Chinese classical

Assessment

Confidence

documented a published ruleset or rule description exists and is cited

Evidence

corroborated two or more independent sources agree on the facts that define this variant

Cross-comparison

What each source was read to say, set side by side. The numbers are the sources above.

• [1] ~19 special hands
• [2] minimum 0, maximum 500
• [8] the oldest surviving variety, and the version introduced to America in the 1920s under various names; all players score and it is possible to score higher than the winner
• [9] sets out the point-and-double sequence in full and states that the Babcock system is derived from Chinese Classical scoring, which independently supports the chart's descent of Babcock rules from this node
• [3] The 1924 Shanghai 遊藝社 edition of the first Chinese manual, read from the page images (book pp. 1-26, the rules). Ten 賀例: 天和, 地和, 四喜臨門, 三元中選, 國士無雙, 九連寶燈, 海底撈月 and 嶺上開花 and 鸞鳳和鳴 (all pungs) and 金雞奪食 (robbing a kong), the last four +10 副 each and the rest the 滿門 limit of 'about 300 副, to be agreed before play'. A 14-tile dead wall (王張) ends the hand in a draw with no settlement; nine different terminals and honours in the opening hand allow a redeal. Liability rules make the discarder pay when a dangerous tile feeds a one-suit, three-dragon or four-wind hand, and a false win pays each player 300 副. A note on p. 14: 'in the recent new method (近時新法), when a player wins by self-draw, each player pays double'.
• [4] Babcock's 1923 chapter on the Chinese game says 'there are no printed and generally adopted rules for 麻雀 in Chinese or in any other language'. Seats drawn with the wind discs; four rounds; the round wind doubles for all, twice for its own seat. Limit hands recognised 'in all parts of China': three dragon sets, four winds, all terminals and honours, four concealed pungs, and all honours. It details the Chinese insurance penalties, and the 'New Method, fast finding favor in certain Chinese communities': East no longer pays or receives double, the discarder pays double, and a self-drawn win takes double from each.
• [5] By a Chinese author, 'as the Chinese play it'. 'There is no banker': East only plays first. Tchou says the new mode is fairer, 'which is why all Chinese players have adopted it'. Liability fines match Babcock's insurance penalties. He also says the game spread first to the south and reached the north only after 1900, and that it grew out of the Water Margin card game.
• [10] Depaulis and Tsui's '1920s CC-like' column rests mainly on Babcock 1923, chapter VIII: points then doubling, a bonus for the win, concealed sets rewarded, settlement between non-winners, and a dealer who pays and receives double. Their separate '1920s New Method' column adds Tchou 1924: payoff set before play, and no double for the dealer.
• [11] Its 'early rules' section dates the earliest known rules to the 1910s, from a rule book collected by Hatsuhara Shigeki, and records that Kwan Siu-ho's 中庸麻雀史觀 calls them 'Chinese classical mahjong': 136 tiles, 13 in hand, non-winners able to collect differences from each other, 番副 scoring, and the dealer paying and receiving double. It names Shen Yifan's 繪圖麻雀牌譜 (1914) the first mahjong manual.
• [12] Splits the scoring into 'Early Classical (1900s)' and 'Late Classical (1910s)' before Shanghai New Style, with 10 for going out and 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 for pungs and kongs. It cites no source for these columns.
• [13] Describes the classic Chinese game 'as it was played in China in the 1920s and 1930s, and as it is played today in Europe', with 'Payment to All' as an optional rule and 'Thrower Pays For All' as another. Seven pairs and jewel hands were 'traditionally' not used.
• [6] A Chinese author's account, 'the real Chinese methods', with a worked example in which East, South and North 'balance each others' scores'. Limit hands include thirteen orphans, nine gates, heavenly and earthly wins, four winds and three dragons.
• [7] W. Lock Wei, 'including the complete Chinese rules of play'. Liability penalties: a discarder feeding a one-suit hand after nine of that suit are exposed, a terminals hand after three terminal sets, or the fourth wind or third dragon, pays all losses. A false claim pays everyone the limit.
• [14] Identifies the 'early rules' behind Chinese Wikipedia's account: Hatsuhara Shigeki's 想定寧波ルール, published in the Japan Mahjong League's 麻雀タイムズ, 1 January 1952, compiled from five Chinese mahjong books of the 1910s-20s. Kwan says the five differ in details and from other books of the time. He splits the classical game into early and late: the late game adds hands (平和, 門前清自摸, 小三元/小四喜, 混么九/清么九, 四暗刻/四槓子), raises the base from 10 to 20 and the limit from 300 to 500 or 1,000, and makes thirteen orphans buildable in play.

Reading it

Four sources agree on the scoring structure, and Wikipedia independently derives the Babcock system from Chinese Classical, supporting the chart's placement of Babcock rules under this node. The node now also rests on three 1920s primary texts. They agree on the core: 136 tiles, with flowers absent or optional; 13 in hand; points for sets, 10 or 20 for going out, then doublings; small bonuses for a single wait and for a self-draw; a limit of about 300; and the same set of limit hands, including thirteen orphans. They disagree on the payout that the other sources treat as defining. Babcock (1923) and Tchou (1924) have the losers settle among themselves, so a loser can outscore the winner. The Shanghai manual of 1924 (first printed 1914) says the other hands are not reckoned at all when someone wins, as in the Late Qing novels. Dealer doubling was also in flux. All three texts describe a 'new method' (Babcock's New Method, Tchou's nouveau mode, the manual's 近時新法) in which the self-drawn winner is paid double by all, and in the first two the discarder pays double too. That is the discard-and-self-draw payout of the child node Shanghai / Hong Kong new style, already current by 1923-24. Babcock's claim that no Chinese rules were in print is wrong: the Shanghai manual was first published in 1914. Two more 1920s texts by Chinese authors, Tow (1924) and Wei (1925), agree with Babcock and Tchou that the losers settle among themselves and that East pays and receives double. Kwan (2009) traces the 'early rules' to Hatsuhara Shigeki's reconstruction of 1952, built from five Chinese books of the 1910s-20s, and describes a late classical stage with more hands and a higher base and limit.