The Singapore Table

The Tiles

A Singapore set has 148 tiles. There are three numbered suits (Characters, Dots and Bamboo, each 1 to 9 with four copies), four winds and three dragons with four copies each, and then the bonus tiles: four flowers, four seasons and the four animals that make this table its own.

There is only one of each animal. Like flowers and seasons, they never go into a set: you put them face up beside your hand and draw a replacement from the back of the wall. Each animal is worth 1 tai whatever your seat. A flower or season is worth 1 tai only when its number matches your seat: 1 for East, 2 for South, 3 for West, 4 for North.

If you have never played, start with how to play, which walks through the tiles, sets and turns properly. This page is the reference card.

The Deal And The Banker

East is the Banker: the player who deals, starts with 14 tiles and throws first. Everyone else takes 13. Bonus tiles go face up straight away, with replacements from the back of the wall, until every hand is full of ordinary tiles.

Turns run East, South, West, North, anticlockwise. Your Own Wind is the wind of your seat for this hand; the Round Wind belongs to the whole table and moves on after four changes of Banker. In this game fifteen tiles at the end of the wall are never drawn: when the last playable tile is gone, the hand is a draw.

The Banker keeps the deal after winning. After anyone else wins, the next player becomes Banker. A drawn hand keeps the same Banker too, unless someone made a Kong during it.

Claims

• Chi (a run of three) only from the player on your left.
• Pong and Kong from anyone.
• Hu (a win) beats a Pong or Kong, which beats a Chi. If two players can win on one tile, it goes to whoever comes first in turn order after the shooter.

Pass a win or a Pong you could have made, and you can’t win or Pong on another copy of that tile until you draw or declare a set. Most tables also bar claiming a copy of the tile you just threw.

A Kong comes three ways: four in your hand, three in your hand plus a discard, or a fourth tile added to a Pong you already showed. You draw a replacement after each. Add a tile to a Pong and anyone waiting on it can win by grabbing it: that’s Qiang Gang, worth 1 tai to the thief.

Tai, The Minimum And The Limit

A complete hand needs at least 1 tai to win, and payment stops at 5 tai: anything bigger is paid as the limit. Quick tai come from Pongs of dragons, your Own Wind or the Round Wind, your own flower or season, animals, and Men Qing Zi Mo (nothing claimed, winning tile self-drawn), worth 1 tai.

Whole-hand patterns pay more:

Tai add together, so a half flush with a dragon Pong stacks both. The full list is in every hand, and what it pays, and the counting itself in how to count tai.

Paying Up

Each tai doubles the bill. Win on a discard and the shooter pays twice the base while the other two pay the base each; win by Zi Mo and all three pay twice the base. For a two-tai hand that’s 8 points from the shooter and 4 points from each of the others, 16 points in all, or 24 points by Zi Mo.

Some things pay the moment they happen, win or no win: claimed, added and concealed Kongs, matching animal pairs, your own flower and season together, and complete bonus families. The payments guide has the full table with worked examples.

Bao

Bao (包) moves the whole bill onto one player. It never comes from a discard alone: it’s the throw that lets someone claim or win. In this game the main cases are:

• feeding a player their third dragon set or fourth wind set;
• feeding a Pong of a dragon, their Own Wind or the Round Wind that takes their face-up tai to the limit;
• a discard that wins a full flush for a player showing three sets in that suit (all honours and all terminals work the same way);
• a fresh tile, one nobody has thrown yet, that wins when five or fewer playable tiles are left.

The player responsible pays everyone’s share, so the winner collects the same total as usual. Home tables vary a lot here, so agree before the first tile. Safer discards covers how to stay out of trouble, and house rules the choices this game lets a table make.