Beginner's Guide to Cixi Imperial Mahjong

Cixi Imperial Mahjong (慈溪麻将, Cixi majiang) comes from Cixi, a coastal city in northeastern Zhejiang Province. What sets it apart from other Chinese variants is one mechanic: every round has a wildcard called the Imperial Tile (龙牌, longpai). You cannot discard it, you score extra for holding it, and the tile that is Imperial this hand is just a regular tile the next.

Tiles to Play Cixi Mahjong With

Cixi uses a standard 136-tile set with no flowers. The tiles are:

• Dots (筒子, tongzi), numbered 1 through 9, four copies each → 36 tiles
• Bamboo (条子, tiaozi), numbered 1 through 9, four copies each → 36 tiles
• Characters (万子, wanzi), numbered 1 through 9, four copies each → 36 tiles
• Winds (风牌, fengpai): East (东), South (南), West (西), North (北), four copies each → 16 tiles
• Honor Dragons (箭牌, jianpai): Red (红中, hongzhong), Green (发财, facai), White (白板, baiban), four copies each → 12 tiles

The three numbered suits and the four Winds behave exactly as they do in standard mahjong. The three Honor Dragons (Red, Green, White) are honor tiles. They are not the same thing as the Imperial Tile, which is explained below.

The Imperial Tile System

What the Imperial Tile Is

In every round of Cixi, one tile type is designated the Imperial Tile and becomes a Universal Wildcard for that round only. All four physical copies of that tile are wildcards. An Imperial in your hand can stand in for any tile you need to complete a sequence, triplet, quad, or pair. The designation resets every round.

Setting the Imperial

After the initial hands have been drawn and before the first discard, the dealer rolls the two dice again. Counting backwards from the break point in the wall, they count that many stacks. The top tile of the stack at that position becomes the indicator. That tile is flipped face-up and left in place. The Imperial is the tile that follows the indicator in sequence:

• Number indicators. The Imperial is the next number in the same suit. Flip 3-Bamboo → Imperial is 4-Bamboo. Flip 9-Characters → Imperial wraps to 1-Characters.
• Wind indicators. Flip East → Imperial is South. Flip South → West. Flip West → North. Flip North → East.
• Honor Dragon indicators. Flip Red → Imperial is Green. Flip Green → White. Flip White → Red.

All four copies of the named Imperial tile are now wildcards for the remainder of the round. The indicator itself stays face-up where it was flipped and is not drawn or played.

The Discard Prohibition

Imperial Tiles cannot be discarded. Ever. The moment you put an Imperial face-up onto the discard pile, three things happen:

1. You lose winning rights for the rest of the round. Even if you later draw a hand that would otherwise be legal, you cannot declare.
2. Any win you attempt is treated as a False Win (炸胡, zhahu), which costs you 24 fan to each of the three other players, 72 total.
3. Play continues for the other three as if nothing had happened. You sit out until the next deal.

An Imperial is the strongest tile you can hold and a tile you are not allowed to let go of. Most of Cixi's strategy follows from that one asymmetry.

Scoring Role

Every winning hand has a base value of 12 fan, and each Imperial held in the winning hand adds +2 fan. A plain win with one Imperial is worth 14 fan, two Imperials 16 fan, three Imperials 18 fan. Most hand patterns listed in the scoring table add further fan on top of the base-plus-Imperials total.

How to Setup Cixi Mahjong

Determining the Dealer

Pick a dealer (庄家, zhuangjia) however the table wants: roll dice, draw tiles, or hand the seat to whoever won the last session. The dealer sits at East, draws 14 tiles instead of 13, and opens the round with the first discard.

Setting Up the Wall

Shuffle all 136 tiles face-down and build the wall in two stacked rows around the table. Each of the four players builds a section of wall in front of them, roughly 17 tiles wide and two rows tall. Keep the wall tight so tiles can be drawn cleanly.

Dead Wall

Cixi has no fixed-size dead wall. The back end of the live wall is used for two things. First, the Imperial indicator is flipped from the back of the wall (see Setting the Imperial above) and left face-up where it was flipped. Second, when a player declares a Quad (杠, gang), the replacement tile comes from the far end of the wall, opposite the break. Quad replacements shrink the live wall; there is no protected reserve.

The round ends when someone declares a legal win, or when the final drawable tile is taken without a win. A drawn round leaves the dealership with the current dealer.

Breaking the Wall

The dealer rolls two dice and sums the total. Counting counterclockwise from the dealer's right, they count that many stacks along the wall. At the counted stack, the dealer lifts the top two tiles. That is where drawing begins.

