Quick answer
A hand of American Mahjong ends in one of two ways. A player whose fourteen tiles match a line on the card declares mahjong and the table checks the hand before anyone pays, or the last tile is drawn with no winner, which is a wall game where nobody wins and nobody pays, although tournament scoring gives ten points to every live hand. On the winning tile only, you may call a discard to complete a single, a pair or a concealed hand.
Every hand of American Mahjong ends in one of two ways, a declared mahjong or a wall game. This guide covers what each ending pays at home and in a tournament, the discard you may call only when it wins, what a dead hand does at the end, and who deals next.
Ending one: somebody declares mahjong
A player whose fourteen tiles exactly match a line on the current card says mahjong out loud, exposes the whole hand, and the hand stops immediately. Everyone checks the hand against the card before any money moves, because a hand that does not actually match is a wrong call rather than a win.
Payment follows League rules. If the winner drew the tile themselves, all three opponents pay double the line's value. If the winner called someone's discard, the player who threw that tile pays double and the other two pay the printed value. A hand with no jokers in it doubles every payment again, except on Singles and Pairs.
Ending two: the wall runs out
If the last tile is drawn and no one has declared mahjong, the hand is a wall game. Nobody wins, nobody pays, and the tiles are shuffled for the next deal. It is a completely normal outcome, not a failure of the table.
Tournaments score it differently. Under the standardised rules used for Mah Jongg Master Points events, a wall game adds ten points to the score of every player whose hand is still live, and a player whose hand is dead loses ten instead.
Careful defence slows a table down, and the more players who stop pushing a hand and start protecting, the more often the wall runs out before anyone declares.
The final discard is the exception worth knowing
Two rules loosen on the winning tile. You normally cannot call a discard to complete a single or a pair, and you normally cannot call anything at all while playing a concealed line. Both of those restrictions lift when the discarded tile is the one that completes your hand. You may call it and declare mahjong.
This matters whenever someone is one tile away from a concealed hand or a singles-and-pairs line. That player is not waiting only for a self-draw, because the right discard from anyone at the table still wins it. Knowing this changes what you are willing to throw in the last few turns.
What a dead hand does at the end
A dead hand cannot win, and that player stops picking and discarding for the rest of the hand, but still pays the winner. The other three play on, so the wall now feeds three hands instead of four.
A hand that is merely hopeless is different. It is still live, so its player keeps discarding, and running the wall down with safe throws is a legitimate play. It costs the table nothing, while feeding the player with two exposures costs everyone.
Who deals next, and why you should ask
After a win, the deal passes to the right whether or not East was the winner. Under League rules a winning East does not deal again. A wall game moves the deal on in the same way, because the rule covers every hand, including one nobody won. In a tournament, East rotates through all four players over the four games of a round.
If your group keeps East in the seat after a wall game, that is a house rule rather than the League's, so settle it before the first hand along with the other house questions. If you are joining a new group, ask rather than assume.
Reading the end of the hand
Late in the hand, exposures have accumulated and everyone's options have narrowed, so each discard carries more risk than it did early on. Count what is left in the wall, look at the exposures, and decide honestly whether you are still attacking or now defending.
The coach can help with part of that judgment. It reads a hand and says which direction it leans toward and which tiles to let go. Whether the hand is still live against what is exposed on the table is yours to weigh.
Put it into practice
New to the game? Start the course at Lesson 1, Meet the Tiles. The first three lessons are free and need no account.
Already play? Have the coach read a real dealt hand for you, free. It names the direction the hand goes for, what to keep, what to pass, and the reasoning behind each call.
Mei, our AI coach, reads a dealt hand and names the direction it leans toward, free.