Mahjong Tiles - All to Know

Mahjong is a game many players in Ghana enjoy at online casinos, and it's a unique experience. What makes it so engaging is the sheer variety and strategy involved with the Mahjong tiles themselves.

Many players might not be fully familiar with all the different Mahjong tiles you can encounter. That's why we've put together this guide, so you don't have to worry about it anymore. We'll cover everything you need to know about Mahjong tiles. Let's dive right in!

How Many Tiles Are in a Mahjong Set?

The number of tiles used in Mahjong can differ slightly depending on regional variations. While sets from places like the US or Southeast Asia might include a few extra tiles like flowers or jokers, standard sets typically have between 136 and 144 tiles. Some sets even come with blank tiles that can be used to replace any that might get damaged or go missing.

Understanding the Different Mahjong Tile Categories

Mahjong tiles generally fall into six main categories: Suited Tiles, Red Tiles, Honor Tiles, Flower Tiles, Animal Tiles, and Joker Tiles.

Suited Tiles: The Building Blocks

Suited tiles, often called number tiles, feature both a suit and a numerical rank. They are graded from one to nine across three distinct suits, each representing different aspects of currency. For every rank and suit combination, there are four identical tiles, making up 108 suited tiles in total (36 per suit). You'll refer to a tile by its rank followed by its suit. The tiles 'one' and 'nine' in each suit are known as terminal tiles. These tiles are essential for forming melds.

• Circles: This suit uses circles to represent its symbol. These circles are a nod to the game's origins, symbolizing copper coins or 'Cash'.
• Bamboo: Most bamboo tiles are depicted as patterns of sticks, with the exception of the 'one bamboo' which is often shown as a bird, like a sparrow or peacock. Early versions might have shown a simple string of coins with a knot.
• Characters: This suit features Chinese characters, making it easily identifiable.

Red Tiles: A Special Bonus

Red tiles are unique to Japanese Mahjong sets. These aren't just colored versions of existing tiles; they offer bonus points! They first appeared as red 'fives' for each suit in the 1970s, with red ones and nines coming later, though less commonly. Red threes and sevens followed. Sometimes, a special red-white dragon tile can also act as a wild card if specific conditions are met.

• You can choose whether to include these.
• When a red tile is played, its regular, non-red counterpart the same number is removed from play.
• They help boost your score when part of a winning hand.
• Since flower tiles are less common in Japanese Mahjong, sets often omit the 'Four Gentlemen' flowers to make room for these red tiles.

Honor Tiles: The Elite

Honor tiles, like suited tiles, are used to form melds. However, they don't have a rank or suit. They are further split into two main groups:

Winds

There are four types of Wind tiles found in Mahjong sets:

• East
• West
• North
• South

Dragons

There are three types of Dragon Tiles:

• Red: The traditional Chinese character for center or middle is written on a red tile. In sets intended for English speakers, the initial letter of the Wade-Giles may alternatively be represented by a black letter C in a tile corner. These tiles were absent from one of the earlier sets. Red Dragon, a classic Chinese character, may be seen on several tiles.
• Green: Even in sets where the Character tiles are printed in simplified Chinese, green is a tile with a traditional Chinese green character. Other sets, most notably American, substitute a green dragon for the character or an F in black in the tile's corner to indicate the initial letter of the translation. In the first sets, this tile wasn't present. The classic Chinese character Green Dragon may be seen on several tiles.
• White: Although most contemporary sets use tiles with a blue border like White Dragon to differentiate them from replacement tiles, white is a tile that can be without any marks, like White Dragon. A black letter B could also be included in the tile's center in English sets. These unmarked Japanese tiles are sometimes referred to as "tofu" in some Japanese mahjong groups.

Flower Tiles

In mahjong melds, Flower tiles are not utilized. These are put aside after being drawn, and the player then gets to draw again, but from a dead wall. These tiles frequently include stylized images of flowers in a variety of shades. Yet, there are also additional, non-floral motifs that differ from set to set.

Quarters

If a set has flower tiles, it often has two quartets of them, each with a different label's color and design. In ordinary Chinese sets, one quartet will have blue Arabic numbers, and the other group will have red Chinese numerals. Each quartet has four separate tiles that are each numbered from 1 to 4 or clearly labelled.

• Seats are assigned to numbers such as 1 = East, 2 = South, 3 = West, and 4 = North.
• If the number on the flowers equals the seat number, the winner's score is doubled.
• However, there are advantages to gathering a whole quartet, and in certain versions, gathering all the flowers results in a win right away.
• Several games do not include them or view them as optional, since they provide points for purely random events.

Animal Tiles

The player's seat is immediately matched by the animal tile, which is unnumbered flowers. These tiles are typically found in pairs and feature classic Chinese stories as their topics. If two tiles in a pair or all of the animals are gathered, payment is made right away. Thai and Malaysian sets for four players include four pairs of animal tiles, compared to two pairs in Singaporean sets.

Some of them are the following:

• Cat and Mouse
• Rooster and Centipede
• Caishen and Sycee
• Jiang Ziya and Fish
• Liu Haichan and Jin Chan
• Dragon and Flaming pearl

Joker Tiles

Subject to regional limitations, joker tiles can be used to substitute any suited or honor tile while assembling a hand. Certain variations of Southeast Asian and Chinese mahjong, particularly Shanghainese mahjong, occasionally include four jokers. Also, there are eight jokers in American Mahjong.

Common Unique Jokers:

• Circle joker
• Character joker
• Universal joker
• Red jokers
• Suit joker
• Dragon joker
• Wind joker
• Flower joker
• Honor joker

Rank Restricted Jokers:

• Terminal Joker: Replaces one or nine of any suit.
• 147 Joker: Replaces one, four, or seven of any suit.
• 258 Joker: Replaces two, five, or eight of any suit.
• 369 Joker: Replaces three, six, or nine of any suit.

Conclusion

Remembering everything can be a little confusing, but players can just start with the Mahjong Tiles meaning and then move forward. After reading, the players will be able to somewhat understand Mahjong Tiles as they will only be able to understand it fully when they are playing the actual game at top online casinos.

There are six different types of Mahjong Tiles, and all of them are interesting to know about. They have sub-categories, too, so it’s better to learn about them slowly.