5. Scoring & Winning
The Eight-Point Threshold
- Three conditions must all hold to declare "Hu": the hand is one of the permissible structures; its fan total at least 8 points; and the winning tile was obtained by a permitted method (3.9.1)
- The eight-point minimum is the defining constraint of MCR — a structurally complete hand that scores less is not a win (3.4.22, 3.9.1)
Fan
- There are 81 scoring elements (fan) in total (3.8)
- They fall into nine series: Honor Tiles; Number Tiles; Pungs; Seven Pairs; Tile Types Composition (flowers excepted); All Involved; Broken; Way of Making Mahjong; and Special (3.8)
- Point values reflect degree of difficulty, across twelve grades: 88, 64, 48, 32, 24, 16, 12, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 (3.8)
- More than one fan may be scored for a single winning hand (3.8)
- The highest grade includes patterns such as Big Four Winds — pungs or kongs of all four winds — and Big Three Dragons (3.8.1)
- The full catalogue with examples is Appendix 1 of the official rules; this summary gives the structure, not the 81 entries
Settling the Score
- A winning hand's points comprise Extra Points, Basic Points and Penalty Points (3.9.1)
- Scoring presupposes a declared win, and is recorded on the score sheet from the competition points as the calculating base (3.9.1)
- Players are ranked after competition under the ranking rules (3.10)