The Tiles
Every hand begins with the suits, so that's where we'll begin too. Filipino Mahjong is played with three numbered suits — Characters, Balls, and Sticks. Each suit runs 1 through 9, and there are four copies of every tile. These are the tiles you'll spend the whole game collecting, arranging, and turning into winning combinations.
If a full Mahjong set has ever made your eyes cross, here is the good news: learn these three suits and you've learned nearly everything you need. A standard 144-tile set works perfectly — if yours is an American set, just pull the jokers and blanks out before you start.
Characters — "big money"
These tiles carry a Chinese numeral up top and the big character wan below it, which means "ten thousand." In old China ten thousand of anything meant serious wealth, which is why this suit feels a little more formal than the others. You don't need to read Chinese to play — the small number in the corner tells you everything.
Balls — just count the circles
Usually the easiest suit for a new player, because the tile is its own answer: one circle is the 1-Ball, two circles the 2-Ball, nine circles the 9-Ball. The only troublemaker is the 1-Ball — its big decorative medallion can pass for a flower at first glance, but it's simply the 1 of the suit.
Sticks — bundles of coins
These represent strings of old copper coins tied into bundles. The famous one is the 1-Stick, which usually shows a bird — often a sparrow or phoenix, and some historians think that bird gave Mahjong its name, "the sparrow game." The 8-Stick is another favorite, with its mirrored W-and-M pattern. Together the three suits tell one story about money in old China: single coins, strings of coins, then great units of wealth.
Everything else is a Flower
This is the big simplifier, so read it twice. A standard set also holds Dragons (red, green, and the blank white one everybody nicknames "soap"), the four Winds, plus Season and Flower tiles. In many other styles of Mahjong you build sets with Dragons and Winds. Not here. In the basic Filipino game they are all lumped together and simply called Flowers — and you never build sets with them.
The moment a Flower shows up in your hand, it goes face-up off to the side, into your garden. It counts toward bonus money later, and you draw a replacement tile. One rule follows from this, and it matters: a Flower is the one tile you can never discard.
Setup & the Deal
Gather your people — four, to be exact. Turn every tile face down and give them a good loud "wash" around the table with your hands, the way you would with dominoes. Yes, it's chaotic. That's the point. Shuffle loud, build strong, deal with care.
Build your wall
Each player builds a wall eighteen tiles long and two tiles high — thirty-six tiles in each wall. Then everyone pushes the four walls together into a square. They don't have to meet perfectly; that's what the racks are for.
Choose the mano
The dealer is called the mano (MAH-no). For the very first game, everyone rolls a pair of dice, and the highest roll takes the seat. After each hand the winner does not automatically deal next: the winner rolls the dice and counts around the table counterclockwise, starting with themselves as one, until they reach the number rolled. Whoever they land on becomes the new mano.
Break the wall
The mano rolls the dice again, and that one number does two jobs. First, it picks which wall to break — count the walls counterclockwise, starting with the mano's own wall as one. Second, it picks where — count that many tiles from the right end of the chosen wall. Lift that pair of tiles and set it on top of the pair just before it. That little stack marks the start of the flower wall, the section reserved for replacement tiles, and the dice sit on top of it so everyone can see where the wall was broken. Everything beyond it is the draw wall — one long deck wrapped around the table.
One traditional courtesy: if the roll (a 5 or a 9) would land on the mano's own wall, skip it and break the next wall instead — usually the one to the mano's right. It's considered bad form for the mano to break into their own wall, and the custom keeps the game above suspicion.
Deal the hand
Starting from the draw wall, the mano is dealt eight tiles first, arranged four long and two high. Then the deal continues counterclockwise — to the right — eight tiles at a time, and goes around a second time so everyone holds sixteen tiles. If you're the mano, draw one more right away: seventeen. A winning hand totals seventeen tiles, and the mano starts complete because they take the game's first action — a discard.
Four walls, eighteen tiles long and two high, pushed into a square.
Flowers come out first
Tiles are dealt — but before anyone arranges a single tile, everyone checks for Flowers. Set them face-up between your rack and the wall for all to see. Replacements are drawn in rounds: the mano replaces their Flowers first, then the player to the right, and so on around the table, again and again until nobody holds a Flower. Only then does anyone sort their hand.
Why rounds, and not all at once? Rosanne's answer was simple: it helps prevent cheating. Some experienced players get surprisingly good at knowing where tiles hide in the wall. One round at a time keeps things honest.
The Goulash
One last step, and it's optional — a round of tile passing called the Goulash (American players know it as the Charleston). Each player puts three unwanted tiles face down in the middle. The mano takes one tile from each of the other players' piles, then play continues counterclockwise until everyone has three new tiles. One important rule: never take from your own pile. That defeats the purpose.
