Hong Kong old style

Assessment

Confidence

documented a published ruleset or rule description exists and is cited

Evidence

partial sources agree on some points but disagree or say nothing on others

Cross-comparison

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

• [1] few special hands; books: Perlmen & Chan, Constantino, Li, Lo, Tsui
• [2] minimum and maximum both 'varies'; branched off traditional mahjong after WWII, prevalent among the upper class of Shanghai and Peking
• [12] in the same table HKOS scores 0 similarity against 1920s standard Chinese Classical and 4 against the 1920s 'New Method', supporting the chart's decision to descend HKOS through an intermediate new-style node rather than directly from Chinese Classical
• [13] describes Hong Kong or Cantonese mahjong as differing from Chinese Classical in minor scoring details, and states it does not allow multiple players to win from a single discard, which is the opposite of the Taiwanese rule
• [4] HKOS (舊章, also 香港牌, 廣東牌, 清章麻雀) 'evolved very directly and naturally from classical mahjong' through two changes: abolishing fu, and replacing dealer-pays-double with discarder-pays-double. Kwan believes the second came first, 'already in the (late) classical environment'. Later steps: half-flush and all pungs raised to 2 fan (二二制), then 3 (三三制); the 勒 multiple-limit system (citing Perlmen & Chan pp. 69-70); a minimum that rose to today's 3 fan; and, under Japanese and Taiwanese influence, a 'discarder pays all' that is really 'half' because of the self-draw bonus. He gives no dates for these stages, and treats New Chapter (新章) as a later re-addition of hands to HKOS.
• [2] Re-read: the page now dates the adoption of 'Clear Chapter' or HKOS, with pungs unscored and fu removed, to the 1950s, when 'New Style' variants 'became associated with gambling in HK'. The 3-3 system (3-fan minimum; all pungs and half-flush 3 fan) is dated to the 1970s and New Chapter to the early 1980s. Minimum '0-2, 3 with Flowers'. Modern play drops the dead wall and uses discarder pays all.
• [14] Re-read: now dates Clear Chapter / HKOS to the 1950s, when public mahjong parlours opened in Hong Kong and 'New Style' was 'deemed as too slow paced'. Its evolution chart reads 1900s Chinese Classical, 1920s Shanghai New Style, 1950s HKOS, 1970s New Chapter, 1980s Guangdong, 2000s Hong Kong Taiwanese; its text puts New Chapter in the early 1980s.
• [15] Depaulis and Tsui have three HKOS columns: '1950 Nguyen (HKOS)' from Nguyên Xuân Mai's guide (Haiphong, 1950), Perlmen & Chan 1979 (Hong Kong) and Amy Lo 2001 (Canton). All three: no points-then-doubling, no bonus for the win, concealed sets not rewarded, payoff set before play, no settlement between non-winners. Dealer paid double in Nguyen and Perlmen & Chan, not in Lo. The 1950 column is the earliest dated fan-only ruleset in the chart.
• [7] Hong Kong mahjong is 清章 (Clear Chapter), evolved from 老章. The older standard was 雞四 (chicken hand allowed, four-fan limit), no flowers and the 二二制 (half-flush and all pungs 2, pure one suit 4 or 5), later the 三三制 (3, 3 and 7) with a three-fan minimum.
• [2] Revision history (read 2026-09-25): the Guangdong page's timeline gave Clear Chapter / HKOS the 1970s up to revision 26 (16 March 2026). Revision 27 (24 August 2026) changed it to the 1950s. The 2026-09-18 observation quoted the older wording, so it came from a copy older than the page it was attributed to. The HKOS, Guangdong, HKNS and GMCR pages have been written and repeatedly revised by essentially one editor (wiki user 'murve'), so across this branch they are one voice, not several. The HKOS page's edits of 24 September 2026 changed only its payout box and the 'still popular today' paragraph; its 1950s and 1970s dates were already there by 27 August.
• [5] Read at iMahjong.com, which the cited page now redirects to. International Mahjong was 'created in 1990 based on the gameplay of Cantonese Mahjong (also known as Hong Kong Mahjong), and on various "house rules" widely played throughout Hong Kong in the 1980s'. The introduction adds that Cantonese Mahjong was 'also known as "Hong Kong Mahjong" in or around 1960's or "Hong Kong Old Style" as quoted nowadays by most people other than Chinese'. The current rules are a registered trademark, in nine chapters
• [16] Read on the Mahjong Wiki's HKOS scoring page, which gives it as a fan-list column beside HKOS and Perlmen & Chan. The wiki calls it 'New Chapter' mahjong, 'the transition from HKOS to Guangdong Style', combining Clear Chapter and New Chapter (NEW6 and NEW18) hands. It gives no author, publisher or date for it
• [17] Read on the Mahjong Wiki's Hong Kong New Style page: New Style hands 'gradually were added back onto the new HKOS framework. First as New6, then as New18, and then as a big mess known as 無奇不有'. The HKOS scoring page adds that 'several Cantonese sources' call the Let's Mahjong! hands the standard, which holds for NEW6 but perhaps not for NEW18. No Cantonese source is named
