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FAQ #21. How To Run A Mah-Jongg Tournament

: I want to run a mah-jongg tournament. Where do I start and what do I need to do?

: Have you ever been to a mah-jongg tournament? If you have, you've got a head start. If you haven't (if you live in the American heartland, or a country where tournaments aren't common), then I hope I can give you enough clues here.

No matter what kind of mah-jongg you play (or, if you aren't a player yourself, what kind of mah-jongg the tournament attendees play), the basics of running a tournament are pretty much the same. The following is written based on a one-day tournament (one that begins in the morning and ends that afternoon), but you can apply the same principles to a multi-day tournament. The longest tournament I've attended was a 3-day event. Anything beyond that is probably overkill.

For starters: you have to find a location, with enough tables, tablecloths, and chairs. And of course you need mah-jongg sets. What a lot of American tournament organizers do is have players bring sets. It's probable that at least 25% of the players own (and can bring) a mah-jongg set. If you want players to bring sets, make sure that their promise to bring a set is included in their application to join the tournament. Make sure to plan to have extra sets, because sometimes a player who'd promised to bring one forgets!

If your tournament uses American rules, you may need to have extra NMJL cards available (inevitably, somebody forgets hers). If your tournament uses Japanese rules, you probably need to arrange to have enough special automatic tables that shuffle the tiles.

You will need to reach enough players to make it an exciting event, so you'll need to think about how to advertise to them (maybe FAQ 15 will be helpful in reaching them).

And every attendee of the tournament must play the same kind of mah-jongg (it wouldn't do to have some people playing by American rules, and others playing Chinese Official rules, etc. - that would be a disaster!). So make sure that in your advertising efforts, you make it clear which mah-jongg rules will be used in the tournament.

You'll need to think about what prizes to offer, how much it will cost to run the tournament, how much you want to raise, thus how much to charge players for the event.

I assume you yourself play mah-jongg (if not, you need to bring in at least two experienced players to act as judges to rule on those annoying little things that are bound to come up).

Make sure you have a copy of the printed rules on hand.

  • If it's an American-style tournament, have the official NMJL rulebook ("Mah Jongg Made Easy"; see FAQ 3) -- and my book, "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," to fill in the gaps.

  • If it's a Chinese Official tournament, download the official rulebook and the MCR Errata/Addenda. It would also be a good idea to have my book, "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," due to sometimes unclear wording in the official rulebook.

  • If you're running a Hong Kong style tournament, have a comprehensive book of HKOS rules handy (see FAQ 3) - and so on.

    Tournament rules are pretty simple. Score points rather than coins or chips. With points, a winner's payment can come from thin air (rather than from other players' purses).

  • American: When a winner makes a 25-point hand, by another's discard, that winner gets 25 points tallied up. No points are lost by the others, unless the thrower has thrown to two or more exposures (then dock the thrower 10 or 25 points). For the American tournament rules used by Mah Jongg Madness, see http://www.mahjongg.org/htdocs/Tourn_Rules.htm.

  • Chinese Official: Add points for winners, deduct points from non-winners. Do it on the score sheet rather than with chips. But you can use chips if you prefer - just make sure the chips are redistributed to all seat positions between rounds.

  • Japanese: You'll probably use chips. Players will have to redistribute all chips prior to commencing a round.

    You will need to make score cards - one person at each table should be table scorekeeper, and each player must initial her score to verify that it's accurate. You also need a tournament scorekeeper, who collects the score cards and determines tournament scores by simply adding them all up, then sorting from highest to lowest. This is a function done easily in a spreadsheet program like Excel. But don't think you can just download an Excel file somewhere - the tournament organizers listed in FAQ 4a had to create their own. You'll have to create your own too, just like everybody else.

    You need an East marker on the east wall, and you need to number the tables. You also need to come up with a table/seat-rotation mechanism. The table rotation used by Bill and Judi Nachenberg (pictured here - their website is http://www.geocities.com/jnachenberg.rm/index.html) is that East stays stationary (she sits at the same seat and the same table throughout the day's games) - South moves down 1 table each round - North moves up 1 table - West moves up 2 tables. A player who goes beyond the highest-number table goes down to the lowest-number table (just as the Ace is both lower than the Deuce and higher than the King in a deck of cards).

    In a Chinese Official tournament, you'll want a seat rotation policy as well as a table rotation policy. After the deal has moved back around the table to the East seat, E switches with N, W with S - then after the next round, E switches with S, and before the final round E switches with W... (for example).

    Each player has to be assigned a starting seat and table upon arrival (usually on a name badge, either stuck on or pinned on or hanging on a neck lanyard). Give each player an individual rule sheet, self-scoring sheet, and pencil.

    Plan the tournament's schedule.

  • American: It takes an hour to play one round (4 hands, with each player around the table getting to deal once). Think about how many rounds your players will want to play. A one-day (day-long) tournament might be 6 rounds if your players are highly competitive and motivated, or 4 rounds if attendance would suffer (if older plaeyrs might object to such a grueling schedule).

  • Chinese Official: Limit a game to an hour and a half (two hours if you prefer). When the time runs out, all players just stop, even if their game hasn't finished yet - any hand in progress is simply stopped, and not scored. You'll probably want to play 3 or 4 games in one tournament day.

  • Japanese: A game will usually be completed in an hour (or an hour and 15 minutes). When the time runs out, all players just stop - any hand in progress is simply stopped, and not scored. Add up players' chips. Could play 4 or 5 games in one tournament day.

    Allow time off for lunch in the middle of the tournament, and allow time at the beginning for announcements and rule-setting. Allow time at the end for the awards ceremony. Random door prizes (picked from a fishbowl) help keep people from leaving before the prizes/awards are given out. You may even need an audio amplification system if the crowd is large enough.

    If you have questions, you can always ask. Email and the answer will be posted on the Mah-Jongg Q&A Bulletin Board. Hopefully, this FAQ has given you a starting list. You and your organizing committee can now sit down and brainstorm the details.

    © 2004-2008 Tom Sloper. All rights reserved. May not be re-published without written permission of the author.

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