The +1 self-draw tai is already inside the total everyone pays.
- Dealer streak (連莊 / 拉莊, lián zhuāng / lā zhuāng): any settlement the dealer is in carries 2N+1 tai, where N is the streak length. At the dealer's first hand (N = 0) that's just the 1 dealer tai; 連1拉1 is 3 tai, 連2拉2 is 5, adding 2 per further streak. If the dealer wins, each opponent pays the extra; if the dealer loses, the dealer pays it.
Worked example · 底100/台30
A non-dealer self-draws a concealed hand: 門清自摸 (mén qīng zì mō, 3 tai) plus one own-seat flower 正花 (zhèng huā, 1 tai) = 4 tai. Each settlement is 100 + 4 × 30 = 220. All three losers pay 220, so the winner collects 660.
Now the dealer wins instead, on 連1拉1, by claiming a discard: 混一色 (hùn yī sè, 4 tai) + one 正花 (1 tai) + the streak block 2(1)+1 = 3 tai, for 8 tai. Because it's a discard win, the player who fed the tile pays the whole thing alone: 100 + 8 × 30 = 340.
Sources
Hong Kong Mahjong resolves scoring disputes against a single reference (Let's Mahjong). Taiwanese has no equivalent canon, so TileBuddy fixes its own anchor: defaults follow the 神來也 app-standard tai table, cross-checked against 明星3缺1. Where those two agree, that's the default; where the wider community splits, it's a house-rule toggle.
- Primary. 神來也麻將 (Gamesofa): tai table (台數簡表) . Taiwan's largest online mahjong platform.
- Cross-check. 明星3缺1 (Gametower): scoring reference . The other dominant app. The two together define the app-standard baseline.
- Structure and history: zh-Wikipedia 臺灣麻將 .
- Tournament conventions: 中華民國麻將競技協會 (ATAWMJ) . Penalties and stake presets.
- Bilingual naming: MJ888 English scoring guide .
Keep reading
- Hong Kong Mahjong Faan Wiki, every HK winning hand, scored in faan.
- How faan scoring works covers the HK doubling table, the tai system's counterpart.
TileBuddy scores Hong Kong today
The tile-scanning, auto-scoring companion is live for Hong Kong Mahjong. Taiwanese (16-tile) support is on the roadmap.