Proto-mahjong › Chinese classical › Shanghai / Hong Kong new style › Hong Kong old style › Nanyang variants › Malaysian 4-player
Malaysian 4-player
164 tiles, 24 flowers
Sources
The documents this entry rests on, as published. Each can be opened and checked; nothing in this part is anybody’s reading of them.
Guide Sloper, Tom. "FAQ 2b: Identifying a Mah-Jongg Variant." Sloperama. supporting checked 2026-09-18
https://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq02b.html
chart’s note Tile counts, hand sizes, flower handling and scoring for roughly 50 named variants. Primary source for most leaf nodes in this chart.
for this variant The chart's catalogue entry. Its synopsis is not Sloperama's own: it was supplied in 2007 by a correspondent translating one group's French rules sheet (see the dedicated page).
Also cited on: Chinese archaic, Late Qing style, Chinese pre-classical, Chinese classical, Shanghai / Hong Kong new style, Hong Kong old style and 45 more · bibliography #1
Guide Sloper, Tom. "Malaysian Mah-Jongg." Sloperama. canonical checked 2026-09-29
https://www.sloperama.com/mahjongg/malaysian.html
chart’s note The 84-tile three-player and 164-tile four-player Malaysian games.
for this variant The chart's canonical source, and on inspection a single witness: one group of players in Kuala Lumpur and one rules sheet, relayed through two correspondents. The only rules text for the variant found anywhere.
Also cited on: Malaysian 3-player · bibliography #5
Scholarship Ebashi Takashi (江橋崇). 「（七）中国国外に残る花牌麻雀」 ('Flower-tile mahjong surviving outside China'), in 麻雀牌が語る麻雀の歴史, 五 花牌の盛衰史. Japan Playing Card Museum (日本かるた文化館), 2018-2023. cross-check checked 2026-09-29
https://japanplayingcardmuseum.com/010-5-mahjong-flowertiles-asiancountries/
AI summary A one-page Japanese study of the extra flower tiles in Vietnamese, Thai, Malaysian and Singaporean sets, drawn from the sets themselves: which flowers each region's sets carry, and a hypothesis for why the south kept so many.
for this variant Independent evidence that a 164-tile Malaysian set exists. Its make-up (four flower quartets, cat, rat, rooster and centipede, 飛 and faces) agrees with Chinese Wikipedia and English Wikipedia's table, not with Sloperama's blank jokers and paired animals. The number agrees; the tiles do not.
Also cited on: Nanyang variants, Singapore style, Vietnamese classical · bibliography #159
Encyclopedia Wikipedia. "Mahjong tiles." cross-check checked 2026-09-29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong_tiles
AI summary Dates the dragon tiles: whites from replacement tiles, reds circa 1870, greens by 1890, with inner-flower jokers surviving in Vietnam.
for this variant Agrees with Sloperama's eight animals for four-player sets. Says nothing about rules of play.
Also cited on: Proto-mahjong, Nanyang variants, Vietnamese classical, Vietnamese modern · bibliography #102
Encyclopedia Chinese Wikipedia: 馬來西亞四人麻雀 (Malaysian four-player mahjong). cross-check checked 2026-09-29
AI summary An article on a four-player Malaysian game: a 164-tile set, then a 144-tile rule set and a 15-fan scoring table that the article itself calls self-devised, for want of any published Malaysian four-player rules.
for this variant An encyclopedia entry that records the absence of what it describes: no published four-player Malaysian rules. Its tile count agrees with the chart. Its rules are self-devised, and its scoring table is taken from a hobbyist calculator begun in 2026 (mahjongapp.vercel.app). It contradicts itself on which tiles are used.
