APPENDIX: BLOODY MAHJONG GAME RULES

Bloody Mahjong is a very fun Mahjong game in Southwest China!This game is from Yichang,Hubei.It is a very popular mahjong game in China.The basic rules of playing Mahjong are the same as that of ordinary Mahjong,except that after the players draw the tiles,they exchange three tiles.Here are some terms in the game.

1.Terminology

Define 1 Pong

Pongmeans that other players play a tile, but there are exactly two the same tiles in our hand, we can take action toPong.For example, if player 1 has a hand of ‘2566 Characters 12,347 Dots 6777 Bamboos’, at this time, if player 0 plays ‘6 Character’, then player 1 can takePongaction.

Define 2 Kong

Kongmeans that we have three the same tile.If another player just plays the tile or we get the tile ourselves, you can choose the action ofKong.In another case ofKong, you can also take the action ofKongif you havePonga tile and then you get the tile again.For example, if player 1 has a hand of‘2566 Characters 12,347 Dots 6777 Bamboos’, at this time, if player 0 plays‘7 Bamboo’,then player 1 can takeKongaction.

Define 3 Hu

Hurefers to the combination of players' hand into a specific tile type.The common form is A + nB, where A refers to two same tiles, B refers to three same tiles or three consecutive tiles, and the value of n can be 0 to 4.There is also aHurule that 14 tiles in hand are divided into seven pairs.Of course, there are other rules involved.There are many rules ofHu, many types ofHu, and the scores ofHucorresponding to different types ofHuare also different.For example, if a player current hand is ‘11,234,777 Dots 666 Bamboos’ or ‘11,224,477 Dots 556,688 Characters’, the player can chooseHu.

Define 4 Dingque

Dingquerefers to that before players start playing game,each player must choose one of the three suits mentioned above as an invalid tile,which will not be used as a tile type ofHucombination.For example,if player 1Dingqueis Bamboo,when player 1 chooseHu.The player hand only can contain Dots and Characters.

Definition 5 Call

Callrefers to the tile type that players can form aHuwith only one tile in their hands.This tile is calledCalltile.Calltile can be the tile get by ourselves, or the tile others play, and there may be more than oneCalltiles.For example, if a player current hand is ‘1,134,777 Dots 666 Bamboos’, at this time, other players discard ‘2 Dot’ or ‘3 Dot’, the player could chooseHu.In this time, ‘2 Dot’ or ‘3 Dot’ calledcalltiles.

2.The game rules

At the beginning of the game, a player usually gets 13 tiles as the ‘initial hand’, and then determines one of the four players as the dealer.Tiles are left as live wall.The dealer should have another title and discards first.In each round,each player first gets a title from live wall, and then discards a tile, or chooses actionPong,KongorHu.Due to the existence ofPong,KongandHu, the player in the next round is not necessarily the next player after the current player has finished playing but may be any one of the other three players.If no one else takesPong,KongorHu, the next round is based on the clockwise next player after the last round.The game goes on until all the tiles from live wall are exhausted.

Rule 1 Change three

After the player obtains the initial hand, he needs to take out three tiles to exchange with others.The way of exchange can be clockwise exchange, anticlockwise exchange, relative exchange and no exchange four ways.For example, if central position is the 0th, anticlockwise exchange means 0 to 3, 3 to 1, and so on.The anticlockwise exchange is shown in Table A1.

T A B L E A1 Change three

Rule 2 Hu must lack at least one suit

After theDingque,the player's tiles type combination must not contain the suit ofDingquebefore the tile can beHu.And when the specific tile type in the Bloody Mahjong can beHu,player can also choose not toHu.For example, if a player current hand is‘11,234,777 Dots 666 Bamboos’,the player can chooseHu,but if hand is ‘11 Characters 234,777 Dots 666 Bamboos’, the player cannot chooseHu.

Rule 3 Continue playing after Hu

Players in the field afterHu, still can continue to play.Other players discard tile,if it isCalltile,canHuagain.If the tile they get is alsoCalltile,they can alsoHuagain.Players can alsoKongwithout changing the shape of theCall.For example,after player 1 tookHu,player 0,player 2,and player 3 continue the game, and player 1 draws the tile and then discards the tile.