Scoring A Hong Kong Hand

Count In This Order

Faan simply add up. The trick is to count them in the same order every time, so nothing gets missed and nothing counts twice:

1. The shape. Four sets and a Pair, or a limit hand. A limit hand scores 10 faan outright and nothing else is added to it, so if you have one, stop counting.
2. The pattern. Ping Wu (four Sheung, any Pair) is 1 faan; Dui Dui Wu (all Pungs) 3 faan; Wan Yat Sik (one suit with honours) 3 faan; Ching Yat Sik (one suit alone) 7 faan. Only 1s, 9s and honours adds 1 faan more.
3. Honour sets. Each dragon Pung or Kong is 1 faan. Your Seat Wind set is 1 faan, and the Round Wind set 1 faan. Sit East in the East round and an East Pung counts both.
4. Flowers. Your own flower and your own season are 1 faan each (1 for East, 2 South, 3 West, 4 North). No flowers or seasons at all is 1 faan. All four of one family is 2 faan, in place of its own tile.
5. How you won. Zi Mo is 1 faan. Winning on a Kong’s replacement, on the very last tile (drawn yourself), or by robbing a Kong adds 1 faan each.

Two things don’t score here that you might expect. A concealed hand earns nothing for being concealed, because this table plays flowers. And a flower’s replacement tile is just a tile: only a Kong’s replacement counts.

The Minimum And The Limit

You need 3 faan to call Sik Wu. Short of that, the tile that finishes your hand can’t be taken as a win, however pretty the shape. That catches Singapore players: a chicken hand that wins at home isn’t allowed here.

At the top, 10 faan is the most a hand is paid. Anything bigger is paid as the limit, so piling faan on a hand already there earns nothing.

The minimum shapes how you play from the first tile. A single dragon Pung won’t get you there, so look early for a second source: a flush, Dui Dui Wu, a lucky flower, or a hand clean enough to win on your own draw.

Three Hands, Counted

Three Quiet Faan

That reaches 3 faan exactly. Now the twist: if someone had thrown that same tile, the hand would lose the Zi Mo faan and fall short. A small hand like this one often has to let a discard go and hope to draw the winner itself.

A Flower That Isn’t Yours

Characters and a dragon make Wan Yat Sik, and the green Pung adds its own. That clears the minimum with room to spare, and the shooter pays the lot. Flower 3 belongs to West, so it scores nothing for you, and holding it cost you the 1 faan for no flowers.

Too Big To Pay In Full

Add them up and you’re past the limit, so the hand is paid as 10 faan. Each of the other three pays half of that bill. Won on a discard, it would still reach the limit.

From Faan To Points

Faan don’t double one by one. This game pays on the half-spicy ladder that Hong Kong tables commonly use: the first step above the minimum doubles the bill, and after that each faan adds half or a third again, so the bill doubles about every two faan. A hand at 10 faan is paid sixteen times what a hand at the minimum is.

There’s no extra for the Dealer, either for winning or for paying. Tables vary on the ladder and on the limit, so agree before the first tile.

Who Pays

• On a discard, the shooter (Cheut Chung) pays the whole bill. The other two pay nothing.
• On Zi Mo, each of the other three pays half the bill, so you collect half as much again as the same hand won on a discard.
• Robbing a Kong counts as a discard by the player who added the tile, and they pay the whole Zi Mo total on their own.
• Baau: feed a player their fourth set on the table, or their third dragon set, and if they go on to win by Zi Mo, you pay their whole Zi Mo total. A later win on someone else’s discard is still paid by that discarder alone.

Nothing is paid until someone wins. Kongs and flowers earn no instant payments here, and a drawn hand pays nobody. That’s why Hong Kong players guard their discards so closely: read safer discards before your first session, and the Hong Kong table guide for every hand and its faan.