Bisaklat — born winning
Every mano dreams of it: you sort your Flowers, finish the Goulash, and discover your seventeen tiles already form a complete hand — five bahay and a back before a single discard hits the table. That's Bisaklat, an instant win worth $15.00 and +2 marker chips. Reveal the hand, collect the premium, and take a photo, because it is rare.
Count your tiles. If you're ever holding the wrong number of tiles, your hand is dead. You still draw, discard, and collect Flowers — but you can't win, and you still pay when someone else does.
How a Turn Works
Play begins with the mano discarding a tile. When you discard, place the tile face up in the center and call out its suit and number — "3 Balls," "1 Stick." It keeps the table clear and helps everyone track what's been played. Then the player to the right is up, because Filipino Mahjong always moves counterclockwise.
Or maybe they're not up — one of the joys of this game is that a discard can be claimed out of turn, and a claim can steal the turn entirely. We'll cover claims in the next lesson. For now, here is the shape of an ordinary turn.
Two details worth underlining. If you draw a Flower, it never stays in your hand: place it face up in your garden and immediately draw again — from the flower wall — and keep drawing until you're holding a suit tile. And during your turn you'll briefly hold seventeen playable tiles; your turn ends when one of them leaves your hand, face up, announced. Once the tile leaves your hand, it's live.
Some of the most important moments happen when it isn't your turn. Watch the discards. Notice what people are collecting. The table is always giving you information — if you're paying attention.
Chow, Pong, Kong
Your goal never changes: five bahay (sets of three) and one matching pair, the back. You complete sets two ways — draw the tile yourself, or claim someone's discard. These are the sets, and the rules for claiming them.
Chow — three in a row
Three consecutive tiles of one suit — think 1-2-3 of Sticks. Clean, sequential, satisfying. But the Chow is choosy: you can usually only call "Chow!" on your own turn, taking the discard of the player right before you — your left neighbor, the one who just threw. The single exception: if that tile completes your winning hand, you may claim it from anyone, any time.
Pong — three of a kind
Your classic triplet, and the bold one: the moment anyone discards the tile that completes your three, call "Pong!" — loud — take it, and lay the set face up on your rack. Every player between the discarder and you simply gets skipped. It's the moment the aunties lean in. (If you complete a triplet quietly off the wall, keep it hidden — no need to announce anything.)
Kong — four of a kind
The Pong's big cheerful sibling. If you hold a concealed Pong and another player discards the fourth matching tile, call "Kong!" — even out of turn. Reveal all four, face up. A Kong still counts as a single bahay, but it pays you $0.25 instantly from every player, and you draw a replacement tile from the flower wall. That replacement is why a hand containing a Kong finishes with eighteen tiles instead of seventeen.
One thing you cannot do: use a discard to upgrade an already-exposed Pong into a Kong. Once your Pong is on the rack, the only way up is drawing the fourth tile yourself. That move has its own name…
Sagasa — the pro upgrade
Your Pong sits exposed on your rack. On a later turn you draw the fourth matching tile from the wall yourself. Declare "Sagasa!", add it to the exposed set, collect $0.50 from everyone, and take your replacement tile from the flower wall.
Secret — the quiet one
A concealed four-of-a-kind, never touched by a discard — either dealt to you whole or finished by your own draw. Even if you're dealt all four, wait for your turn and take your normal draw first. Then declare it, draw your replacement, turn the four tiles face down to show they're locked, and collect $0.50 from everyone. Once declared, a Secret stays sealed for the rest of the game — and yes, a declared Secret still counts as concealed for hands that care about that.
When calls collide
If more than one player wants the same discard, priority settles it, and it isn't shy: Mahjong beats everything. Pong and Kong beat Chow. If you're calling Chow, hold your tiles a beat until you're sure a bigger call isn't coming. And if two players call Mahjong on the same tile, the win goes to the player closer after the discarder in turn order.
"Ambition beats priority" — the house rule at Rosanne's table: before awarding a tied Mahjong, look at both hands. A basic $1.00 hand loses to something grander, like Seven Pairs. Equal ambitions fall back to turn order. The true Filipino way.
Drills are one thing; the table is another. When these feel easy, hit Play in the top bar and take a seat for a full hand — deal, Goulash, claims, and the payout at the end.
Building a Winning Hand
The whole game in one sentence: build five houses and a back — Mahjong! You hold sixteen tiles; on your turn you draw or claim a seventeenth. If it completes five bahay and one back, declare "Mahjong!" instead of discarding. If your winning tile comes off another player's discard, that win is traditionally called "Todas!" — and if you draw it from the wall yourself, it's a Bunot, and it pays double from everyone.
One boundary to respect: most of the time you can't claim a discard just to complete your pair. The exception is the last tile — if one discard finishes your whole hand, take it, whether it completes a Chow, a Pong, or your back.
