STATUS: BOOK IN PRODUCTION — NOT YET PUBLISHED — TITLE NOT YET FINAL

American Mahjong — A Beginner's Reference

Companion page for an upcoming beginner's book teaching American-style Mahjong as one complete, consistent rule system, by Allen S.C. Choi, published by PicoBlu LLC.

This site describes what the book teaches. The book is not yet available for purchase and its final title has not been decided by the publisher yet.

Why One Rule System

American Mahjong is played several genuinely different ways around the world. Learning three rule systems at once, from three different sources, is the fastest way to get confused at an American table.

“This book teaches American-style Mahjong rules only. No Chinese, Riichi, or regional-diaspora rules are mixed in.”

Every diagram in the book uses one tile set and one notation system (taught in Chapter 3), so a hand written on page 40 reads the same way on page 200. The book does not reproduce any specific year's card of standing hands — it teaches the game underneath the card, so what you learn transfers to whatever card your own table plays with.

Quick Reference: What's In the Box

A complete American Mahjong set holds 152 tiles:

Family	What's in it	Count
Dots, Bams, Craks	1–9, four copies each, three suits	108
Dragons	Red, Green, White — four copies each	12
Winds	East, South, West, North — four copies each	16
Flowers	eight, each one different	8
Jokers	eight, all identical	8
Total		152

A complete hand is four groups and a Pair — fourteen tiles (a Pung, Kong, or Run per group; add one tile per Kong).

The seven honor tile faces: Red Dragon, Green Dragon, White Dragon, East, South, West, North, each labeled.

Figure from the book's interior: the seven honor tile faces — three Dragons and four Winds.

Free reference excerpt, adapted from the book's Chapter 1 and Chapter 4 — not the complete rules. The book teaches the full system, start to finish.

Tile Basics: The Three Suits and the Honor Tiles

Every number tile belongs to one of three suits, and each suit runs 1 through 9, four copies of every number.

Suit	Where the name comes from	What it looks like
Dots	Nickname for the round pips printed on the tile. Some tables call it Circles — this reference uses Dots.	A cluster of colored pips, one per count in the number.
Bams	Short for Bamboo.	A row of narrow vertical shapes, except the 1-bam, which usually shows a bird instead.
Craks	Short for Character.	A printed numeral, with a matching Chinese numeral symbol below it.

Honor tiles don't belong to a number suit. Three Dragons — Red, Green, White — four copies each. The White Dragon is usually left blank, or shows a plain border; some tables nickname it Soap. Four Winds — East, South, West, North — four copies each.

Two more families round out the 152-tile set: Flowers, eight tiles, each one unique — picking one up earns a replacement draw instead of building into your hand — and Jokers, eight tiles, wild, standing in for other tiles inside a hand.

All eight Flower tiles shown as distinct designs, and all eight Joker tiles shown as identical printed faces.

Figure from the book's interior: the Flower and Joker tile chart.

Quick Rules Overview: The Charleston, Turns, and Winning

The Charleston is the tile-passing sequence that runs after the deal and before the first turn, always the same order:

Phase	Order	Required?
First Charleston	Right, Across, Left	All three mandatory
Second Charleston	Left, Across, Right (reversed)	Only Left is mandatory; the table votes on Across and Right
Courtesy pass	runs after the Second Charleston finishes	Optional — two players agree to trade an equal number of tiles, up to three each
Blind pass	runs last	Optional — tiles pass face down, unseen by the passer

One tile never leaves your hand in any of these passes: the Joker. It is never passed during the First Charleston, the Second Charleston, or the Courtesy pass.

Chart tracking all eight Charleston passes at a four-player table in order, with arrows for each pass's direction and the Courtesy and Blind passes marked as optional.

Figure from the book's interior: every Charleston pass, in order, at one real table.

Once the Charleston ends, play moves in a cycle: draw a tile from the Wall, then discard one, dropping back to thirteen. A Pung or Kong can be called by any player; a Run can only be called by the player whose turn comes next.

A hand is won one of two ways, and the way you won it decides who pays:

Self-draw win — you complete your hand with a tile you drew yourself from the Wall. Every other player pays double the hand's base point value.
Discard win — you complete your hand by calling a tile another player discarded. That player pays double the base amount; the other two players each pay the base amount once — not zero.

The four-row point-value decision ladder: an all-honor hand at 75, a single-suit hand at 100, a concealed mixed hand at 50, and the same hand exposed at 25.

Figure from the book's interior: the point-value ladder from Chapter 8.

Contents of the Book

Get in Touch

“If a question comes up while you're at the table, or you just want to tell me how your first real game went, write to me directly — I read every message myself.” — Allen S.C. Choi

A dedicated contact address for this site is not live yet. Placeholder, not a working address: [CONTACT EMAIL — coming soon]