Also cited on: Singapore style · bibliography #173
Journalism Low, Celine. "How The Heck Do You Play Mahjong: A Beginner's Guide." SAYS (says.com), 28 January 2025. cross-check checked 2026-10-09
https://says.com/my/lifestyle/how-the-heck-do-you-play-mahjong
AI summary A Malaysian news site's Chinese New Year primer on mahjong as played in Malaysia: three players, 84 tiles, the wall and deal, claiming tiles and the Fly. It links Mahjong Pros for the fan table.
for this variant Malaysian journalism, independent of Sloperama. It uses 'Malaysian mahjong' for the three-player game and treats four players as the Hong Kong norm. It says nothing of a 164-tile four-player game
Also cited on: Malaysian 3-player · bibliography #461
Journalism Vijayan, Sheela. "Duo revitalises mahjong sets with unique M'sian twist." Free Malaysia Today (FMT Lifestyle), 18 February 2025. cross-check checked 2026-10-09
AI summary A feature on Myjong, a Petaling Jaya maker of wooden and acrylic mahjong sets with Malaysian motifs. It gives the maker's set sizes: 84 tiles for three players and 144 for four.
for this variant A Malaysian set maker's four-player set has 144 tiles, not 164, so the 164-tile set is not the only Malaysian four-player equipment. Nothing on rules
Only cited here · bibliography #466
Commercial Gamesofa (Godgame Service). 麻将神来也星马麻将-3人/4人麻将、娱乐城 (Flying Mahjong). App Store listing, first released January 2020. cross-check checked 2026-10-09
AI summary The store listing for a Taiwanese developer's online mahjong game sold as authentic Singapore-Malaysian (星马) play for three or four players. It lists 飛 (Fly) jokers, a full fan list and a five-fan minimum. The rules themselves are inside the app.
for this variant Apart from Sloperama and Chinese Wikipedia, the only source found that offers a four-player 'Malaysian' game. Its 飛 jokers and five-fan minimum belong to the three-player game, which points to a four-player form derived from it, as Chinese Wikipedia says. Read from the listing only; the rules were not read
Only cited here · bibliography #468
Guide 马来西亚麻将算番器 (Malaysian mahjong fan calculator). 「番表」 (fan table). mahjongapp.vercel.app, 2026. cross-check checked 2026-10-09
https://mahjongapp.vercel.app/fan-table
AI summary A hobbyist's web calculator and session tracker for 'Malaysian mahjong'. Its table has a 15-fan limit and mixes Hong Kong and Chinese Official hands with invented ones. Chinese Wikipedia's article on the four-player game cites it for its scoring.
for this variant The source Chinese Wikipedia now cites for its four-player scoring. It is a house system from 2026, not a record of traditional play, and it confirms that the Chinese Wikipedia table is invented and owes nothing to Sloperama's rules
Only cited here · bibliography #469
Encyclopedia Wikipedia. "Mahjong." cross-check checked 2026-10-09
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong
AI summary The main article's regional-variations section, which describes most branches of this tree independently of the chart's own sources.
for this variant An encyclopedia table that separates a four-player Malaysian game from the Singapore one by its payment to all players and its extra flower quartets. It is uncited; its Arts and Professions agree with Chinese Wikipedia and Ebashi, and its payment with Sloperama
Also cited on: Proto-mahjong, Chinese classical, Hong Kong old style, Taiwanese style, Nanyang variants, Singapore style and 10 more · bibliography #54
Commercial Mahjong Pros. "Beginner's Guide to Malaysian Mahjong." Mahjong Pros (retailer's blog). cross-check checked 2026-09-29
https://mahjongpros.com/blogs/how-to-play/beginners-guide-to-malaysian-mahjong
AI summary A mahjong-set retailer's guide to 'Malaysian mahjong', which it describes as a three-player game: the 84 tiles, the Fly, the deal and the 5-fan minimum.
for this variant Shows that to a seller of sets 'Malaysian mahjong' means the three-player game; nothing on a four-player form.
Also cited on: Malaysian 3-player · bibliography #174
Encyclopedia Baidu Baike (English edition). "Malaysia Mahjong." cross-check checked 2026-09-29
https://baike.baidu.com/en/item/Malaysia%20Mahjong/1499384
AI summary The Chinese encyclopedia's entry on 马来西亚麻将, in English translation: the three-player game, its deal, flowers and fan, with worked examples.
for this variant The Chinese encyclopedia agrees that the Malaysian game is the three-player one.
