Zung Jung Mahjong Scoring System

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(English version)

Alan Kwan

The Uniform Payoff Scheme

The "Basic Rules" document lists the Formal Competition Payoff Scheme. That scheme is ideal for formal competitions as well as for everyday play among skilled players: it punishes the player who carelessly discards to let a big hand win, while encouraging the classical tactic of letting an opponent win with a small hand in order to prevent another opponent from winning a big hand ("tactical alliance"). It gives the players the most room to exercise their skill, and also serves to prevent collusion to some extent.

In casual play among novices, the players may elect to use instead the Uniform Payoff Scheme to enhance the fun and excitement factor (at some sacrifice of the skill factor), by encouraging the players to be more aggressive in building bigger hands. It also has the advantage of being much simpler and easier to teach. However, this sacrifices the important skill factor of defensive play, and is not recommended for players who pursue a game of skill. It is also generally perceived that, punishing the discarder appropriately for his mistake provides for a fairer game.

Rules

  1. Everybody pays: Whenever a hand is won (regardless of how), every other player always pays the winner 1 time the total pattern value of his hand. Thus the winner collects a total income of 3 times the hand value.

In practice, the score-keeping can be simplified to just recording the winner's hand value, as from this the pay-offs can be easily calculated at the end of the session. Each player will earn three times the total value for all of his won hands, minus the total value for all of his opponents' won hands.


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© 1997, 2018 Alan KWAN Shiu Ho