Flowers and kongs

Today we cover the weird corners of mahjong: the tiles and moves that break the normal rules. First, flowers. Then, four of a kind, which is called a kong. Both pay extra, and both have quirks you need to see once to remember forever.

You met flowers in class one. Eight of them total, four red and four blue. Here's what makes them strange. Flowers don't sit in your hand like normal tiles. The moment you draw one, it flips out of your hand on its own, and you immediately draw a replacement from the back of the wall. The flower lands in a little bonus area in front of you. Every flower you end up with is worth one point at the end. You never discard them, you never build them into sets, you can't lose them once you've got them.

A kong is four of the same tile. Think of it as a pong with one extra. There are three ways to make one. First, you've got three of something in your hand, someone discards the fourth, and you claim all four at once. That's an exposed kong. Second, you've got all four in your hand already and you declare the kong during your own discard phase. That's a concealed kong, and it scores more because nobody knew you had them. Third, you already pong'd three of something earlier, and later you draw the fourth from the wall. You can add it to your existing pong and turn it into a kong. That's called an added kong.

Your hand has three 8-circles sitting in it right now. Someone at the table's about to discard the fourth. When they do, claim all four as a kong.

Every time you declare a kong, the game hands you a free extra tile from the back of the wall. The very back. A special stack called the dead wall. You draw it, you keep it. The reason's simple. A kong uses up four tiles instead of three, so you're short one set, and the bonus draw replaces it. Watch. Yours just came.

Here's something worth knowing about concealed kongs. When you've got all four of a tile in your hand, you don't have to declare the kong right away. You can wait. You can even choose never to declare it at all. Those four tiles will still count as a kong at the end when you win. The question is whether you declare it, showing the table, or keep it hidden. Declaring gets you the bonus draw. Hiding keeps the other players guessing about what you're holding.

Okay, now the scoring. Flowers first. Every flower you end the round with is worth one tai. That's "Each Flower." One flower is one, two flowers is two, four flowers is four. Simple counting. And remember from class five, the opposite path. If nobody at the table had any flowers, you get one tai for "No Flowers." Flowers or no flowers, the game always gives you one of the two. Never both, never neither.

Kongs score too, and the amount depends on which kind you declared. An exposed kong (the one you made by claiming a discard) is worth one tai. A concealed kong (the four you held secretly and declared yourself) is worth two tai. Twice as much, because nobody saw it coming. An added kong, where you turn your old pong into a kong, scores the same as an exposed kong, because the table already knew you had the pong. That's the reward for hiding information. Two tai instead of one.

And one more, small but beautiful. If your winning tile comes from the bonus draw at the back of the wall (the one you get after declaring a kong), that's called "Self-Pick from the Flower Wall." And it scores FIVE extra tai on top of everything else. Five. The reason's simple. You konged, which is already special, and the free tile the game handed you turned out to be your mahjong. The universe gave you a gift inside a gift. It's rare, and when it happens, you remember it for years.

One last rule about kongs, then we close the class. It's called "Robbing the Kong," and it's one of the stranger moments in mahjong. Imagine someone at the table already has a pong of, say, red dragons, exposed in front of them. They draw a fourth red dragon and start to declare an added kong, upgrading their pong into a kong. But if YOU were one tile away from winning, and that fourth red dragon was your winning tile, you can stop them. You can rob the kong. You declare mahjong on their tile, in the middle of their kong, and the hand is yours. Almost never happens, but when it does, it's legal, it's correct, and it's unforgettable. We'll count it properly in class nine, but I want you to know the name today.

That's class seven. Flowers take care of themselves. Kongs come in three flavours, and every one of them gets you a free draw from the dead wall. And you've got a feel now for one of the quietest choices in mahjong: whether to show the table what you're holding, or keep it to yourself. Next class, we go all the way into that idea. Class eight is about reading everything: the tiles on the table and the people around it.