Also cited on: Malaysian 3-player · bibliography #175
Guide "Malaysian Mahjong." A Day in Everybody Else's Life (blog), April 2010. cross-check checked 2026-09-29
http://thewriter2006.blogspot.com/2010/04/malaysian-mahjong.html
AI summary A Malaysian player's notes on the local game from memory: three players, the Fei jokers, a list of fan and limit hands, and payment for Fei at the end of a hand.
for this variant A Malaysian player in 2010, independent of the others, using the name for the three-player game.
Also cited on: Malaysian 3-player · bibliography #176
Law Laws of Malaysia, Act 289: Common Gaming Houses Act 1953. Reprint incorporating all amendments up to 1 January 2006. Commissioner of Law Revision, Malaysia, 2006. cross-check checked 2026-09-29
https://lom.agc.gov.my/ilims/upload/portal/akta/LOM/EN/Act%20289.pdf
AI summary Malaysia's federal law against common gaming houses and public gaming: the definitions of gaming and of a common gaming house, the offences and penalties, and schedules naming the games it treats as bankers' games and other games.
for this variant The law that governs the game played for money in Malaysia; it sets no rules of play.
Also cited on: Malaysian 3-player, Pong · bibliography #171
Journalism Toh, Terence. "Click, clack, connect: 'Jom Mahjong' brings people together." Free Malaysia Today (FMT Lifestyle), 8 October 2026. cross-check checked 2026-10-09
AI summary A report on Jom Mahjong, a social mahjong club founded in Kuala Lumpur in April 2026. It gives the club's size and says its members usually play Hong Kong mahjong.
for this variant Organised four-player play in Kuala Lumpur in 2026 follows Hong Kong rules, not a separate Malaysian four-player game. Journalism, independent of the chart
Only cited here · bibliography #467
Analysis
Written by an AI model from the sources above. It is a reading of them, not a source in its own right: every figure in it points back to a numbered source, and where the two disagree, the source is right.
Assessment
- Confidence
- catalogued listed in a variant catalogue with tile counts and hand sizes, but no rules text verified
- 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.
| Source | Tiles | Hand | Flowers | Scoring | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | 164 (24 flowers, 4 jokers) | 13, out on 14 | 16 flowers/seasons, 8 animals, 4 jokers | 50 points for Out, then points for pungs, kongs, pairs, flowers, then double | all players are paid, depending on what they hold |
| [2] | 164: 108 suited, 28 honours, 16 numbered flowers in four colours, 8 unnumbered animals (dragon and pearl, little and big tortoises, bird and cage, rooster and worm), 4 blank jokers | 13, out on 14; walls 20 and 21 stacks | — | winning hand must be All Chow, All Pung or a half or full flush; 50 points for going out, then points for pongs, kongs, pairs and flowers, then doubles | — |
| [3] | Hong Kong-made sets for Malaysia carry 28 flowers: seasons, gentlemen, the four occupations, the four arts, cat, rat, rooster and centipede, four 飛 and four face tiles; with the 136 basic tiles that is 164. Sets made in Thailand for Malaysia and Singapore carry 20 | — | — | — | — |
| [4] | — | — | four-player Malaysian sets have four pairs of animal tiles; Singaporean sets two | — | — |
| [5] | introduces a 164-tile set (four flower quartets, two kinds of animal tiles, 4 飛), then plays with 144 and says the four-player game 'does not use' 飛, faces or animals | — | — | a 15-fan limit table built on Hong Kong and MCR hands with local and invented ones, explicitly 'not representing a standard common to all Malaysia' | — |
| [2] | 164: the 136 suit and honour tiles, 16 numbered flowers (1 to 4, in red, blue, green and brown), 8 unnumbered animal tiles in four pairs (dragon and pearl, little and big tortoises, bird and cage, rooster and worm) and 4 blank jokers, as Malbec read them from the French sheet | 13 tiles, out on 14; walls of 20 and 21 stacks for the banker and the opposite seat | Willis: no chicken hands unless the player holds 6 flowers, at least one of them of his own seat number or unnumbered | pongs of the player's own or the prevailing wind count double; scoring 'depends on the types of flowers accumulated' | — |
