Duan Hao Interpretation of Official International Mahjong: Eight kinds of Tiles Reduce Lucky Factors
Out guest this time is the famous mahjong player Duan Hao. As the judge of this year’s World Mahjong Sports Games, he will share with us his experience in mahjong.
Official International Mahjong dates back to 1998.
Official International Mahjong is one of the playing methods of mahjong. Its playing rules were prepared by General Administration of Sport of China in July 1998. Later, it has been applied in numerous international and domestic mahjong competitions and thus is termed as Official International Mahjong. After nearly 20 years of popularization since 1998, Official International Mahjong has risen to be the most popular mahjong rule around the world. At present, players from more than 30 countries around the world take part in Official International Mahjong competitions. Except the Official International Mahjong, Japanese mahjong is also a popular game around the world.
Eight kinds of tiles greatly dampen lucky factors
It is not hard to find after careful observation that competitive mahjong players would pile up their 6 tiles holding in one row in an orderly manner in front of their own wall so as to bring convenience for other players in the group to make defense based on the tiles shown by other competitors. Meanwhile, the origin of “chow” and “pung” tiles can be clearly distinguished by piling up patterns of tiles. The “pung” tile transversely placed in the middle of the three tiles is the one “pung” from the competitor and the master of each tile is known to all in competitive mahjong, which is the largest difference compared with ordinary mahjong.
“This rule is the same with the playing rules of that of the ordinary ones (chow, pung and kong, etc.) and the difference between them lies in their scoring. There are 81 kinds in Official International Mahjong and scores are determined based on the kinds of tiles holding by the player. Moreover, the most important rule in Official International Mahjong is winning by holding eight kinds of tiles, which is the most competitive point of Official International Mahjong.”Compared with local mahjong, Official International Mahjong is designed with strict rules and requirements and the standard of winning by holding eight kinds of tiles also greatly lowers the lucky factors of mahjong and poses many requirements on the players’ competitive skills.
The complete scoring system demarcates mahjong from gamble
Given scoring by money, folk mahjong is grouped into the same kind of gamble in a sense. However, the complete scoring system of competitive mahjong reasonably shades away from the wrong direction of mahjong scoring. Duan Hao noted that “winning cannot be achieved before eight kinds of tiles are held by the player, which is an acid test for players. The traditional mahjong is classified as gamble. The most important reason for it is shortage of reasonable scoring system. We tend to count scores at ordinary times. Competitive mahjong, however, has its own scoring system rather than scoring by money, which is the largest difference between competitive mahjong and gamble.”
What is worth mentioning is that World Mahjong Sports Games adopt the pad scoring system for the first time. One pad is placed on each table to enter the results of each player after each round of competition, which enables not only to upload the scores to the system scoring library in a timely manner but also players to check their rank timely, thus greatly facilitating the scoring system of competition.
Another feature of competitive mahjong is its focus on ranking. Duan Hao said that the winner in competitive mahjong would the one who focused on the difference with the rival who has higher scores after four rounds of competition and makes great efforts to pursue the above rival. Ranking is the first factor to win in competitive mahjong. If two players have the same scores, focus would be paid on draw. For mahjong features gaining mastery by striking only after the rival has struck, the one catching up the draw later would be the winner in the end.
Average person can master the rules of Official International Mahjong in only one to two days
Then how long does it take for common mahjong fans to learn Official International Mahjong? Duan Hao responded that “it is very easy to take part in Official International Mahjong. Ordinary ones can acquire the rules after one to two days of learning and even can master it within only 2 or 3 hours if instructed by a rule master. Competitive mahjong is a game easy to learn but to master. All exposing to Official International Mahjong would be curious about the 81 kinds of it.”
Even foreign player know “chow, pung and hu”
Chatting and speaking is not allowed in the process of mahjong competition and the players can only shout the tile showing instructions before showing it, like chow, pung, kung and hu. Uttering the words of chow, pung, kong and hu is the player’s obligation so as to inform the other three players of the action to be taken by him and even foreign players can utter the instructions of discarding tiles. In the rules of Official International Mahjong, keeping silent about the showing tiles is known as “vacant chow and pung”, which is in violation of the rules. The player will be warned for vacant chow and pung for the first time, while scores will be deducted for the second time. If the player shows a tile without uttering before “hu” the game, severe punishment would be given, that is, “quit” will be implemented to force the player involved out of this round of the game. Later, the player can still show tiles, but all winning activities including self drawing would not be available.
Duplicate rules make competitive mahjong fairer
In the team competition of the World Mahjong Sports Games, the duplicate rules of bridge is followed (interpretation of the duplicate rules: after the game ends in the east wind round, the tiles will be rebounded in order and passed to the north wind round, west wind round and south wind round in order. In such a manner, the same cards are played by four players from the same team in four tables in four different directions. Then, the total scores of the four teams will be compared laterally in the one same round and the score difference will be converted into IMP integration for final result calculation), greatly improving the fairness of the competition.