One Game, Many Tables

Singapore is the four-player game most people here grew up with: animals among the bonus tiles, tai to count, a minimum of 1 tai to win and a limit of 5 tai. Hong Kong Old Style drops the animals, counts faan, and asks for 3 faan before you can call a win. Malaysian 3 Kaki is the three-player game, played with one numbered suit, Tong, and its own Fei tiles. Riichi is the Japanese game, where a hand needs a yaku and declaring Riichi is a gamble of its own.

If you’re new, start with Singapore and the how to play guide. If you already play one table, the guides below show what changes at the others, and every hand each table pays.

Each table has its own page covering what is different there: the tiles, what you may claim, the hands it pays and how a win is settled. The practical guides go further. Payments works through who pays what at a Singapore table, house rules lists the small rules friends argue over, and the tai cheat sheet fits every Singapore hand on one printable page.

Moving between tables is mostly about unlearning a few habits. At a Hong Kong table there are no animals and the shooter pays it all; at 3 Kaki the Fei jokers change which hands are realistic; and in Riichi a hand with no yaku cannot win, however good its shape. Every value on these pages comes from the game’s own scoring, so what you read here is what the table pays.

Playing Riichi? Every yaku has its own guide: Riichi Yaku.