Dealing the Hand

Starting from the break, the dealer takes tiles two at a time until they have 14, and each non-dealer does the same in turn order until they have 13. When all hands are full, the dealer rolls again to set the Imperial indicator and announces the Imperial Tile for the round. The dealer then makes the opening discard.

Getting a Tile

Drawing a Tile

On your turn, if you are not claiming a discard, you draw a single tile from the live wall in the direction of play and add it to your concealed hand. You now have 14 tiles (or 15 if you also declared a Quad), and you must discard exactly one tile to end your turn.

Calling Tiles

Before you draw, any other player's most recent discard is briefly available for a claim. There are three kinds:

• Sequence (吃, chi). Three consecutive tiles in one suit. You may only form a sequence from the player immediately upstream of you (the previous player in turn order).
• Triplet (碰, peng). Three identical tiles. You may form a triplet from any player's discard.
• Quad (杠, gang). Four identical tiles. Can be formed from a discard (exposed), by adding a drawn tile to an existing exposed triplet (added), or entirely concealed from your own hand.

If two players want the same discard, Triplet beats Sequence. Between equal claims, the player closer to the discarder in turn order wins.

The two-claim limit. Each player can make at most two claimed discards per opponent per round. A third attempt to claim from the same player triggers Prohibition (封胡, fenghu). You are barred from winning for the rest of the round, and if you later discard the winning tile to that opponent you pay double the normal discard-win cost alone. Track your claims by opponent, not just your own running total.

Arranging Your Tiles

Keep your concealed hand organized by suit and by partial meld. Group your Imperials together where you can see them at a glance. You do not want to lose count of how many you are holding, and you definitely do not want to accidentally throw one. Exposed melds go face-up on the table in front of you, to your right, in the order you claimed them.

Discarding a Tile

After your draw or claim, pick one tile from your concealed hand and place it face-up in front of you, in per-player discard rows of six. Six tiles to a row, new row below. Per-player rows matter in Cixi because the Nine-Tile Penalty and Prohibition rules both depend on counting how many tiles each specific player has fed to each specific opponent.

Never discard an Imperial Tile. The penalty is round-ending. See the Imperial Tile System section above.

Windbreak Penalty

Cixi Mahjong discourages you from hoarding your Wind tiles even though they could be helpful for Half Flush hands. The rule is called Windbreak (关风向, guan fengxiang) Penalty. If you are holding Wind tiles at the end of a round won by a Big Chaos (大乱, daluan) hand (defined in the scoring section), you alone pay the entire winner total and your two fellow non-winners pay nothing, and the payout is treated as if the winner had drawn the winning tile themselves.

Winning in Cixi Mahjong

What a Winning Hand Looks Like

A legal winning hand is four melds plus one pair, where each meld is a Sequence, a Triplet, or a Quad. Imperials can stand in for any tile in any meld or in the pair. You can win by Self-Draw (自摸, zimo), drawing the completing tile from the wall, or by Discard Win (点炮, dianpao), claiming a tile another player just discarded.

Ready Declaration

A player who is one tile away from winning and whose hand is locked on a single-tile wait (meaning only one specific tile will complete it) may announce Ready (听牌, tingpai). A Ready declaration adds +1 fan to the final winning hand value. Two rules apply:

1. Single waits only. A hand waiting on more than one possible tile may not declare Ready.
2. No hand changes. After declaring Ready, the player may not change their hand composition. They must discard every drawn tile that is not their single winning tile. Claiming a discard that would restructure their hand forfeits the Ready bonus and, if combined with the two-claim limit, risks Prohibition.

End of Hand

As soon as a player calls a win, they show all 14 tiles face-up and the table verifies the hand against the scoring table. If the hand is legal, payouts settle immediately (see Points and Payout). If the hand is illegal, the declarer takes a False Win penalty of 24 fan to each of the three other players, drops out of the round, and play continues until another player wins or the wall exhausts.

End of Game

A Cixi session runs until one player's 100-fan bank is completely depleted. The session then ends. The winner of each hand becomes the dealer for the next hand, regardless of seat, and a drawn round leaves the current dealer in place.

Points and Payout in Cixi Mahjong

Initial Points

Each player starts the session with a 100-fan bank, tracked however the table prefers: chips, paper, or an app. There is no mid-session reserve tap. When a bank hits zero the session ends.

