Shanghai / Hong Kong new style

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] Sloperama's 'Hong Kong New Style': many many special hands, vs few in Old Style
• [7] wiki treats New Chapter as the transition from HKOS toward Guangdong style
• [8] CORROBORATES THE INTERMEDIATE NODE: states that HKOS was adopted as a backlash to HKNS, which had itself evolved from Chinese Classical, and that the simplified variant born from that backlash is Qing Zhang, Clear Chapter, known in English as Hong Kong Old Style. That places a new-style stage between Chinese Classical and HKOS, which is exactly what this node is
• [9] 'New Style' means a variant with a large number of winning conditions not found in Chinese Classical, some over 100. A first wave of two styles evolved from the classical game: Shanghai New Style, 'developed from the 1920s through the 1940s', and Hong Kong New Style, 'from the 1950s through the 1970s'. HKOS was born 'as a backlash' to it. The page's timeline gives Shanghai New Style '"New Style" Patterns; Classic Scoring' (1920s) and Hong Kong New Style 'Even more "New Style" Patterns; Classic Scoring+' (early 50s). It warns that the Cantonese rulesets contemporary with HKOS, often called HKNS, are properly 'New Chapter'.
• [2] The Chinese Classical overview's rules box, which covers 'Chinese Classical, SHNS, and HKNS' with separate New Style values for the payout.
• [10] Carries 'Shanghai New Style (1920s)' and 'Hong Kong New Style (1950s)' columns beside the classical ones, and says both 'also reward wins by self-draw and punish discarders when there's a win by discard', with all players still paying and receiving.
• [3] The 'New Method', 'fast finding favor in certain Chinese communities' and 'favored by more advanced players' in 1923. Under it, a player is not liable for the insurance penalty if he holds any waiting hand.
• [4] The 'nouveau mode' of 1924, which 'all Chinese players have adopted' because 'a clumsy or careless player must pay double'.
• [5] The 1924 Shanghai manual's note on the '近時新法' (recent new method). The same manual records a 'recent Shanghai practice' (近時滬地) of counting out 13 tiles each and building the rest flat, 21 to a side.
• [11] In 1924 the Shanghai game already differed from the Cantonese: seats and the Leader decided by one throw; 'in Shanghai and Ningpo' a single-tier wall of 21 tiles with 13 counted out to each player (matching the Shanghai manual); a base of 10 'quite common in Shanghai' against the usual 20; and all-pung hands and the all-pungs double worth only 10 extra 'in Shanghai'.
• [12] Depaulis and Tsui's 'Shanghai New Style' column (1950-60; 'as in Perlmen & Chan 1979 and Lo 2001'), region Hong Kong: not points-then-doubling, no bonus for the win, concealed sets not rewarded, payoff set before play, no settlement between non-winners, dealer not doubled. Their separate '1920s New Method' column comes from Babcock 1923 and Tchou 1924.
• [6] Uses 'Hong Kong New Style' for today's standard Hong Kong game, and 'Hong Kong Old Style' for the archaic scoring, which is the opposite of the Mahjong Wiki's chronology. Its liability penalties under discarder-pays-half (九張包, 十二張包自摸, 五子包生) continue the nine-tile liability rule of the 1920s texts.
• [13] Chinese-language sequence: 老章 (Old Chapter) → 清章 (Clear Chapter, the base of Hong Kong and Guangdong mahjong) → 新章 (New Chapter, adding 六獨, 十八台, 無奇不有). Older Hong Kong play was 雞四 (no minimum, a four-tai limit), without flowers and under the 二二制, before today's 三三制 and three-tai minimum.
• [14] By 1920 'only minor rule differences existed throughout China', mainly between Shanghai and Canton in fine points of scoring and special hands; it was 'during the tumultuous period of the 1930s and 1940s' that regional variants developed. Cites Racster (1924): the Shanghai base was 20, Hong Kong's 10.
• [15] CHALLENGES THE NODE'S PLACE: Kwan derives Hong Kong Old Style 'very directly and naturally' from the late classical game, and treats New Chapter (新章), the many-hand style, as a later re-addition to HKOS. He has no pattern-heavy stage before HKOS. His late classical game does add hands (平和, 門前清自摸, 小三元, 混么九 and others) and raises the limit to 500 or 1,000, which is the 'more patterns' the Mahjong Wiki calls new style.

Reading it

Other sources now confirm this entry, not just the chart. Sloperama's Hong Kong New Style entry matches on tiles, hand and payout, and its 'many many special hands' against Old Style's 'few' is the substantive difference the branch depends on. The wiki's mainland page describes later pattern additions to the classical game as Shanghai New Style, and its GMCR page states outright that HKOS was adopted as a backlash to HKNS, which had evolved from Chinese Classical. Three sources therefore place a new-style stage between Chinese Classical and Hong Kong Old Style. The 1920s date now has contemporary support, for the payout at least. Babcock (1923), Tchou (1924) and the Shanghai manual (1924) each describe a 'new method' paying the self-drawn winner double and, in the first two, making the discarder pay double. That is the self-draw and discard payout the wiki gives New Style, in an early form: the discarder pays double, not all. Tow (1924) shows the Shanghai game already differing from the Cantonese in walls, base score and special-hand values. What no 1920s text shows is the defining feature, the large number of added winning patterns; the manuals of 1914-24 list only ten special hands. The node also bundles two stages the wiki separates, Shanghai New Style (1920s-40s) and Hong Kong New Style (1950s-70s). Depaulis and Tsui date their Shanghai New Style column 1950-60 and place it in Hong Kong. The names conflict. English Wikipedia calls today's standard Hong Kong faan game 'Hong Kong New Style'; the Mahjong Wiki reserves that name for the pre-HKOS stage and calls the modern game New Chapter; Chinese Wikipedia runs 老章, 清章, 新章. Racster puts the Shanghai base at 20 against Hong Kong's 10, while Tow calls a base of 10 'quite common in Shanghai'. Kwan's history (2009) challenges the node itself: he derives HKOS directly from the late classical game, and his only pre-HKOS growth in hands is the late classical inflation. On his reading, this node is the late classical game plus the new-method payout, not a separate pattern-heavy stage.