Proto-mahjong › Chinese classical › Shanghai / Hong Kong new style › Hong Kong old style › Nanyang variants › Filipino style
Filipino style
16-tile hand, honours as flowers
Descends into
- Bashi-Bashi — 3-player, Philippine casinos
Caveat from the source chart
Sits under Nanyang despite a 16-tile hand resembling Taiwanese. The distinguishing test is that Filipino play treats winds and dragons as flowers.
Cross-comparison
corroborated — two or more independent sources agree on the facts that define this variant
| Source | Tiles | Hand | Flowers | Scoring | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | 144 (possibly more); certain tiles may be designated as jokers | 16, out on 17 | melded instantly; winds and dragons are treated the same as flowers | count doubles, convert to points | winner only (?); thrower pays double |
| [2] | — | 16, and you must have 17 tiles to win | — | — | — |
| [3] | 144, the standard set | — | groups all dragon, wind, season and flower tiles as flowers for bonus points | — | — |
- [1] kongs get paid at the instant they are melded
- [2] cited by Sloperama's own catalogue. Confirms both the four plant flowers and the four season tiles, and describes a separate flower wall used for replacements
- [3] states the game uses no jokers, which contradicts Sloperama's note that certain tiles may be designated as jokers under a rule it could not describe
Reading it
Three sources agree on the 144-tile set and the 16-tile hand winning on 17. More importantly, Wikipedia independently confirms the flower handling that the chart's own new caveat makes the test for telling Filipino from Taiwanese: dragons and winds are grouped with the flowers. The one disagreement is jokers, which Sloperama hedges and Wikipedia denies; prefer Wikipedia, since Sloperama admits it cannot state the rule.
Sources
Sloper, Tom. "FAQ 2b: Identifying a Mah-Jongg Variant." Sloperama. canonical checked 2026-09-18
Tile counts, hand sizes, flower handling and scoring for roughly 50 named variants. Primary source for most leaf nodes in this chart.
https://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq02b.html
Also cited on: Chinese archaic, Chinese pre-classical, Chinese classical, Shanghai / Hong Kong new style, Hong Kong old style, Modern HKOS and 43 more · bibliography #1
Ging's Brain. "How to Play Filipino Mahjong." cross-check checked 2026-09-18
A play-level account of the Filipino game, cited by Sloperama's catalogue. Confirms the 17-tile winning hand and the flower and season sets.
http://gingsbrain.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-to-play-filipino-mahjong.html
Only cited here · bibliography #58
Wikipedia. "Mahjong." cross-check checked 2026-09-18
The main article's regional-variations section, which describes most branches of this tree independently of the chart's own sources.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong
Also cited on: Chinese classical, Hong Kong old style, Taiwanese style, Singapore style, Vietnamese classical, Vietnamese modern and 6 more · bibliography #54