Winner Formula

The winner's total is computed from two inputs: the base value of the hand (12 fan plus 2 fan per Imperial held in hand), and the pattern bonus listed in the scoring table. Who pays the total depends on how the win arrived:

Hand Value = 12 fan + (2 fan × Imperials held) + pattern bonus

Discard Win: The discarder pays the full Hand Value. The other two non-winners each pay half, rounded up.

Self-Draw Win: Each of the three non-winners pays the full Hand Value.

The winner collects 2× the Hand Value on a Discard Win (1 full + 2 halves) and 3× the Hand Value on a Self-Draw Win.

Scoring Opportunities

Hands with Imperial Tiles — the 1x, 2x, and 3x Imperial Tiles Bonus hands (一/二/三龙推胡) — are the bread and butter. Any legal four-melds-and-a-pair that holds at least one Imperial will land here, and most rounds end on one of them.

Pattern hands like Half Flush, All Triplets, Big Chaos, and Imperial Seven Pairs add a small fan bonus on top of the base. They are worth chasing when your hand is already close.

Imperial trick hands are the rare ones: Bouquet Toss, Flying Horse, Kong Bloom, Four Imperials. Low probability, huge payouts. You usually do not plan for them; you recognize you are sitting on one and commit.

Winning Hand Scoring Table

Base value is 12 fan + 2 fan per Imperial held. The Value column shows the pattern bonus added on top.

400-fan flat hands pay 400 divided among the three non-winners (≈134 fan each, with the leftover point typically falling on the player opposite the winner by table convention).

Penalties and Liability Rules

A False Win (炸胡, zhahu) is any declaration that does not meet the legal requirements. It costs you 24 fan to each of the three other players, 72 total, and ends your round.

Discarding an Imperial (打龙, dalong) immediately strips your winning rights for the round. Any later attempt to declare is scored as a False Win.

The Windbreak Penalty (关风向, guan fengxiang) triggers if you are still holding Wind tiles when the round is won on a Big Chaos hand. You alone pay the full winner total, your fellow non-winners pay nothing, and the payout is calculated as a Self-Draw.

Prohibition (封胡, fenghu) applies to any third claim attempt from the same opponent in one round. You are barred from winning for the rest of the round, and if you later feed the winning tile to that same opponent you pay double the normal Discard Win cost alone.

The Nine-Tile Penalty (包胡, baohu) applies when you have fed nine or more tiles face-up into one opponent's exposed melds and that opponent then wins. You pay the entire winner total alone. That is why per-player discard rows of six matter: you need to be able to glance at each opponent's row and count how many tiles you have handed over.

A player who attempts to add a drawn tile to their exposed Triplet to form an added Quad eats the full winner total alone if another player wins on that tile through Robbing the Kong (抢杠).

If a single discard legally completes three players' hands at once, the discarder takes the Triple-Win Penalty (一炮三响) and pays each of the three winners their full total alone.

Who Pays Whom — Worked Examples

Example 1: Dealer wins a 2x Imperial Tiles Bonus (plain hand).

East is dealer. East wins on a Discard Win from West, holding two Imperials in the winning hand. No pattern bonus beyond the Imperial count.

• Hand Value: 12 + (2 × 2) + 0 = 16 fan
• West (discarder) pays East 16 fan
• South pays East 8 fan
• North pays East 8 fan
• East collects 32 fan total
• Next hand: East won, so East remains dealer

Example 2: Non-dealer wins Pure Seven Pairs on Self-Draw.

North holds zero Imperials and draws the final tile of a seven-pair hand themselves.

• Hand Value: 12 + (2 × 0) + 5 = 17 fan
• Self-Draw ⇒ each non-winner pays the full Hand Value
• East pays 17 fan. South pays 17 fan. West pays 17 fan.
• North collects 51 fan total
• Next hand: North won, so North takes the dealership

Example 3: South wins a Half Flush with one Imperial on a Discard Win from West.

South builds an all-Characters hand, holding one Imperial that stands in for the final 7-Characters.

• Hand Value: 12 + (2 × 1) + 1 = 15 fan
• West (discarder) pays South 15 fan
• East pays South 8 fan (half of 15, rounded up)
• North pays South 8 fan (half of 15, rounded up)
• South collects 31 fan total
• Next hand: South won, so South takes the dealership

Example 4: West discards into a Four Imperials (400-fan flat) win by North.

North has been holding all four copies of the round's Imperial Tile and completes the legal structure.

• Hand Value: 400 fan flat
• Each non-winner pays 400 ÷ 3 ≈ 134 fan
• East pays 134. South pays 134. West pays 132 (leftover point convention)
• North collects 400 fan total
• Next hand: North won, so North takes the dealership