Beginner's Guide to Filipino Visayan Mahjong

This style coming from all over the Visayan islands including Cebu, Panay, Negros, and Leyte. The gameplay for Visayan mahjong (also Bisaya mahjong) is identical to that of the standard Filipino variant including the chismis.

Tiles to Play Filipino Visayan Mahjong With

Filipino Visayan Mahjong uses the standard 144-tile standard mahjong set (Cracks, Bams, Dots, Dragons, Winds, and Flowers). An American set (152 tiles) can be used, but the eight joker tiles should be removed.

The most important set of tiles for Filipino mahjong are the 108 suited tiles, which consist of three suits: sticks, dots, and characters. Each suit has four copies of nine unique tiles, numbered 1 to 9.

An Important Difference between Filipino Mahjong and Visayan Mahjong

The remaining tiles are typically categorized as dragons, winds, seasons, and flowers. In the Visayan Mahjong, dragons are referred to collectively as "Beauty" (Singular) or can just be called dragons. The winds are used just like any other type of mahjong. Like most forms of mahjong, flowers are collected for bonus points. Since there are less flower tiles overall, the 13 flowers hand has been removed from payout.

About Beauty Tiles

The Red Dragon is called Dagger in Visayan mahjong. The Green Dragon is called Berde, which means "Green" in Tagalog. Finally the White Dragon is called Mirror or Window due to it's shape (this was originally a blank tile which is still how it’s represented in Japanese Riichi mahjong sets).

The beauty tiles can be drawn, discarded, and seized just like any of the suited tiles. Beauty tiles can be used to form a pair, a pung (three-of-a-kind), or a kang (four-of-a-kind).

You can also form a special ambition called Beauty. Beauty is a special meld (báhay) consisting of one of each beauty: dagger, berde, and window. It pays out instantly upon declaration, and — if declaring Beauty also completes your hand — you can declare tódas in the same breath for the full win plus the Beauty payout.

Beauty has to be declared on your first turn, and there are rules about what “first turn” means and what can spoil it:

• Your first turn is your first draw from the wall. If the third beauty you need shows up on that first draw (for example, you were dealt two beauties and draw the third from the wall on your opening turn), Beauty is still on the table — drawing the last piece from the wall for your first turn still counts. The dealer’s 17th opening tile counts as their first-turn draw.
• Beauty can be completed on a win. If your first draw completes Beauty and gives you a winning hand, declare Beauty and tódas together. You collect the Beauty payout plus the full winning hand, and Beauty stacks with any other instant payouts you qualify for.
• Any intervening call by another player ends your Beauty window. If somebody pungs, kangs, chows, or calls tódas before you’ve taken your first draw, the round has advanced — you no longer have a “first turn” and Beauty is no longer available to you for the rest of the hand.

About Wind Tiles

The winds are named after the cardinal directions: North, East, West, and South. There are four copies of each. The winds can be used to form pungs, kangs, or pairs as well, and can be drawn, discarded, and picked up just like any of the suited tiles.

The wind tiles also form a special ambition called NEWS. NEWS (pronounced like the word) is a special four-tile báhay consisting of one of each wind: North, East, West, and South. Because it is a four-tile báhay, declaring NEWS requires taking a gift from the flower wall, the same way a kang, secret, or sagása does. NEWS pays out instantly upon declaration, stacks with any other instant payouts you qualify for, and — if the gift tile completes your hand — NEWS can be declared together with tódas for the full win plus the NEWS payout.

NEWS follows the same first-turn rules as Beauty:

• Your first turn is your first draw from the wall. If the fourth wind you need arrives on that first draw, NEWS is still on the table. The dealer’s 17th opening tile counts as their first-turn draw.
• NEWS can be completed on a win. Declare NEWS and tódas on the same action if the gift tile finishes your hand.
• Any intervening call by another player ends your NEWS window. A pung, kang, chow, or tódas from another player before you have taken your first draw kills the NEWS ambition for the rest of the hand.

Basic Rules of Visayan Mahjong

Just like most types of mahjong every turn goes the same way:

1. Draw a tile from the wall or by take the tile that somebody just discarded
2. Try to make a winning hand! The goal is to arrange your tiles into five sets of three (called báhay) and one pair (called an eye). If you can't, go to step 3.
3. Discard a tile in the center of the table, officially ending your turn.
4. Immediately after a tile is discarded, someone else can take it to form a báhay or to complete their winning hand. If nobody takes the discarded tile, that tile is out of play for the rest of the game and the next player draws from the wall.

By default, the next player is the player to the right (counterclockwise). Even if it is not your turn yet, this is not a time to sit idle. Although the next person is the player to the right by default, there are certain circumstances that allow somebody to jump ahead to call a discarded tile. Also, even if you are unable to call the tile, it is important for you to know what is thrown and what is out of play, so that you are not waiting for it in vain later on.

How to Setup Filipino Visayan Mahjong

Like most variants of mahjong, Filipino mahjong is intended for four players. Rules and customs for dealing the tiles out vary from version to version and table to table.