| [1] | 164 (24 flowers and 4 jokers): 16 flowers and seasons, 8 animals, 4 jokers. Raymond Lee's 2016 table on the same page, an image, gives Malaysian sets 136 + 16 flowers + 8 animals + 4 general jokers = 164 and Singaporean sets 136 + 8 + 4 + 4 = 152 | 13, out on 14 | — | the winning hand must be All Chow, All Pung or a half or full flush; 50 points for Out, then points for pungs, kongs, pairs and flowers, then doubles | all players are paid, according to what they hold; the Singapore entry (148 tiles, 12 flowers) pays only the winner |
| [6] | Malaysian mahjong uses 84 of a full set's 144 tiles; the North wind is sometimes taken out | the dealer starts with 14 tiles and the others with 13; a winning hand needs at least five fan | — | — | — |
| [7] | Myjong's handmade sets with Malaysian motifs: 84 tiles for three players, 144 for four | — | — | — | — |
| [8] | plays with 飛 (Fly) jokers ('飞牌麻将') | — | — | a full fan list for all hands; five fan to win | — |
| [9] | — | — | only the eight seasons and flowers count, 1 fan each; a complete set of four is 2 fan (花花公子), and no flowers is 2 fan (无花) | a table with a 15-fan limit that mixes Hong Kong and Chinese Official hands with invented ones such as 圆周率 and 百万石 | — |
| [10] | the variant table has a 'Malaysian 4 Player' column, which ticks all three suits, honours, flowers, seasons, the Four Arts and Four Noble Professions, animals and jokers; the Singapore column ticks animals but not the Arts and Professions | a complete hand of 14 tiles; the minimum is given as '?' | — | — | scored in faan and paid to all players ('All'), where Singapore pays only the winner; East doubles |
| [5] | a 164-tile set: 136 tiles, four flower quartets (seasons, gentlemen, four arts, four occupations), cat, rat, rooster and centipede, four face tiles and four red 飛; play then uses 144 tiles and leaves out 飛, faces and animals | — | — | a '15-fan limit proposal' built on Hong Kong and Chinese Official hands, which the article calls adjustable and not a standard across Malaysia; each flower 1 fan | — |
- [1] winning hand must be All Chow, All Pung, or Half/Full Flush
- [2] Read at the source. The whole four-player entry comes from two letters of 2007: Tine Willis, whose group in Kuala Lumpur played with 164 tiles from rules written in French ('No chicken hands allowed unless one player has 6 flowers ... of his own position'), and Sylvain Malbec, who translated the French sheet from scans and wrote the synopsis. Sloper had not heard of a 164-tile game before. The French sheet itself is not published there
- [3] Read at the source. Describes the sets, not rules of play; treats cat, rat, rooster and centipede as bonuses common to all, the sixteen others as seat flowers, and 飛 and the faces as jokers
- [5] Read at the source. Says outright: 'this is a self-devised way of playing, because no formal Malaysian four-player rules can be found online' (这是自创玩法，由于网络不见正式马来西亚四人麻将的玩法), and that there is no uniform four-player fan standard across Malaysia
- [11] Read at the source. 'Malaysian Mahjong is a fast-paced and exciting variation ... played with three players instead of the usual four'; the guide describes only the 84-tile game
- [12] Read at the source (the English edition). The entry for 马来西亚麻将 describes the three-player game only, saying it 'differs significantly from traditional four-player mahjong'
- [13] Read at the source. 'What is Malaysian mahjong ...? it's a version of mahjong derived from the original 4 player mahjong. Malaysian mahjong has only 3 players'
- [14] Read at the source. A common gaming house includes a place kept for habitual gaming or one where eight or more persons are gaming. See Malaysian 3-player for the Act in more detail
- [2] Re-read on 2026-10-09. The page is titled '3-Player Malaysian Mah-Jongg'. The four-player game appears only in two letters appended to it, from May and June 2007. Willis's Kuala Lumpur group played from rules written in French and used Western terms (kraks, chees, chicken hands). They bought their sets in Chinatown and from a factory. Sloper had not heard of a 164-tile variant. The later letters on the page, 2008 to 2019, are about the three-player game and its tiles
