MJ's 5 Fan Guide
(For the benefit of Yahoo mahjong)

A Lot of people is familiar with the 3 Fan Rule but they are quite unsure when playing 5 Fan Rule.
Basically, 5 fan means 3 Fan + 2 Fan.

Before you read further, there are a few things you have to familiarise yourself with, to know how to calculate.

1) Winds and their associated Flower/Season and Seat Numbers

East = 1 South = 2 West = 3 North = 4	Winds
	Flowers
	Seasons

Note:-
Flower is red.
Season is blue/black

2) Tiles Left, Prevailing Wind and Hand Number

At the beginning of the game, you will see, top left hand corner,
* Tiles left
* Prevailing wind
* Hand Number

Tiles left as the name implies means the number of tiles left for drawing. Last tile of the game is 14 after which it stalemate.

The prevailing wind starts with East. After a cycle (of 1 to 4) of 'Hand Number', the wind is changes to South. Next cycle will be West followed by North and then back to East again.
The hand number will remain unchange if the dealer win the game or if the game stalemated. Once someone other than the dealer wins, the Hand number is incremented by 1.

This means... by looking at the prevailing wind one can tell how long the game is in play.

A complete round is when the game complete prevailing wind from East to North.. a total of 4 cycles of Hand numbers (1 to 4). At yahoo, a round can easily take about 2 to 3 hours of play.

Note:-
A 'Dealer' is one who starts the game, have 14 tiles on hand and the 1st to discard a tile.

3) Seat Wind/Number
During the game each player will have a seat wind/number, which rotate according to Hand numbers.

In this case the seat wind is East and the number is 1.


So How To Calculate Fan?

Just add and accumulate...
When playing 5 fan .. accumulate minimum 5 fan, and same for 3 Fan rule or 6 Fan Rule.

The following earn you 1 Fan:-
A Pong or Kong of the following
    * Red Dragon
    * Green Dragon
    * White Dragon
    * Prevailing Wind
    * Seat Wind

Flower/Season of your own seat number

No Flower and No Season

One Set of Flower/Season (1,2,3,4)

Self pick win/winning from drawing tile

Winning from last drawn tile (14th Tiles Left)

No Flower/Season

One Set of Flower/Season (1,2,3,4)

Winning from drawing the winning supplementary tile after a making a Kong or drawing a flower/season

'Snatching' a Kong to win (Someone melded a Kong but you mahjong)

The following earn you 3 Fan (see my 3 fan page):-
Half suit
A set of 4 set of Pong/Kong tiles with a pair

The following earn you 6 Fan:-
Same/Pure/Full suit. All tiles of same group with no winds or dragons.

Limit (Immeasurable. You win if you can complete any of these, no calculation required)
Special hands like
    * Pong of All Honour Tiles
    * Pong of all 3 Dragons
    * Pong of 1's and 9's
    * 13 Wonders? (Yahoo does not recognise this)

Example 1


Example 2



So you will know how to play when next time someone says min. 4 fan or even 6 fan.

Happy mahjonging.....

Links:
My 3 Fan Page

My Hall of Fame Page

Yahoo mahjong (Yahoo ID required)
Yahoo mahjong directories
Yahoo score list

Please email me if you have any comment or anything to add or any question.

Last update: 31 December 2004