• [18] LAW, read at the source: Gambling Ordinance (Cap. 148) s. 22(1)(b) lets the licensing officer 'license premises for the playing therein of games in which mahjong or tin kau tiles are used'. The prescribed conditions govern hours (noon to midnight), age (18), credit (none), posted fees and a commission capped by the licence, police entry and monthly accounts. Nothing in the licence or the conditions prescribes how the game is played or scored
• [19] Uncited: after the Second World War, 'in 1956 the Hong Kong government required mahjong parlours to apply to the police licensing office before operating; and because mahjong has 144 tiles, the government issued 144 licences'. The licences were personal, without term and inheritable. The article says nothing about which rules the parlours played
• [20] Uncited: privately run gambling businesses banned since 1871, mahjong venues tolerated; after the Second World War they needed mahjong/tin kau licences and had to be called 'Mahjong Schools' in legal English. No date is given for the first licences
• [21] Read in the publisher's excerpt: after 1867 parlours ran as clubs; in the early post-war years the government, troubled by the noise, had the police close them; the owners petitioned, offering to end all-night opening and bar minors, and 'many parlours were licensed'. The licensing gave rise to the name 'Mahjong School'. Parlours then charged a fee on each winning hand (食糊抽水): on a $1 game, 40 cents whatever the hand. No year is given
• [2] Re-read 2026-10-12, unchanged since 2026-09-25. The history section still dates the 'back to basics' Clear Chapter to the 1950s, when New Style variants 'became associated with gambling in HK', and derives HKOS from Hong Kong New Style, 'a late-stage variant of Chinese Classical'. It cites nothing for any date
• [6] Read 2026-10-12. The wiki's 'HKOS' column has the 3-3 values (All Pungs and Half Flush at 3 fan) that its overview dates to the 1970s, not the 2-fan values of earlier play. It now classes Perlmen and Chan's column as 'New Chapter', 'the transition from HKOS to Guangdong Style', as it does Let's Mahjong!
• [4] Kwan's chapter on flowers (ch. 25). He thinks the No Flowers fan began as a misreading of the 平和 (no-points hand) fan, and calls the result a penalty that goes against the original idea of flowers. Sources: Millington pp.63 and 118, Perlmen and Chan pp.48-49 and 84
• [4] Re-read 2026-10-12 for the minimum and the names. He gives 舊章麻雀 as also called 香港牌, 廣東牌 or 清章麻雀, citing 簡而清's 《開檯》 p.13. His reference list gives that book as the ninth edition, 博益, 1988, ISBN 962-17-0088-4
• [7] Read 2026-10-12 at revision 92218886. An anonymous edit of 9 April 2026 changed only the lead, from 'also called 清章 or 舊章' to 'also called 新章'. That contradicts the unchanged body, which says Hong Kong mahjong still keeps the traditional 清章 way of play. The body is undated and cites only 簡而清 1986 and the BBC (2018). The stored wikitext says 四番封頂 and 十八番 where the zh-tw display shows 台
• [8] Read 2026-10-12 (香港麻雀 redirects here). The same text as the Chinese article in Cantonese, with separate sections for the 二二制 and 三三制 eras. Its lead still calls the game the traditional 清章 (or 舊章) way of play, as against the 新章 of Guangdong mahjong
• [22] Read 2026-10-12. The Association lists 香港麻雀 (Hong Kong Mahjong) as also called 清章麻雀, 廣東牌 (a Hong Kong-only name) and Classical Mahjong. Its linked rulebook, 香港麻雀總例, plays 136 tiles, or 144 under the flower rule, with a three-fan minimum and a ten-fan limit
• [3] Read 2026-10-12. It refers to 'more archaic scoring systems, commonly referred to as Hong Kong Old Style', citing only the Mahjong Wiki, which it tags as user-generated. It defines 雞糊 (chicken hand) as a winning hand worth zero faan
• [9] Sloper's and Kwan's side of a 2000 newsgroup debate. Three 1920s books deal with Hong Kong play (Israel 1923, Racster 1924, Foster 1924), and all describe the classical game; the Hong Kong difference Racster gives is a basic score of 10 for going out against Shanghai's 20. Kwan's case: HKOS came from the classical game by dropping pung points, then discarder-pays-double, then Mixed One-Suit and All Pong raised to 2 faan and later 3. Perlmen and Chan (ch. 8) describe both East doubling and the 2-faan system and record (p.56) that the 3-faan patterns were once 2. Millington (p.121) calls the popular Cantonese form a simplification of the classical game
• [10] Citing 簡而清's 《開台》, the report says Hong Kong mahjong comes from Guangdong mahjong and plays much like it, with different rules for counting faan. A man who worked twenty years in a parlour says parlours used to play Hong Kong mahjong and now mostly play the mainland game 跑馬仔
• [23] The Kai Kee family's account. In 1932 Lam Kwan's store ran mahjong tables, where 'they played 廣東牌'. In 1955 the government moved to ban parlours and his son chaired the new 港九麻雀商會. In 1956 the government issued 144 licences under the English name Mahjong School. After 2003 the parlour switched to Shenzhen-style 全銃 (discarder pays all, pung allowed but no chow). It says the 144 licences of 1956 were one for each tile in a set
• [11] From the Archive's headline list for the issue: in Macau, a quarrel over a chicken-hand win (食雞糊) ended with two people stabbed to death. The article itself, on the page scan, was not read