A bare win pays $1.00 and earns one marker chip. But in Filipino Mahjong we want to win fast and win big — and winning big means "beautiful, expensive" hands with ambition. Every shape below comes straight from the book's hand index, easiest to most impressive. Bonuses stack on top of the base dollar.
Special Cases & House Rules
Every table carries its own customs. These are the ones this book plays by — with the optional ones clearly marked, because agreeing on the rules before the first tile is dealt is the real tradition.
The Goulash — OPTIONAL
The three-tile passing round from Lesson Two. A fun bit of strategy before the first discard, but entirely optional — plenty of tables skip it.
When nobody wins
If the draw wall runs out and no one has declared Mahjong, the hand is a draw: no winner, no payout, no drama. Reshuffle and play the next hand.
The dead hand
Wrong number of tiles — too many, too few — and your hand is dead. You keep drawing, discarding, and collecting Flowers, but you cannot win, and you still pay the winner.
The Pick — HOUSE RULE
A quirky one you won't find in any official guide. If all four copies of a tile end up in the discards — nobody ever claiming them — the player who throws the fourth and final copy may call "Pick!" and collect $0.25 from each player. One catch: that fourth tile must have been drawn from the wall that very turn. If it was sitting in your hand and you simply chose to throw it, no Pick.
The Doubles rule — OPTIONAL
If the mano rolls doubles when breaking the wall, all payouts that hand are doubled. Adopt with caution and snacks.
Flower money
Your garden isn't just decoration. Thirteen Flowers collected at any point pays $0.25 instantly from every player, and reaching sixteen pays another $0.25 — lady luck's master gardener. No green thumb? Also fine: players dealt zero Flowers collect $0.50, and going Mahjong with zero Flowers pays $0.50 again. Dealt exactly one lone Flower? A $0.25 consolation, instantly.
Payouts & Scoring
Mahjong without scoring is like a meal without salt. This is the book's house system, built for friendly home games — no complicated point counting. Every winning hand starts at a base of $1.00, then adds bonuses for the shapes and conditions you just learned. Then the whole table pays:
Won off a discard: every player pays the hand's value — and the player who fed you the winning tile pays double. Won by self-draw (Bunot): everyone pays double. That's what "Bunot pays double" means.
From the book, worked out: you win with an All-Chow hand off a discard. $1.00 base + $0.25 All Chow = $1.25. Two players pay $1.25 each; the discarder pays $2.50. You collect $5.00 and one marker. Win the same hand by Bunot and everyone pays $2.50 — $7.50 and two markers: one for the win, one for Bunot.
Marker chips & the jai alai
Cash pays the hand; marker chips race for the pot. At the start of each round every player antes ($0.25 at the book's table, "because we're cheap") into a dish in the corner of the mat — the jai alai (say it: hai-a-lai). It sits there all night, quietly raising the stakes.
Every Mahjong earns one marker chip, and special results add extras — Bunot and Bisaklat and Full Flush among them. First player to five marker chips wins the round and scoops the jai alai. Then everyone antes again, the markers reset, and a new round begins. Extra chips beyond five roll over into the next round — nothing is wasted.
One bonus rule: if you reach five markers while no other player has earned a single one, each opponent pays you an extra $1.00 on top of the pot.
The Table Itself
Everything in this handbook traces back to one table — Rosanne's. She learned from her grandmother, who woke up each morning and started the tiles before lunch, before dinner, every single day, four tables running at once, governors and politicians in the chairs. The game survived the weather, the years, and the ocean crossing to a lobby in America, where a friend who had never played asked her to teach.
Chismis is half the game
Chismis — the Filipino word for gossip, by way of the Spanish chisme — is not technically part of the game, and is absolutely part of the game. The news, the rumors, the stories that travel with the tiles. Reading the table is the chismis of strategy, too: every Pong called and every suit avoided is somebody telling you something.
Not a "ladies' game"
The women kept the tables, so the boys called it a ladies' game — until they noticed the betting. In the Philippines plenty of men play, politicians most of all. The table is for everyone who can keep up.
Table manners, the loud kind
Shuffle loud — the click-clack is half the fun. Call your discards clearly, suit and number. Announce your claims without hesitating. Keep your Flowers where everyone can see them. Pay promptly and collect gracefully — without looking like you hit the jackpot, even if you did.
Every table has its own traditions
No two Mahjong tables are exactly alike, and different doesn't mean wrong — it means another family put its fingerprint on the game. Some choose the mano differently, use different payouts, play with jokers, skip the Goulash. Ask questions, learn their traditions, share your own. What matters is that everyone agrees on the rules before the first tile is dealt.
And if this is your first time: you'll forget a Flower replacement, call the wrong tile, accidentally help someone win. We all have. Mahjong isn't about playing perfectly. It's about the people across the table, the stories between hands, and celebrating the big wins together. Just play.