Determining The Dealer (Máno)

The first step is to determine the dealer, also referred to as the “máno.” At the start of the first game, shuffle one each of the wind tiles face-down, then have each player turn one up and take the respective seat. After the first game, if the dealer (máno) wins, they will be the dealer (máno) again and they hold onto their position until they lose. Otherwise, the next person to the right (counterclockwise) becomes the dealer (máno). After 4 hands, one complete rotation of dealers, the round wind changes in order of East, South, West, and North. 

Setting up the Wall

The next step is shuffling the tiles and building the wall. Turn the tiles faceside down and give them a good shuffle or “wash,” like they do in Dominos. 

Then, each player should build their segment of the wall, which should be 18 tiles long and 2 tiles high (36 tiles total). Maneuver the wall segments to form a closed square(ish). Put the protractor away. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

Breaking the Wall

Once the dealer has been selected, the dealer rolls the dice to determine the starting wall. Let’s say you are the dealer and you roll a seven. 

Starting with your own wall, count the walls in front of each player, moving counterclockwise around the table: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. You should now be pointing at the wall of the player in front of you. 

The next step is to determine where to break the wall.

Use the same number from determining the starting wall. Starting on the end of the wall segment closest to you, count out seven tiles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Pick up that seventh tile (since you rolled a seven) and the tile underneath it and stack them on top of the sixth tile, marking the start of the flower wall. Place the dice on top of the flower wall for good measure to clearly distinguish it. The tiles immediately after the flower wall (away from you) become the draw wall. If the starting wall is the back wall, start counting from either end, dealer’s choice.

The wall is basically like a long deck of cards wrapping around the table in a square. The draw wall is like the top of the deck where the tiles will be dealt from and where the players will draw tiles from during gameplay. The flower wall is like the bottom of the deck, from which players only occasionally draw in order to replace flowers and to take gifts (to be discussed later). The wall must be broken in order to separate the ends of the draw wall and the flower wall.

Dealing the Hand

The next step is dealing the tiles. Starting from the draw wall, deal yourself eight tiles. Whoever is sitting in front of the draw wall should help out with this. Continuing to the right (counterclockwise), deal each player eight tiles in the same manner. Repeat this for one more round until all players have a total of 16 tiles. As the dealer, you should grab a 17th tile from the draw wall as your first draw, because you will be the first to discard. 

Optionally Calling Flower Replacements

Each player may arrange the taken tiles by type, suit, and number order. The players may then check for any Flower Tiles. If a player has any Flower Tiles, expose them between the wall and one’s standing tiles, and take replacement tiles from the back end of the wall. The dealer replaces flower tiles first until the replaced tile isn’t the flower tile, then followed by South, West, and North follow in turn, until no player has any more Flower tiles concealed in the hand. After Flower replacements, if the dealer cannot declare a win also known “mahjong”, he will discard one unwanted tile. 

Getting a Tile

The main way to get a tile is to draw it from the draw wall. If you draw a flower, you must display the flower face up with your other flowers and replace the tile by drawing from the flower wall.

You can also get a tile when somebody discards it if it completes a a valid combination of three or four tiles, also known as a meld, or a winning hand. The seized tile must be displayed face up with the completed meld (báhay). This open meld (báhay) cannot be altered for the rest of the game.  The discarded tile must be seized immediately or else the tile becomes dead and will remain in the discarded tile area for the rest of the game. 

Calling Tiles

A pung is a three-of-a-kind.

If you need the discarded tile to complete a pung, you have to say “pung,” grab it, and display the completed pung face up next to your flowers. Pungs are powerful because you can seize it even if it isn’t your turn, and everyone before you will lose their turn.

A kang is a four-of-a-kind. 

Kang is like a special type of pung, and can also be grabbed even if it’s not your turn. However, you have to also grab an extra tile called a gift from the flower wall. This is necessary for you to have enough tiles to complete a winning hand.

A chow is a three-tile straight of the same suit. 

 Unlike pung and kang, you can only chow when it’s your turn. This makes chows harder to get since you can only get it from the person right before you. The only exception to this is if the chow would result in you winning.

Generally you cannot seize a discarded tile to form a pair. The only exception is if you are waiting for one more tile to win. You might be waiting to complete a pung, a chow, or an eye in order to win. No matter what you’re waiting for, you can seize it if somebody discards it, anytime. Winning using a discarded tile is called tódas or mahjong.

FAQ: What Happens If Two People Want to Seize a Discarded Tile?

