16 BIT
MAHJONG

A game is not one hand. It is a sequence of them, and your seat changes as they go.

THE DEALER IS EAST

One player is the dealer each hand, and the dealer is always East.

The others take South, West and North going around from there.

That is your SEAT WIND, and it is worth real points: completing a set of your own seat wind scores, where a set of some unrelated wind does not.

So East, South, West and North are not decorations. Which wind is valuable to you changes hand to hand as the dealership moves.

WHEN THE DEALER CHANGES

Here is the rule, and note the second half — it is the part that surprises people:

The dealer KEEPS the deal if they win the hand.

The dealer ALSO keeps the deal if the hand ends in a draw.

Otherwise — any other player wins — the dealership passes on, and everyone's seat wind shifts with it.

A dealer on a run can hold the deal for several hands. A drawn hand changes nothing about who deals next.

THE PREVAILING WIND

There is a second wind in play: the ROUND wind, shared by everyone.

A full game runs East round, then South, West and North. Each round lasts until the dealership has gone all the way around the table.

A set of the current round's wind scores for ANY player. So in an East round, East tiles are valuable to everyone — which is exactly why they are dangerous to discard.

A quick game is the East round only.

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

At any moment two winds matter to you: your seat wind, and the round wind. If you are East seat in the East round, East tiles are doubly worth collecting — and everyone else knows you want them.