How to Participate in the Mahjong Games

Mahjong games are games commonly played by four people and have their origins in China. One should not confuse this game with Mahjong solitaire, which is a recent computer game popular in the western world. Players use a set of 136 tiles to play the game. These tiles are based on the Chinese characters and symbol though there are some variations with a different number of tiles. In the majority of variations, players start receiving 13 tiles. In turn, these players draw and discard their tiles until they complete a legal hand and use the fourteenth drawn tileto create four groups and a pair. There are standard rules about how players should draw a piece, steal from another player, the order of play and dealing, the use of basic and honors and the kinds of melds. Nevertheless, there are various regional variations of the rules when it comes to the scoring system and the minimum hand required winning the game.

At present, the characteristics of players and the popularity of mahjong vary from one region to another. There are also numerous governing bodies of this game, which frequently host tournaments and exhibition games. The game is far more widespread in Asia than in the West. For instance, in 2010 mahjong was the most common table game in Japan, with millions of people playing the game. Video arcades in Japan have introduced mahjong arcade machines, which players can also connect to others via the internet. The mahjong culture is ingrained deeply in the Chinese community. Artists have featured mahjong as a theme in their songs. The game has also been shown in numerous Hong Kong films. Despite this popularity, some devotees of the game believe it is losing its popularity and thus have started a campaign to revive it.

Mahjong games also have health benefits. Research conducted by medical experts has shown that playing mahjong positively affects people suffering from cognitive memory difficulties or dementia. This discovery has led doctors to develop mahjong therapy to try to treat such patients. Since the tiles of the game are in solid form, some people have classified mahjong as a domino game. Nevertheless, it is much more similar to card games in the West such as rummy. Mahjong has more variations than the game of poker. Even though the basic mechanics of the game remain the same, the majority of variations have particular rules, while some remove one or two rules.