Rulesets & Custom Hands
Every recommendation and every score depends on which ruleset is selected in the top bar. Here's what each one covers, and how Custom Hands mode differs from the rest.
The eight regional rulesets
| Ruleset | What it covers | Seat & Round Wind |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional / Classical Chinese | The base ruleset most Western players learn first — standard sets and pairs, base scoring with doubling multipliers. | Applies — wind pungs matching your seat or the round add scoring value. |
| Hong Kong / Cantonese | Fan-based scoring with a wide range of named hand bonuses, widely played across Hong Kong and Southern China. | Applies — a wind pung is worth a fan when it matches your seat or the prevalent round. |
| Riichi (Japanese) | Yaku-based scoring, including concealed-hand and Riichi-declaration bonuses specific to Japanese play. See the Riichi Setup Guide for seat/round wind and dora setup. | Applies — yakuhai wind triplets are one of the most common yaku. Set both before trusting any Riichi advice. |
| American (NMJL) | Follows the National Mah Jongg League card — hands are matched against a published, year-specific hand list rather than built freely. | Not used — NMJL scoring doesn't key off seat or round wind, so the dropdowns don't appear. |
| NMJL 2026 Card | A separate, dedicated mode built specifically around the current official 2026 card — see the NMJL 2026 Card guide for hand matching, Live Co-Pilot's Top 3 strategies, Table Scorer's AI Coach mode, and Payout/Tournament scoring. | Not used, same as American (NMJL) above. |
| Taiwanese | 16-tile hands with Taiwanese-specific scoring conventions, including dealer payment doubling. | Not currently used in this app's Taiwanese scoring — dropdowns don't appear. |
| Singapore | A regional variant with its own scoring bonuses and house-rule conventions common across Singaporean tables. | Not currently used in this app's Singapore scoring — dropdowns don't appear. |
| Malaysian | Similar in spirit to Singapore rules, with its own local scoring adjustments. | Not currently used in this app's Malaysian scoring — dropdowns don't appear. |
| Vietnamese | A regional ruleset with scoring conventions specific to Vietnamese Mahjong play. | Applies — wind pungs matching your seat or the round add scoring value, same as Traditional and Cantonese. |
Custom Hands mode
Beyond the eight regional rulesets, Custom Hands unlocks a catalogue of 177 individually named hands — far more than any single regional ruleset defines on its own. Each hand has its own shape and rules, some allowing pungs to be called from other players, others requiring a fully concealed hand until the very last tile.
When Custom Hands is selected, the Target Strategy dropdown lets you aim for one specific named hand directly, or leave it on Auto-Recommend Best and let the app work out which of the 177 is realistically closest given your rack.
Seat Wind still appears in the top bar for Custom Hands, but only a small number of the 177 named hands actually use it — the rest score exactly the same whether it's set or not. Round Wind doesn't apply to any Custom Hand and won't show at all in this mode.
If you leave Target Strategy on Auto-Recommend Best without setting Seat Wind, the app simply leaves out the handful of wind-dependent hands from its suggestions rather than showing you an incomplete or wrong recommendation for them. If you lock the Target Strategy dropdown onto one of those specific hands, set Seat Wind first so the recommendation is accurate.