Mahjong rules - sites for learning

[Shirluban]

Mini-glossary :
"Reach Mahjong", also called "Riichi Mahjong", "Riichi Dora", "(Modern) Japanese Mahjong" :
That's the rules used in Japan.
There is not one absolute Japanese rule, but many variations with a solid common core.
Japan have several professional organizations which don't use the same variant. The Japanese Professional Mahjong Ligue even have two official rules for tournaments.
A trained player can switch from one variant to another without trouble.
This rule evolved over half a century

"Riichi Competition Rules" :
It's the European version of Riichi Mahjong, edicted by the European Mahjong Assocition in 2008 and 2012.

"Chinese Official", also called "Mahjong Competition Rules" :
This rule have been edicted by the Chinese government in 1998 and 2006.

"Chinese Classical" :
This is the rule played around 1920 which spread all around the world.
We can reasonably say that every mahjong rules or so derivate from this rule.
There is so much variations between CC rules, that it's more a family of rules than a rule itself.

"Chinese Mahjong", "Traditional Mahjong":
Those names don't means much: an incalculable number of rules are used all over China. And even more are used over the world.


Sites for learning the rules / how to play :
Ryan Morris's site - This site contains step-by-step rules for Reach Mahjong.

Official European Mahjong Assocition rules - Both Chinese Official rules and Riichi Competition Rules.
Include French, Spanish and Polish translations for RCR, and a Spanish translation for CO.

Sloperama - The best site to identify a mahjong rule, finds out what an unusual tile is, and a lot more, ...
For example: Most Misunderstood Asian Rules

[Shirluban]

An overview of the main variations from one riichi rule to another :
Jenn’s Corner #27: Reach vs. Riichi

And it's French translation.

[Torgo]

I would add the Mahjong Wiki at http://mahjong.wikidot.com/ as a very good resource for rules and scoring on several styles. It also has articles and links to more resources.

Since it's a wiki, anyone (even you) can create an account and add more content.

[Shirluban]

And, of course, Barticle's Japanese Mahjong Guide

[Barticle]

Free yakuman with every download.

(well, if you keep playing for long enough you'll get one eventually!)

[Kyuu]

(well, if you keep playing for long enough you'll get one eventually!)

Bad fine print. Bad.

[wavemotion]

Along with the great resources mentioned above, I've become a huge fan of this semi-recent Youtube series of videos on learning Japanese Riichi Mahjong:

How to Play Japanese Mahjong - A Comprehensive Walkthrough Part 1/4
How to Play Japanese Mahjong - A Comprehensive Walkthrough Part 2/4
How to Play Japanese Mahjong - A Comprehensive Walkthrough Part 3/4
How to Play Japanese Mahjong - A Comprehensive Walkthrough Part 4/4

These videos went up about 3 months ago and the guy who did them is a big Video Mahjong fan (so it has a slightly video-mahjong slant) but he does an excellent job of covering just about everything. The 4 parts clock in at almost 4 hours of instruction - it is, IMO, as good as anything I've seen that people have charged money for and these are free to watch.

[Ausculta]

Apparently YouTube yanked these videos because of copyright infringement

[or2az]

Screenshot_20180827-164048.jpg (64.12 KiB) Viewed 19682 times

I believe this is what you were looking for.
It's still on YouTube in one video instead of 4 parts.
A good watch.

[Shirluban]

Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlnC2rgIPrc

[Ignatius]

To my favorite list it went.

The original videos were pretty cool, and useful to learn.

[Shirluban]

The last edition of the World Riichi Championship Rulebook:
WRC Rules 2022

I've entirely rewritten it for clarity, complete with a quite lengthy glossary.