Proto-mahjong › Chinese classical › Korean traditional
Korean traditional
104 tiles, no bamboo
Caveat from the source chart
Drawn with a dashed connector in the source chart. No source establishes how the 104-tile Korean game descends from anything; the parent link is a placeholder.
Cross-comparison
corroborated — two or more independent sources agree on the facts that define this variant
| Source | Tiles | Hand | Flowers | Scoring | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | 104 (dots, craks, winds, dragons and 4 flowers) | 13, out on 14 | only 4 flowers | several regional systems, most commonly '1,5,10' and '1,3,6' | — |
| [2] | 104 | 13 | — | point-based; minimum 2 points, maximum 80 points | — |
| [3] | — | — | uses season tiles but calls them flowers | — | — |
- [1] Sloperama queries whether 104 applies only to the three-player game. Bamboo is absent from the listed suits, which is what the chart means by 'no bamboo'
- [2] length 32 hands, no dead wall
- [3] states that Korean mahjong does not allow melded, that is stolen, chows, and that Japanese mahjong is standardised in Japan and South Korea
- [4] sets out the Korean and Japanese three-player game: the north wind is removed, 2 to 8 of bamboo are removed, the four seasons are removed and the four flowers kept, with no jokers. That is a different reduction from the Korean 104-tile game, which drops bamboo entirely
Reading it
104 tiles and a 13-tile hand are confirmed by two sources, and Sloperama's suit list independently confirms bamboo's absence, which is the chart's distinguishing detail. Wikipedia adds two rules that mark the branch: season tiles used but called flowers, and no melded chows. Note that the Korean three-player game described by Wikipedia keeps bamboo 1 and 9, so it is a different reduction from this node's 104-tile game. None of this establishes the parent, which is why the chart draws the link dashed.
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
Mahjong Wiki. "Korean Mahjong Rules." mahjong.wikidot.com. cross-check checked 2026-09-18
Infobox for the Korean game: 104 tiles, 13-tile hand, point-based scoring with a 2-point minimum and 80-point maximum, 32 hands. Not listed in the chart's own wiki table.
http://mahjong.wikidot.com/rules:korean-overview
Only cited here · bibliography #53
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, Filipino style, Vietnamese classical and 6 more · bibliography #54
Wikipedia. "Three-player mahjong." cross-check checked 2026-09-18
The Korean and Japanese three-player game in detail: which tiles are removed, the prohibition on melding chows from a discard, and the sacred-discard rule.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-player_mahjong
Also cited on: Sanma · bibliography #56
Mahjong Wiki. "Family Tree and Timeline." mahjong.wikidot.com. supporting
The decade-by-decade timeline and the branch structure this chart follows, including the caveat that each variant's evolution has been cross-cultural.
Also cited on: Chinese classical, Shanghai / Hong Kong new style, Nanyang variants, Mainland regionals · bibliography #7