British vs Hong Kong vs Riichi vs Chinese Official vs American Mahjong
Same family of tiles. Five very different ways to play. This guide compares the structural differences that actually change what counts as a legal hand, how scoring works and what a player needs to know at the table.
Looking for the profiles Mahjong Reference can score? The rules hub lists current profiles, including British / BMJA-style, Western, Club - Bramhall 2026, Buzzard 2000 and provisional MCR / WMO 2006. This comparison also covers Hong Kong, Riichi and American Mahjong, which are not currently supported scorers.
Mahjong is a family of related rulesets, not one universal rulebook with a few house rules.
The quickest clues
You usually do not need a whole rulebook to identify the family. A few distinctive features narrow it down very quickly.
Points, doubles, limits or named special hands shape the score.
British / Western Classical
Your table talks about faan/fan and usually allows multiple Chows.
Hong Kong / Cantonese-style
You hear yaku, han, fu, dora, furiten and Riichi.
Japanese Riichi
A large standard fan catalogue and an 8-point minimum guide winning hands.
Chinese Official / MCR
Jokers, the Charleston and a changing annual card point to this style.
American / NMJL-style
The big structural differences
This table deliberately compares the rules that change the experience of play, rather than trying to compress five complete rulebooks into one page.
| Feature | British | Hong Kong | Riichi | MCR | American |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core ordinary hand | Usually four sets + pair | Four sets + pair | Four sets + pair, with exceptions | Four sets + pair, with exceptions | Current card defines legal hands |
| Chows | At most one in an ordinary hand | Normal | Normal | Normal | Only where the card pattern requires |
| Flowers / Seasons | Yes; scoring bonus tiles | Common, treatment varies | Normally not used in standard 4-player play | Used | Not British-style bonus scoring |
| Jokers | No ordinary wild Jokers | Normally no | No | No | Yes |
| Annual card | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Charleston | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Riichi declaration | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Main scoring model | Base points + doubles + limits/special values | Faan/fan-style scoring | Yaku + han + fu | Standardised fan combinations | Value printed for the card hand |
| Winning threshold | Legal complete hand; scoring then determines value | Often a table minimum; varies | At least one yaku | 8-point minimum | Must match a current-card hand |
| Do losing hands matter? | Yes | Usually winner-centred | Winner-centred | Winner-centred | Winner/card-value centred |
Hong Kong conventions can vary by table, especially minimum faan, Flowers and payment tables. American play here means NMJL-style American Mah Jongg rather than every American local variant.
What will actually feel different?
British / BMJA-style
Quick clue: Flowers and Seasons score, losing hands can still matter, and ordinary hands are limited to one Chow.
- Ordinary hands use familiar Pungs, Kongs, Chows and a pair, but with at most one Chow.
- Pungs, Kongs, some pairs, Flowers and Seasons contribute base points before doubles are applied.
- Named special hands and special fishing values are an important part of the ruleset.
- Non-winners can still have meaningful scores because settlement compares losing hands as well as paying the winner.
Hong Kong Mahjong
Quick clue: Faan/fan scoring, normal multiple-Chow play, and traditional Cantonese-style table conventions.
- Four sets and a pair is the familiar ordinary goal, with multiple Chows allowed.
- Scoring is usually expressed in faan/fan rather than British base-points-and-doubles.
- Flowers and minimum-hand conventions vary between published rules and individual tables.
- Settlement is usually winner-centred rather than calculating every losing hand in detail.
Japanese Riichi
Quick clue: Players talk about yaku, han, fu, dora, furiten and declaring Riichi.
- A structurally complete hand still needs at least one yaku to be a legal win.
- Riichi is a declaration available to a concealed player in tenpai and is itself a yaku.
- Dora increases value but does not make a yaku-less hand legal.
- Furiten and discard-reading give Riichi a strong defensive dimension.
Chinese Official / MCR
Quick clue: A formal competition ruleset using a large standard catalogue of scoring combinations and an 8-point minimum.
- MCR is a standardised competition system rather than a generic name for regional Chinese Mahjong.
- The ordinary hand structure is familiar, with recognised exceptions and no British one-Chow restriction.
- Scoring comes from combining recognised fan patterns under a shared tournament framework.
- The breadth of the scoring catalogue makes it feel more formal and pattern-dense than British play.
American / NMJL-style
Quick clue: Jokers, the Charleston and an annually changing card of legal hands.
- The current annual card defines the legal target hands rather than one universal four-sets-and-a-pair structure.
- Jokers are central to many hands.
- The Charleston is a structured tile-passing phase before ordinary play begins.
- A hand must match a valid pattern on the current card, so knowing another Mahjong ruleset does not tell you what is legal this year.
Same tiles, different assumptions
A tutorial or scorer can look familiar while still teaching the wrong game. The biggest traps are assuming that every complete four-sets-and-a-pair hand can win, that multiple Chows are always legal, that Flowers always work the same way, or that every Mahjong table scores only the winner.
Why rules profiles matter
Structural differences are why Mahjong Reference keeps profile-specific scoring and settlement behaviour rather than flattening everything into one universal rules engine. See the rules hub for current profiles and boundaries.
British support is stable.
Score one hand, run a complete four-player game, or learn the British scoring rules without translating from another Mahjong tradition. The learning library is explicitly British-specific.