- [1] Re-read on 2026-10-09. The entry repeats Malbec's 2007 synopsis word for word. The page's own guide to identifying a game by tile count does not list 164: it assigns '160 or more' to Vietnamese or Thai play
- [6] Read at the source on 2026-10-09. A beginner's guide from a Malaysian news site that describes only the three-player game. Its picture of a Malaysian set is credited to Cangjie6 on Wikipedia, the user who created the Chinese Wikipedia articles on Malaysian mahjong
- [7] Read at the source on 2026-10-09. Myjong is a Petaling Jaya start-up run by Wong Kai Yi and Adrian Ng, who make wooden sets with local motifs and say the name is short for Malaysian mahjong
- [15] Read at the source on 2026-10-09. Jom Mahjong was founded in Kuala Lumpur in April 2026 and bills itself as Malaysia's first social mahjong club. It hosts 10 to 12 tables a session, and its members usually play Hong Kong mahjong
- [8] Read at the source on 2026-10-09: the App Store listing, in Chinese and English. A Taiwanese developer's online game, first released in January 2020, sold as authentic Singapore-Malaysian (星马) mahjong for three or four players, with voice lines in Malaysian Mandarin or Cantonese. The rules themselves are inside the app
- [9] Read at the source on 2026-10-09. A hobbyist's web calculator and session tracker for 'Malaysian mahjong'. Its changelog runs from August 2026 and records 'fei joker tile support' being added
- [10] Read at the source on 2026-10-09 (revision 1378609088). The prose treats Singaporean and Malaysian mahjong together, as close to Hong Kong with four animal tiles and payouts during the game. The table's Malaysian columns cite nothing
- [5] Re-read on 2026-10-09 from the raw wikitext (the API answered 429). Created on 2020-09-12 by Cangjie6; its Wikidata item, Q109350843, has no article in any other language. The scoring section now cites mahjongapp.vercel.app/fan-table (accessed 2026-09-15), a hobbyist calculator begun in 2026
Reading it
The four-player Malaysian game still rests on one witness. Sloperama's two pages, re-read on 2026-10-09, give 164 tiles (136 plus 16 numbered flowers, 8 animals and 4 blank jokers), 13 tiles out on 14, a winning hand restricted to All Chow, All Pung or a flush, 50 for going out and payment to all players. All of it comes from two 2007 letters about one Kuala Lumpur group playing from an unpublished French rules sheet, and the group's Western terms (kraks, chees, chicken hands) suggest expatriates using a local set. Ebashi, Chinese Wikipedia and Raymond Lee's 2016 table on FAQ 2b support the count of 164, with 24 bonus tiles and 4 jokers, but each makes up the extras differently. No independent rules text was found. The Malaysian press uses 'Malaysian mahjong' for the 84-tile three-player game, a Malaysian maker sells 144-tile four-player sets, and Kuala Lumpur's social club plays Hong Kong rules. A Taiwanese app offers four-player 星马 play with 飛 jokers and a five-fan minimum, and English Wikipedia has an uncited Malaysian four-player column, so a form derived from the three-player game may exist. Compared with the Singapore game (148 tiles, only the winner paid), the sources set it apart by a larger bonus set and payment to all players. Still wanted: the French sheet, Pritchard's 2001 passage and the Lowyat threads.
Looked for, not found
- Official rules No governing body or published four-player Malaysian rules were found. Chinese Wikipedia says none can be found online. Jom Mahjong, the Kuala Lumpur club, plays Hong Kong rules.
- Tournament rules No tournament played under four-player Malaysian rules was found in the web search, the Malaysian press or the app listings.
- Historical No source written before Sloperama's 2007 correspondence describes the four-player game. Pritchard's 2001 passage on Malaysian bonus tiles is wanted, and IA full-text search found nothing else.
- Organisation No body promotes a four-player Malaysian game. Jom Mahjong (Kuala Lumpur, founded 2026) is known through FMT's report, which says its members play Hong Kong mahjong; the club's own Instagram was not read.
