Mahjong
Mahjong is a Chinese game about lining up tiles in a mathematically perfect fashion. The table must have a fucking lip, and making a lip out of balsa wood is unacceptable. You can only truly play Mahjong on a manufactured table. They take their Mahjong seriously, enough to bet money on it, and to have clockwork tables that shuffle and deal rows of tiles under the surface like something out of a James Bond film. The 'match-2' version you play on your computer isn't MahJong; it's called 'Shanghai' by white people and "that stupid game white people play" by the Chinese.
If you're gwailo, easiest way to explain this game is: it's almost exactly like Gin Rummy. You wanna make three-of-a-kinds and straights, the tiles have suits and ranks like playing cards, and you can pick up discards from the middle of the table.
But, since we're talking Asians here, the game itself has a bunch of subtle nuances, which seperate the rabble from the mighty mahjong masters.
There are several versions of Mahjong: Japanese Riichi, Hong Kong, classic (Hong Kong with flower tiles), american (which only elderly jewish women play) and Korean 3 player. However, the core rules are the same. Players take tiles from "The wall" and add them to their hand while discarding a tile. Simply put, the game is like a race, where players try to "complete" their hand quicker than others, while trying not to discard a tile that will cause another player to win the round.
A basic complete hand has four combinations of tiles which are either three of a kind, four of a kind or a sequence of three tiles (i.e. 1,2,3) in addition a "head", which is a pair of tiles. Apart from the head, you can call the other combinations from other players' discards, unless it's the last uncompleted thing on your hand . The special hands include all kinds of silly combinations; Such as having seven pairs. Important note: You can't win with a tile that you discarded earlier in the game. The rules on this aspect range from house to house.
Points are determined by how the player won the round. If another player threw away a tile that you grabbed and completed your hand with, that player has to pay the amount of points your hand was worth; If you claim the tile from the wall yourself, the price is split with the losers!
Why play Mahjong?
I don't know. I guess if you're into learning a bunch of azn terms and think saying shit like 'tsumo' and 'ron' is cool. And if you're on of those assholes, who think every goddamn table needs to have some stupid lip for that impromptu mahjong game.
It is important not to get too caught up in the gambling aspect. Otherwise you will find yourself playing against a triad boss, wagering your blood instead of cash.
Mahjong clients
http://tenhou.net/0/ Riichi mahjong client. In the high likelyhood that you're not fluent in Japanese: click the blue text, press okay where the center bit says "NoName" and tick one or more of the boxes on the left
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