Reading it

Hong Kong old style is well established as a game, less well as a 1950s one. Kwan, Chinese and Cantonese Wikipedia, the Sloper-Kwan debate and the Mahjong Wiki agree on its scoring: the winner's faan only, with the classical fu abolished, on 136 tiles or 144 with flowers. Its Chinese names are 舊章, 清章麻雀, 香港牌 and 廣東牌, and the Hong Kong Mahjong Association still uses the last two for its 13-tile game. The limit goes back to the early game; the minimum and the flowers do not. Wikipedia's earlier 雞四 play allowed a zero-fan chicken hand under a four-fan cap, mostly without flowers, and Kwan puts the minimum after the fu-less game had formed. The Mahjong Wiki's 'HKOS' fan table is already the later 3-3 system. No Hong Kong source read dates the change. The 1920s books describe only classical play in Hong Kong, which sets a lower bound. The nearest dated evidence is still Depaulis and Tsui's 1950 Haiphong ruleset and Tsui's 'Hong Kong Mahjong' of the 1960s, plus a 1964 headline using 雞糊. Since April 2026 the lead of Chinese Wikipedia's article has wrongly called the game 新章. Still wanted: Perlmen and Chan (1979), 簡而清's 《開檯》, Millington, the 1956 licensing notice and 1950s Hong Kong newspapers.

Looked for, not found

• Tournament rules No tournament plays the old style. Hong Kong competitions play the Association's three-fan rules (GGHK 2023, recorded on Modern HKOS)
• Historical No Hong Kong manual or record from the 1950s-70s could be read. The Archive has no such title, its Hong Kong papers can be searched by headline only, and MMIS was not tried. 簡而清 (1986) and Perlmen and Chan (1979) are wanted as rulebooks
• Forum Reddit and BoardGameGeek refuse automated readers. The 2000 newsgroup debate on the age of HKOS was read in Sloperama's summary, which is recorded as a guide
• Commercial Kai Kee's own history page came up in the web search and was left unread to keep within the budget. App rules pages carry today's three-fan game
• Organisation No web presence was found for the parlour trade body 港九麻雀商會, founded in 1955 according to Ming Pao Weekly. The Hong Kong Mahjong Association page read here is its rules index, recorded as official-rules
• Collection No museum record of a 1950s Hong Kong set or rule card was searched for. Ming Pao Weekly says Kai Kee's neon sign is going to M+, a lead for a later pass

Known, not yet read

Sources that look worth having but could not be read for this entry. If you can reach one, it can be read and added. Every variant’s list is gathered on Missing sources.