- Collection No museum or library record of a 164-tile Malaysian set was found. The web search's museum hits were Penn Museum lottery-board records, which are irrelevant. The sets are described by Ebashi from the sets themselves and by Sloperama's correspondents.
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.
- Rulebook Pritchard, D. Brine. Mahjong (Teach Yourself). Hodder Headline / Contemporary Books, 2001 (ISBN 9780658021473): the passage on Malaysian mahjong's bonus tiles — A print description of Malaysian mahjong's bonus tiles from before the 2007 Sloperama letters. It may describe the larger four-player set.
Where: https://archive.org/details/mahjong00prit (lending library, access-restricted). Tried: Internet Archive full-text search, 2026-10-09, gave the snippet 'In Malaysian mahjong, as in Thai mahjong, a proliferation of bonus tiles is'. The full text (djvu.txt) answered 401: the Archive's lending restriction, the site's decision. - Forum Lowyat Forum, 'Any people know how to play mahjong?' (topic 4859938) — Malaysian players discussing set sizes; search snippets mention 148-tile sets without Fei and a 160-tile set with Fei, and whether four-player games use Fei.
Where: https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/4859938/all. Tried: Cloudflare challenge ('Just a moment...') and HTTP 403 on 2026-10-09: the site's refusal. - Forum Lowyat Forum, 'Do u use fei when play mahjong?' (topic 5239888) — A Malaysian thread on whether the Fei joker is used, which search snippets say touches on four-player versus three-player games.
Where: https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/5239888. Tried: HTTP 403 (Cloudflare) on 2026-10-09: the site's refusal. - Rulebook The French-language rules sheet used by Tine Willis's group in Kuala Lumpur (c. 2007), and Sylvain Malbec's English translation — The only rules text for the four-player game; everything the chart says about its rules comes from it.
Where: Scans were sent to Tom Sloper and Sylvain Malbec in June 2007; not published on Sloperama. Tried: Not found online; Malbec's site (ooyamaneko.net) carries riichi and MCR rules, not this. Sloperama's Malaysian page, re-read on 2026-10-09, still does not publish it. - Forum Mobile01, 「馬來西亞麻將玩法」 thread — A Chinese-language discussion of how Malaysians play, which may say whether a four-player local game exists.
Where: https://www.mobile01.com/topicdetail.php?f=179&t=1714737. Tried: Access denied (Akamai) to automated readers; HTTP 403 again on 2026-10-09.
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 2026-10-09.
Names searched: English Malaysian 4-player mahjong, Malaysian 4-Player Mah-Jongg, Malaysian four-player mahjong, Malaysian 4 Player, Malaysian mahjong; Chinese 馬來西亞四人麻雀, 马来西亚四人麻雀, 马来西亚四人麻将, 馬來西亞四人麻將, 星马麻将.
25 places searched
- General web search — 2026-10-09, standard mode only (extended not used). en: 'Malaysian 4 player mahjong rules 164 tiles', '"Malaysian mahjong" four players flowers animals scoring Singapore difference', '"4 kaki" mahjong Malaysia fei flowers rules', a query for Malaysian four-player apps, and a query restricted to Malaysian English media (The Star, NST, Malay Mail, SAYS, FMT, Lowyat, Cari). That query turned up SAYS 2025 and FMT 2025 and 2026, all read. zh: 马来西亚 四人麻将 玩法 规则; 馬來西亞 四人麻雀 花牌 動物牌 計番; 四人麻将 马来西亚 飞 公仔 动物 番 打法. These returned Moegirl, App Store and generic pages, plus the Gamesofa app (read). ms: 'cara main mahjong Malaysia 4 orang peraturan' returned only generic or gambling-spam pages in Malay and Indonesian and nothing on a Malaysian game, so no Malay name is recorded. Read and found irrelevant: WOPC 'Malaysia: Mahjongg' (Malaysian-printed mahjong cards). Not readable: rules.mahjongo.com/?p=88 'How to play Malaysia mahjong' (connection reset at the proxy twice and a 503 to WebFetch, 2026-10-09; snippets suggest the three-player game). Moegirl 四人麻将 answered a Cloudflare challenge. Not read: rarepike.com/mahjong/variants, a variant comparison of unknown authorship.
