Filipino Mahjong
How to Play

What Makes It "Filipino" Mahjong

Mahjong is a four-player draw-and-discard game played with tiles instead of cards. The Filipino version uses the same 144-tile set as most of Asia, but the way it's played is its own game. Two ideas carry most of it:

• It's a pure three-suit game. Only the three numbered suits are "live." The winds, dragons and seasons are all treated as flowers — bonus tiles that never form part of a hand. That leaves just 108 working tiles.
• You hold 16 tiles and win with the 17th. A finished hand is five sets plus a pair. There's no complex point requirement — if the tiles fit the shape, the hand wins.

Play moves counter-clockwise — to the player on your right. Everyone races to complete a hand, snatching up tiles their neighbours throw away. It's quick, loud and social.

The Tiles: 108 Live & 36 Bonus

Of the 144 tiles, only 108 actually build hands — the three numbered suits, each running 1–9, with four copies of every tile.

The other 36: flowers

The winds, dragons and seasons — 36 tiles in all — are collectively called flowers. In Filipino play they are never part of a set. Whenever one comes to you, you lay it face-up as a little bonus and immediately draw a replacement, so your working hand is always pure suit tiles.

How Many Tiles? Mahjong Around the World

"Mahjong" is really a family of games, and the sets aren't all the same size. Here's how the count and the winning hand change from one tradition to the next:

The takeaways:

• Filipino, Visayan and Taiwanese all use the full 144-tile set and a big 16-tile hand — 16 tiles held (17 for the máno), and five sets plus a pair to win. Where they differ is the honours: standard Filipino sets the winds and dragons aside as pure bonus, so the hand is built from only the three number suits — while Taiwanese keeps them as scoring honour sets.
• Japanese Riichi drops the flowers and seasons entirely, leaving 136 tiles (34 kinds × 4). Many Riichi sets then mark one 5 in each suit as a red five — three red fives that act as bonus point tiles without changing the count.
• American mahjong is the biggest set at 152: the 144 tiles plus eight jokers (wild), and hands are made to match a card of legal patterns that's reissued every year.

The Deal & The Table

Four players sit around a square table. The starting player — the dealer — is the máno, chosen by a dice roll. Each player stacks a wall 18 tiles long and 2 tiles high in front of them; the four walls together box in the table.

Opening the wall

1. The máno rolls two dice. The total counts around the walls to pick which wall to open.
2. Counting stacks along that wall marks the break. Tiles past the break are the draw wall; the far side becomes the flower / dead wall used for flower and kang replacements.

Dealing the hands

• Going counter-clockwise, each player draws until they hold 16 tiles.
• The máno takes one extra to start with 17, and will make the first discard.
• Everyone reveals any flowers they were dealt and draws replacements — máno first — until every hand is 16 pure suit tiles.

How a Turn Works

On your turn you do three simple things:

1. Take a tile — draw the next tile from the wall, or claim the tile the previous player just discarded.
2. Arrange — fit tiles into báhay (sets) toward a winning shape.
3. Discard one tile, face-up, into the centre. Play passes to your right.

If you can't win yet, you simply take a tile and throw one away, slowly shaping your hand and watching what your opponents keep and discard.

Building Sets: Báhay

A báhay ("house") is a set of three tiles. Your whole hand is built from five of these plus one pair, called the eye. There are three kinds of set, plus the pair:

Claiming a discard

When an opponent discards, you may be able to seize that tile to complete a set — even out of turn:

• A chow can only be claimed from the player immediately before you.
• A pung or kang can be claimed from anyone.
• If two players want the same tile, priority is win > pung/kang > chow; ties go to whoever is next in turn order.

A claimed set is laid down face-up (exposed) for everyone to see, and play continues from you.

Winning: Todas! & Bunot!

The standard winning hand is five sets plus the eye — 17 tiles that all fit together with nothing left over:

How you complete it decides what you shout:

• Todas! — you win on a tile an opponent just discarded.
• Bunot! — you win on a tile you drew yourself. A self-drawn win is worth double.

Two special winning shapes

• Siete pares — "seven pairs." Instead of the usual five sets, the hand is seven pairs plus one set. (A four-of-a-kind counts as two of those pairs.)
• Escalera — a full 1–9 run in a single suit (1-2-3, 4-5-6, 7-8-9 as three chows). It's an ordinary winning hand that earns a bonus, not a separate shape.

Special Calls

Half the fun of Filipino mahjong is the shouting. Beyond Todas and Bunot, listen for these:

• Bisaklat! — the máno wins on the very first hand, before anyone has discarded. A "heavenly hand," and only the máno can get it.
• Before the 5th! — any win that lands before the game's fifth discard. It rides alongside your Bunot/Todas as a bonus.
• Sagása! — an "added kang": on your turn you draw the fourth tile matching a pung you've already exposed, and promote it to a kang, stacking the new tile on top. Optional — you may just keep playing.
• Secret kang — a concealed four-of-a-kind declared from your own hand, kept face-down.

Try a Hand — Playable Demo

Everything above, in a working browser game: you're South (the máno) against three AI opponents. Draw, discard, and claim pung / kang / chow off their discards — the board flags when you're in waiting and lights up Todas! / Bunot! the moment you can win.

Keeping Score

Filipino mahjong is usually played for small stakes: a base payout plus a stack of bonuses called ambitions. A friendly, simplified version looks like this:

The full traditional game adds ambitions such as Sagása, secret, "thirteen flowers" and "no flowers," each paid out on the spot, and doubles for a self-drawn win. Collecting flowers, winds and dragons pads your payout too — that's why you still want them even though they never join a set.

Quick Glossary

Máno

The dealer / starting player.

Báhay

A set of three tiles ("house").

Eye

The single pair that completes a hand.

Chow

Three tiles in a run, same suit.

Pung

Three identical tiles.

Kang

Four identical tiles; counts as one set.

Flowers

Winds, dragons, seasons — bonus tiles, never in a set.

Todas!

Winning on an opponent's discard.

Bunot!

Winning on your own draw (double).

Bisaklat!

The máno wins on the opening hand.

Sagása!

Promoting an exposed pung to a kang.

Escalera

A 1–9 run in one suit (bonus).

Siete pares

Seven pairs plus one set.

Puro

One tile away from a win.