Malaysian 3-Player Mahjong: Rules, Fly Jokers and Fan

Malaysian 3 player mahjong is a fast game for three people, played with a cut-down set of 84 tiles. It keeps only one suit, the dots, and adds four jokers called Fly (飛). Because the hand must reach 5 fan, players chase bonus tiles and honour pongs hard. This guide follows the rules that Vincent Cheah and Tom Sloper published on Sloperama, and it notes where other sources differ.

The game shares its tiles and terms with the 4-player game. For the big picture, see our hub on Malaysian mahjong rules. If you play with four, read the Malaysian 4-player mahjong guide instead.

Can mahjong be played with 3 players?

Yes. In fact, Malaysia has its own three-player game. Wikipedia's three-player mahjong article covers it in a Malaysian section. Its mahjong culture article also calls it "a distinct three-player variant" that is "regularly played". The SAYS beginner guide even describes Malaysian mahjong as "played with just three players".

So Malaysian 3 player mahjong is not a stop-gap for a missing fourth player. It has its own tile set, its own jokers and its own scoring. Still, families play it in different ways. SAYS notes that "different families have their own way of playing mahjong".

3 player mahjong: how many tiles?

The game uses 84 tiles. Players remove the bamboo and character suits from a full set. Then they add faces, animals and Fly jokers. The table shows the breakdown from Sloperama.

The wall confirms the count. Three walls of 14 stacks, two tiles high, hold 3 × 14 × 2 = 84 tiles. However, SAYS says some tables remove the North wind. That leaves 80 tiles. Sloperama keeps North and even scores a pong of it.

• Joker飛
• Face tile公仔
• Cat貓
• Rat鼠
• Rooster雞
• Centipede蜈蚣

Sloperama says the faces "are used like Flowers". We have not confirmed which figures appear on face tiles, because sets differ. For pictures of the rest, see our guide to mahjong tiles.

Fly joker rules

The Fly is the heart of Malaysian 3 player mahjong. SAYS calls Flies "wild cards" that "can represent any tile in making a 3-tile set". Sloperama gives the rules below, quoted as written:

• "You use 1 fly to CHOW other player discard tile. You cannot use 2 fly to CHOW."
• "You may use 2 fly to PONG a tile discard by other player. Cannot PONG with 3 fly."
• "CANNOT contain fly in a GONG set." In other words, a kong must hold four real tiles.
• "Even when winning hand, you can consider 2 fly as eye."
• "If you have 4 fly in the first round, you win the game with max fan."

Each Fly also earns a side score: "Fly = 50 point". Wikipedia adds that the four-Fly win "only applies to one's starting hand". Otherwise, you must still win after drawing all four later.

ChowPongPair

Set-up and dealing

Setting up Malaysian 3 player mahjong takes a few minutes. First, shuffle the 84 tiles face down. Each player then builds a wall 14 tiles long and two tiles high. Next, the dealer throws two dice and adds them up. The dealer counts anti-clockwise round the table, starting from the dealer, to pick the wall to break. Then the dealer counts clockwise along that wall, stack by stack, to find the break.

After that, the dealer takes 14 tiles and the other two players take 13. Before play starts, everyone reveals all their flowers, seasons, faces and animals. Each player draws a replacement from the end of the wall for every bonus tile. Play then goes anti-clockwise, starting from East.

Playing a hand

The turn loop follows standard mahjong. On your turn, you draw a tile and then discard one. If you draw a bonus tile, you lay it out and draw a replacement. Your goal is four sets and a pair, with at least 5 fan.

• Chow. SAYS says that if the player to your right discards a tile that completes a run, you can call "Chow". You may use one Fly in that run.
• Pong and kong. You can pong or kong a discard from either player. No Fly may sit in a kong.
• Winning. When your hand is complete and reaches 5 fan, you call "sik wu".

Some people say this game bans chow. But no source we found says so, and Sloperama, SAYS and the Singapore app all allow it. For the general moves, see how to play mahjong.

Minimum 5 fan, maximum 10 fan

In Malaysian 3 player mahjong, a hand must reach 5 fan before you can declare it. Sloperama, SAYS and Wikipedia all agree on this minimum. The cap is 10 fan, and Sloperama treats "ten fan or more" as max fan. Because the minimum is high, bonus tiles matter a lot.

Hands worth 1 fan

• Each face tile, each animal, and your own flower or season.
• All four faces, all four animals, all four flowers or all four seasons.
• The number four flower or season.
• A pong of North or East wind, a pong of your own wind, or a pong of a dragon.
• Mixed one suit, which means dots plus honours.
• All chows with a dots pair.
• A win on a flower or kong replacement tile, or by stealing a kong.
• Seven pairs, which Sloperama calls "seven twin".

Bigger hands

• All pongs or kongs: 2 fan.
• Same suit only: 3 fan.
• Two dragon pongs and a pair of dragons: 3 fan.

Max-fan hands

These hands score max fan at once. They include 13 Unique Wonders, Nine Gates, four wind pongs, three pongs and a pair of winds, and three dragon pongs. Also on the list are four kongs, four concealed pongs, four Flies, and a hand with no bonus tiles at all. Finally, winning with the first or last tile, all honours, all sixteen bonus tiles ("sixteen flowers"), or a win after two kongs in a row all count.

Points and payments

Sloperama and Wikipedia give the same point values. A win is worth 100 points as a base. Each fan adds 20 points. Max fan, a double, is worth 200 points. Malaysian home games often settle in money, but this guide uses points only.

• Self-draw. Each loser pays the winner double the winning points.
• Win on a discard. The discarder pays double the winning points. The other player pays the winning points once.
• Several max-fan conditions. The max-fan points double again for each extra condition.
• Losers compare. If nobody has max fan, the two losers compare fan. If one has 5 or more and the other does not, the lower player pays the difference.

For example, take a winning value of 100 points. On a self-draw, each loser pays 200, so the winner gains 400. On a discard, the discarder pays 200 and the other player pays 100. Sloperama does not show a full worked total that mixes base and fan points. One common-sense reading is that the 100 base covers the 5-fan minimum and each fan above five adds 20, so 10 fan reaches the 200 max. Our scoring guide works through a 7-fan example on that basis. Either way, agree how your table adds them up.

Payouts during play

Some events pay at once, before anyone wins. Sloperama lists these amounts:

Not every version of Malaysian 3 player mahjong pays this way. One Singapore app uses a very different scale. It applies multipliers for 10 to 40 or more fan, and for each kong. That does not match the 10-fan cap, so treat it as one app's rule set.

Example hands in Malaysian 3 player mahjong

These examples use the Sloperama fan list. Bonus tiles appear in the last group. Your table's values may differ, so check them first.

Example 1: just enough fan

ChowPongPongPongPairBonus

This hand only reaches the minimum because of its two bonus tiles. Without the face and the cat, it would hold 3 fan and could not win. That is why players reveal bonus tiles early and value them.

Example 2: Flies filling the gaps

ChowPongPongPongPair

Here the player uses three Flies. One fills the gap in a chow, and two serve as the pair. The fan still comes from the pongs and any bonus tiles. So the hand must still reach 5 fan to count.

Example 3: a max-fan hand

PongPongPongChowPair

Three dragon pongs appear on the max-fan list. As a result, this hand scores max fan without any bonus tiles.

Frequently asked questions