Calling Discards in American Mahjong: Exposures, Concealed Hands and Dead Hands

On your turn you draw from the wall. But you can also take a tile someone else just discarded, if it completes a group you are building. This is called calling, and it comes with a few rules.

How to call a discard

1. When a player discards and names a tile you want, say "call" (or the tile's name) before the next player picks up and racks a tile.
2. Take the tile and place it with the matching tiles from your rack, face up on top of your rack. This is an exposure.
3. Discard a tile. Play then continues to your right, so calling can skip players.

What you can call for

• You can call a discard to complete a pung, kong, quint or sextet (three or more identical tiles). Jokers may fill in.
• You can't call for a single or a pair, unless that tile is the last one you need for Mah Jongg.
• Once a group is exposed, it stays as it is for the rest of the game.

Exposed (X) and concealed (C) hands

Each hand on the card is marked X or C. In an exposed (X) hand you may call discards and expose groups as you go. In a concealed (C) hand you can't call any discard except the final tile that gives you Mah Jongg.

When two players call the same tile

A call for Mah Jongg always wins. If two players call the same tile for an exposure, the player who would play next in turn order gets it.

Dead hands

A hand becomes dead when it can no longer win legally. Common reasons:

• The wrong number of tiles on your rack.
• An exposure that doesn't fit any hand on the card.
• Using a joker illegally, for example in a pair.

A player with a dead hand stops drawing and discarding but stays at the table until the game ends.

Mah Jongg and the wall game

The first player to complete a hand from the card with 14 tiles calls Mah Jongg and shows their whole hand. If the wall runs out and no one has won, it is a wall game: nobody wins and the next game starts.

Etiquette that keeps the game friendly

• Name every discard out loud, clearly.
• Call quickly, and don't take back a call once you have exposed tiles.
• Keep your rack tidy so exposures are easy for everyone to read.

Keep learning

• Joker rules
• The Charleston, step by step
• The full beginner guide, with the tile explorer, Charleston trainer and quiz