• Law Legislative Council of Hong Kong, Official Report of Proceedings, 19 August 1959 — A search hit for 'mahjong' in a 1959 sitting, most likely on parlour licensing. It would date the licensing from a primary record.
  Where: https://www.legco.gov.hk/1959/h590819.pdf. Tried: The server's certificate chain fails verification through this environment's proxy, and a second fetcher got 503 (2026-09-28). Retried on 2026-10-12: the certificate chain still fails verification through this environment's proxy (our side).
• Law Hong Kong Government Gazette, 1956: the notice or regulation introducing mahjong parlour licences — The primary record behind the '1956, 144 licences' that the encyclopedias repeat without a source.
  Where: The Government Gazette archive (Hong Kong Government Reports Online, HKU Libraries). Tried: HKU's Government Reports Online was tried on 2026-10-12, and the tunnel through this environment's proxy closed mid-exchange twice (our side), so a reader on another network may reach it.
• Journalism South China Morning Post, "Mahjong exhibition reveals gambling industry that once dominated Hong Kong" (2016) — The press report that gives 1956 and 144 licences, apparently from an exhibition; may name its source.
  Where: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1949231/mahjong-exhibition-reveals-gambling-industry-once. Tried: 403 to automated requests (2026-09-28).
• Journalism Zolima City Magazine, "Forgotten Hong Kong Icon: Mahjong from Another Era" — A feature on old Hong Kong mahjong that search results tie to the 1950s parlours.
  Where: https://zolimacitymag.com/forgotten-hong-kong-icon-mahjong-from-another-era/. Tried: The page came back empty (2026-09-28).
• Scholarship Chan, Chi Chuen, William Wai Lim Li and Eugene Chung Ip Leung, "The History of Gambling in Hong Kong and Macao", in Problem Gambling in Hong Kong and Macao (Springer, 2016), pp. 1-36 — An academic history of gambling law in Hong Kong and Macao; likely the best-sourced account of the parlour licences.
  Where: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1068-2_1. Tried: Paywalled.
• Scholarship 魯金 (Lu Jin), 《香港賭博簡史》, Joint Publishing, 2023 — The full book behind the excerpt read here, which may date the licensing.
  Where: Print (三聯書店). Tried: Only the publisher's excerpt is online.
• Rulebook Perlmen, Samuel K. and Mark Kai-Chi Chan, The Chinese Game of Mahjong (Hong Kong, 1979) — The chart's supporting book for this node and the Mahjong Wiki's named fan-list column: Old and New Style as played in Hong Kong. The wiki's scoring page now classes its column as 'New Chapter', the transition from HKOS to Guangdong Style, while Sloper and Kwan cite ch. 8 and p. 56 for the older East-doubling rule and the 2-faan system, so the book may cover both stages.
  Where: Print; the chart's link is a Goodreads record. Tried: Not on the Internet Archive.
• Rulebook Nguyên Xuân Mai, Le mah-jong: guide complet (Haiphong, 1950) — The earliest dated fan-only ruleset, known here only as a column in Depaulis and Tsui's chart.
  Where: Print; in Thierry Depaulis's collection. Tried: Not online.
• Rulebook Millington, A. D., The Complete Book of Mah-Jongg (1977), pp. 118 and 121 — Kwan cites it for Hong Kong bases of 50 or 100 fu, his evidence for why fu stopped mattering. On p. 121 he calls the popular Cantonese form a simplification of the classical game (quoted on Sloperama's CC Theory page). Kwan used the 1998 third impression, ISBN 0-297-81340-4.
  Where: Print. Tried: Not on the Internet Archive.
• Rulebook 簡而清, 《開檯》 (Hong Kong: 博益, 1986; Kwan used the ninth edition, 1988, ISBN 962-17-0088-4) — A Hong Kong primary source cited by both Kwan and Chinese Wikipedia for how the game was played in the 1980s. Kwan cites p. 13 for the names 香港牌, 廣東牌 and 清章麻雀; BBC Chinese (2018) cites it, as 《開台》, for Hong Kong mahjong deriving from Guangdong mahjong.
  Where: Print. Tried: Not online.
• Journalism Hong Kong Chinese newspapers of the 1950s (華僑日報, 工商日報, 工商晚報): mahjong columns, advertisements for manuals and parlour notices — The only way to date the fan-only game in Hong Kong from the period itself. No source read gives a Hong Kong date earlier than Perlmen and Chan (1979)
  Where: Hong Kong Public Libraries, Old Hong Kong Newspapers (MMIS); page scans also at the Internet Archive (collection china-mail). Tried: 2026-10-12: the Archive's headline lists were searched by phrase and gave one 1964 chicken-hand headline. Its Chinese OCR is unusable, so the articles themselves cannot be searched. MMIS not tried: it queues automated readers

Where it was searched

Every place the search checklist names for this variant’s languages, and what each gave, including nothing. The last full pass was on 2026-10-12.

Names searched: Chinese 香港麻雀, 香港蔴雀, 香港麻將, 香港麻将, 舊章麻雀, 旧章麻雀, 舊章, 清章麻雀, 清章, 香港牌, 廣東牌, 广东牌; English Hong Kong old style, Hong Kong Old Style, HKOS, Clear Chapter, Hong Kong mahjong, Hong Kong Mahjong, Cantonese mahjong, Classical Mahjong.