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Hong Kong mahjong faan calculator

Tap in a hand to see how many faan it's worth, every faan it scores and what each player pays. The calculator runs the same scoring engine as the Mahjong House game, so its answers are the game's.

  • Hong Kong (Cantonese) rules
  • 3-faan minimum, 10-faan cap by default, both adjustable
  • 全銃 or 半銃, half-spicy or spicy payouts
  • Free, nothing to install

Try an example

Your hand

0 of 14 tiles

Tap the tiles below to build a winning hand of 14 tiles, or start from an example.

Result

Add 14 more tiles

Loading the scoring engine…

Add tiles

Add as

Tap a tile to add it to your concealed hand. The last tile you add is the winning tile.

Flowers and seasons

Tap to add or remove. East's are 1, South's 2, West's 3, North's 4.

How you won

Win
Your seat wind (門風)
Prevailing wind (圈風)
Rare hands ›

House rules

Standard: Mahjong House's rules
Discard payment
Payout table

How faan are counted

A Hong Kong mahjong hand is scored by adding up its faan (番). There is no base score: the total is exactly the sum of what the hand earns, in four groups:

  • How you won: Self-draw (自摸) 1, Concealed hand (門前清) 1, a win on a kong or flower replacement tile 1 more, Robbing a kong (搶槓) 1, the last tile of the wall or the last discard 1.
  • Flowers and seasons: 1 for each bonus tile numbered for your seat, 2 for a full set of four, and 1 for holding none at all (無花). Other players' flowers score nothing.
  • Dragons and winds: 1 for each dragon pong and for a pong of your seat wind or the prevailing wind; Little three dragons 5, Big three dragons 8, Little four winds 6.
  • The hand's pattern: All chows (平糊) 1, All pongs (對對糊) 3, Half flush (混一色) 3, Mixed terminals 4, Full flush (清一色) 7.

Limit hands such as Thirteen orphans (十三么), Big four winds, All honours and Four concealed pongs score the cap on their own, with nothing else added. When a hand can be read more than one way, the calculator scores the reading worth the most, as the game does.

The scoring guide has the full faan table with pictures and worked examples, and the rules explain when each situation happens.

How payouts work

The faan total, capped at the maximum, gives a share (one unit) from the payout table. In the standard half-spicy table (半辣上) the share doubles every two faan: 3 faan is 4 units, 4 is 8, 6 is 16, 8 is 32 and 10 is 64. The spicy table (辣辣上) doubles every faan from 4 up, so 10 faan is 512 units.

  • Self-draw: each of the other three players pays one share.
  • Win on a discard, 全銃 (Mahjong House's standard): the discarder pays three shares alone.
  • Win on a discard, 半銃: the discarder pays two shares and each of the other two pays one.
  • Robbing a kong: settled as a win on a discard, with the player who tried to kong as the discarder.

So a 3-faan hand won on a discard costs the discarder 12 units under 全銃, and a 6-faan self-draw collects 16 from each player. Full responsibility (包), where one player pays everything for feeding a limit hand, depends on the play and isn't part of the calculator: see the rules.

Mahjong House is played for points only, with no real money and no prizes; units here are simply shares of the payout table.

Questions

How many faan is a chicken hand (雞糊)?
Zero. A chicken hand is a complete hand that earns no faan, so it can't win under the standard 3-faan minimum; at a table that plays a 0-faan minimum it wins one unit a share. In practice few hands are truly 0: holding no flowers is worth 1 (無花), a concealed hand 1 and a self-draw 1. Try the chicken hand example above, then set the minimum to 0.
Why does my hand say it's below the minimum?
The tiles make a complete hand, but its faan add up to less than the table's minimum (3 by default, 三番起糊), so it can't be declared. Look for faan you may have missed, such as your seat flower, a self-draw or a dragon pong, or lower the minimum under House rules if your table plays 1 or 0.
Do flowers and seasons count?
Yes, but only your own. Each bonus tile numbered for your seat (East 1, South 2, West 3, North 4) is 1 faan, a full set of four flowers or four seasons is 2, and winning with no bonus tiles at all is 1 (無花). Other players' flowers add nothing, and limit hands ignore flowers entirely.
Is Thirteen orphans (十三么) a limit hand?
Yes. Thirteen orphans scores the cap, 10 faan by default (13 if your table plays a 13-faan cap), and nothing else is added: no self-draw, concealed hand or flowers. Try the example above.
How do I enter a kong or a pong I've claimed?
Choose Pong, Kong or Concealed kong above the tiles, then tap the tile: the whole set is added to your melds. A chow is entered by its lowest tile. Each kong counts as three of the hand's 14 tiles. Then switch back to Tile to add your concealed tiles.
Will the calculator always agree with the game?
Yes. It runs Mahjong House's own rules engine, built for the web, so the faan, limit hands and payouts are exactly what the game would give for the same hand and house rules. You can play free in your browser to see it at the table.
Test yourself: today's Daily PuzzleOne Hong Kong mahjong hand a day. What would Sifu discard?