Visayan Mahjong uses a four-tier priority order for claiming a discarded tile:

1. Tódas (winning) — any player who can complete their winning hand on the tile takes it first, no matter where they sit in turn order. Robbing the Snag sits in this same tier: if a player’s winning tile is about to become part of another player’s fresh kang, the tódas call wins. If two players both want the tile for tódas, it goes to whichever player is closer in turn order after the discarder.
2. Pung or Kang — a player calling pung or kang takes the tile over any player calling a first-turn Beauty or NEWS.
3. Beauty or NEWS — a first-turn Beauty or NEWS call takes the tile over a chow. A Beauty or NEWS call is only available on the calling player’s first turn and only if no other player has called the tile ahead of them. Beauty and NEWS require disjoint tiles (dragons vs. winds), so the two ambitions can never compete for the same discard.
4. Chow — if nobody above has claimed the tile, the next player in turn order may call chow.

In short: Win > Pung/Kang > NEWS or Beauty > Chow. A Beauty or NEWS call, because it depends on “first turn,” is the one priority level that can be extinguished mid-hand — once any call has been made or the caller has taken a normal draw, Beauty and NEWS drop off the priority list entirely.

Arranging Your Tiles

Remember, the goal of mahjong is to have all of your tiles arranged into five báhay and one eye (pair).  After getting a tile, you should arrange your tiles and attempt to incorporate your new tile into your hand.

As discussed above, kang is a four-of-a-kind, which may be formed from a discarded tile. Related to kang is a secret. A secret is when you have four-of-a-kind that’s hidden in your own hand, which means that you drew it yourself and did not complete it using a discarded tile. In this case, because it’s concealed, the identity of the tile is valuable information and should not be displayed. But because it is a four-tile báhay, you must declare it and get a gift from the flower wall. Turn the outside tiles facedown to mark it as a secret. Just like with open meld (báhay), your secret tiles will be out of play the rest of the game with no changes permitted.

Another related concept is sagása. Open báhay are generally locked in and cannot be changed. If you created a pung from a discarded tile, and later on, somebody throws the fourth matching tile, you will not be able to kang the discarded tile, because your pung was already open. However, there is a special exception: if it’s your turn and the tile that you draw from the wall happens to be the fourth matching tile, then you can add it to your completed pung. Declare “sagása” and set the matching tile on top of the middle tile of the pung. Since this is now a four-tile báhay, you must draw a gift from the flower wall.

Robbing the Snag (Robbing the Kan). There is one moment in the hand when a tile on its way into someone else’s kang can still be called for the win. If another player declares a fresh kang — either by calling a discarded tile to complete a four-of-a-kind, or by promoting an existing pung with a newly drawn fourth tile (sagása) — and that fourth tile is the exact tile you are waiting on for tódas, you can declare Robbing the Snag (also known as robbing the kan or chankan) and take the tile for your winning hand before the kang is finalized. Call tódas out loud before the kang is set down. The would-be kang is cancelled, the tile becomes your winning tile, and the hand pays out exactly the same as any other win by discarded tile — the player whose kang was robbed pays the winner double, and the other players pay the full value of the hand. Robbing the Snag does not apply to a concealed kang (secret); a secret is locked the moment it is declared and cannot be robbed.

Discarding a Tile

The only type of tile that cannot be discarded is a flower, since those must be exchanged from the flower wall.  Generally you want to discard tiles that do not go with any of the other tiles in your hand to help you form appropriate báhay. If you can figure out what other players need, you should try to avoid discarding those tiles.  

Winning in Filipino Visayan Mahjong

A player can declare tódas when they have completed five báhay and one eye.

An alternate winning configuration is known as seven pairs (siete pares or international).

A player can declare búnot if their winning tile was drawn directly from the wall. Búnot pays double.

Points and Payouts in Filipino Visayan Mahjong

The points and payouts are very similar with the addition of a few extra payouts and ambitions!

Initial Points

Since Filipino Mahjong is typically played for money, there are no initial points. Feel free to play without money on the line!

Scoring Payout Tables

Instant Payout Table 

Who Pays Out?

• Win by a discarded tile: Other players pay the full value, discarder pays winner double.
• Win by self-drawn tile: All players pay double the full value of the winner's hand.

Example Calculation 

• Winning - $1.00
• All Pungs - $0.25

The hand earns $1.00 for winning. An additional $0.25 are earned for All Pungs for a total of $1.25. The responsible player will pay double the value of the hand, $2.50 and the others will pay $1.25 so the total winnings would be $5.00.

Other Special Rules and Possible Payouts

You can still play with the samespecial rules, which are optional to gameplay, as standard Filipino Mahjong.

Doubles

At the start of the game, two dice are rolled to break the wall. A roll of doubles means all payouts are doubled.

Jai Alái (Pot)

Players put a share, typically $1, into the jai alái (pronounced hai-a-lai). At the end of each game, the winner gets one marker, two for búnot. The first player to get five markers wins the jai alai (pot).

Adding Jokers

This is not adding the American Joker tiles! At the start of the game, after all players have their tiles dealt and their flowers declared and replaced, the máno can roll the dice again to determine a joker tile. Say you (the dealer/máno) roll a 7. Count seven blocks down the flower wall. Turn over the top tile. (If the tile is a flower, keep turning over the next one until you have a suited tile.) This tile is now the joker and can represent any other suited tile.