- Wikidata — Q109350843 (label 馬來西亞四人麻雀) has only the zhwiki sitelink and no aliases. Read on 2026-10-09 through Special:EntityData; the wbgetentities API answered 429. There is no English, Malay or other article.
- Wikipedia, in every declared language — zh 馬來西亞四人麻雀 re-read on 2026-10-09 through action=raw (the parse API answered 429 from a shared address). It is unchanged in substance since 2026-09-29, was created on 2020-09-12 by Cangjie6, and its scoring now cites mahjongapp.vercel.app/fan-table. en 'Mahjong' read (revision 1378609088): its variant table has an uncited 'Malaysian 4 Player' column. en 'Singaporean mahjong' redirects to Scoring in Mahjong#Singaporean scoring, which was left to the Singapore pass. en 'Mahjong tiles' was not re-read (an existing observation covers it). No Malay article on a four-player game was found.
- The sources' own references, and who cites them — Backward, one round. Sloperama's four-player entry rests only on the 2007 letters (Willis, Malbec) and the unpublished French sheet. FAQ 2b's 2016 Raymond Lee table is an uncited image. Chinese Wikipedia cites mahjongapp.vercel.app (read: a 2026 hobbyist calculator) and the 1998 MCR rules (not relevant). English Wikipedia's Malaysian columns cite nothing. SAYS credits its picture of the Malaysian set to Cangjie6 on Wikipedia, so the press image comes from the Chinese Wikipedia editor. Forward citation was not attempted: Scholar and OpenAlex are unavailable to automated readers. Leads for a second round, unread: Pritchard's 2001 passage on Malaysian bonus tiles (in wanted); Sloperama FAQ 7e on mystery tiles; the Lowyat threads (in wanted); mahjongapp.vercel.app/wiki, whose content is drawn by script and returned no text.
- Internet Archive full-text search — 2026-10-09, full-text search (page_target=texts). '"malaysian mahjong"' gave one hit: D. Brine Pritchard, Mahjong (Hodder Headline / Contemporary Books, 2001; item mahjong00prit). Its snippet reads 'In Malaysian mahjong, as in Thai mahjong, a proliferation of bonus tiles is'. The item is lending-restricted and its djvu.txt answered 401, so it goes in wanted. 'mahjong Malaya flowers twenty-four' gave 0 hits. Two other query forms were refused with 400 by the endpoint.
- Wayback Machine — 2026-10-09: CDX listings for mahjong.wikidot.com/rules:* and rules:malaysian* failed six times with connection resets at the proxy (ws_closed_mid_exchange), a failure on our side. The live Mahjong Wiki answers 404 for rules:malaysian-overview, rules:malaysian and rules:malaysian-three-player, so whether an archived Malaysian page ever existed is not established.
- Google Books — Books API answered 429 (daily quota exceeded) for '"Malaysian mahjong"' on 2026-10-09; not searched otherwise.
- HathiTrust full-text search — Not searched: full-text search sits behind a Cloudflare challenge, and the one print lead (Pritchard 2001) was identified through the Internet Archive.
- WorldCat — Not searched: the only print lead, Pritchard's Mahjong (ISBN 9780658021473), is identified on the Internet Archive; no print text on the four-player Malaysian game is otherwise known.
- Scholarly indexes — Not searched: OpenAlex wants a key and Scholar refuses automated readers. The one study of the sets (Ebashi) is already entered, and no lead points to academic work on Malaysian four-player mahjong.
- YouTube — Not searched in this lean pass: YouTube has no open search, and the web search returned no video on a four-player Malaysian game.
- English-language forums — The web search found Lowyat Forum (Malaysia) threads 4859938 ('Any people know how to play mahjong?'), 5239888 ('Do u use fei when play mahjong?'), 295075 and 929353. On 2026-10-09 Lowyat answered with a Cloudflare challenge and a 403, the site's refusal. 4859938 and 5239888 are in wanted. Reddit and BoardGameGeek were not searched, since both refuse automated readers.
- Mahjong reference sites — Sloperama's malaysian.html and FAQ 2b re-read on 2026-10-09, and FAQ 2b's Raymond Lee table image viewed. Sloperama bulletin-board archive 12 (2010, 'Malaysian mystery tiles') read: a 1960s set sold in Singapore with many extra tiles and a card for three-handed Malaysian play, with Sloper's remark that Malaysian animals come in one-eats-the-other pairs. It has nothing on four-player rules and, like all Sloperama pages, is not independent. Mahjong Wiki has no live Malaysian page (404), and its home page mentions Malaysia only as a variant of uncertain origin.
- App and platform listings — App Store, 2026-10-09: Gamesofa's 麻将神来也星马麻将-3人/4人麻将 (id1490983706) read. It offers three- or four-player Singapore-Malaysian play with 飛 jokers and a five-fan minimum; the rules are in the app only. Listings named by the search but not read, all three-player: MY Mahjong (id945936238, Fei joker), 红运三人麻将 Hong Yun 3P (id1179607290), Lami Mahjong (three-player and Hong Kong rules). Google Play was not searched.
- English-language newspaper archives — Malaysian English media searched through a site-restricted web search (2026-10-09). Read: SAYS 2025 (the three-player game only), FMT 2025 (Myjong's 84- and 144-tile sets), FMT 2026 (Jom Mahjong plays Hong Kong rules). Seen, not read as irrelevant: The Star 2015 on American players, Malay Mail 2020 on a Tiffany set. NewspaperSG was not searched, since it returns empty pages to automated readers.
- Statutes published in English — Not re-searched: Malaysia's Common Gaming Houses Act 1953 (Act 289) is already entered and sets no rules of play. Singapore's statutes do not govern a Malaysian game.
- Baidu search and Tieba — Not searched directly: Baidu has no open API. The general web search's Chinese queries stood in for it and returned Moegirl, App Store and generic pages, with nothing on a Malaysian four-player game.
- Baidu Baike — Not re-read: Baidu Baike answers 403 to automated readers. Its 马来西亚麻将 entry (English edition, already entered) describes the three-player game.
- Chinese Q&A and community sites — Mobile01's 「馬來西亞麻將玩法」 thread (already wanted) answered 403 again on 2026-10-09. Moegirl, a Chinese wiki, answered a Cloudflare challenge. Zhihu and Xiaohongshu were not tried, since both put up login walls.
- WeChat public-account articles — Not searched: Sogou WeChat has no open API, and Malaysian Chinese writing on mahjong appears in the Malaysian press rather than on WeChat.
- Bilibili — Not searched: a mainland Chinese video site, and no lead pointed to Malaysian four-player content there.
- Pre-modern and Republican Chinese texts — Not searched: a game first recorded in 2007 correspondence has no pre-modern or Republican texts.
- Chinese-language scholarship — Not searched: CNKI and Airiti full texts are by subscription, and no lead points to a Chinese-language study of Malaysian four-player mahjong.
- Chinese-language newspaper archives — Malaysian Chinese dailies, 2026-10-09. The on-site searches of Sin Chew, China Press and Oriental Daily are drawn by script and return no results to automated readers. A web search restricted to sinchew, chinapress, orientaldaily, guangming, kwongwah and enanyang found mahjong features but no rules. Read: Sin Chew 2021-01-12 on luxury sets (describes the basic set with eight flowers) and China Press Johor 2019-12-03 (a Singapore teacher's mahjong class for tourists). Not read: China Press 2024-03-05 「外婆的麻将桌」, Nanyang 2020 「女人麻将/男人麻将」, and Sin Chew's 2023 series on traditional gambling tools (四色牌, 牌九). NewspaperSG's Chinese papers were not searched.
- Statutes published in Chinese — Not searched: Malaysia publishes its statutes in Malay and English (Act 289 is under law-en). The Chinese-language jurisdictions (Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, PRC) do not govern a Malaysian game.
In the tree
Descends from Nanyang variants, as the source chart draws it.