MCR / Chinese official

Assessment

Confidence

documented a published ruleset or rule description exists and is cited

Evidence

corroborated two or more independent sources agree on the facts that define this variant

Cross-comparison

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

• [1] discards placed in orderly rows
• [2] length 16 hands; page shows a 2006 rulebook
• [10] mahjong certified as China's 255th sport in January 1998; unified rules codified that September
• [3] the ruleset itself, confirming what the secondary sources say about it
• [11] TENSION WITHIN THE SAME WIKI: this page says that when there was a call to make mahjong a nationally recognised mindsport, the China State Sports Commission chose to eschew organic competitive mahjong and create MCR instead — a top-down invention. The wiki's Guangdong page says the opposite, that Guangdong Style was adapted into MCR and Zung Jung in the 1990s. The chart treats MCR as a sibling of Guangdong under HKOS, which matches neither account exactly
• [4] Read at the source (the Wikisource transcription). Drafted by the Social Sports Guidance Centre of the General Administration of Sport, which holds the right of interpretation; approved July 1998. The preface says the Centre spent 'more than two years' on the work, held expert seminars and trial competitions, surveyed players, and drew on competitions already organised 'in the army and among retired cadres'; its aim is 'to encourage competitive mahjong, guide recreational mahjong and oppose gambling mahjong'. A session is four rounds or three hours. The text names no earlier variant as its basis
• [12] Read at the source. Gives the drafting history from the 1998 book (pp. 97-98) and Du Weizhong's 2006 guide: letters from players in the early 1990s asking for a standard; January 1997 a trial invitational with draft rules and a pattern table; May 1997 'collecting and studying the ways of play and the patterns of every region' (汇集研究各地打法及番种); October 1997 a rules review in Beijing; January 1998 a trial at the 'Red Bull Cup'; April 1998 revision; July 1998 publication. A match is sixteen hands, every player dealing four times, with no repeat dealer, and seats change each round
• [13] Read at the source. Mahjong became the 255th sport recognised by the General Administration of Sport in January 1998; 'in September 1998, the unified rules for international competitions were established'; the first World Mahjong Championship was held in Tokyo in October 2002; the WMO 'was established in 2006 in Beijing'
• [3] Read at the source again. The preface says the WMO was established in October 2005 on joint proposals from organisations in China, Japan, America, Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Hungary; that the rules exist in Chinese and English and 'disputes ... must be settled according to the original Chinese edition'; and that the World Mahjong Contest Center 'publishes, regulates, and governs the official rules'
• [14] Read at the source. 'While the Green Book MCR (ed. 2006) by the WMO is the reference for any MERS tournament, this document is intended to clarify some of the rules and penalties'. Calls are hua, chow, pung, kong and hu; three seconds to claim, ten seconds a turn; penalties for lateness; appeals with a €150 deposit at EMA-supervised events including the OEMC and WMC
• [15] The chart cites the 1998 book but links the WMO's 2006 English edition; the 1998 text is now read directly through Wikisource (above)
• [2] Re-read on 2026-10-14. Credits the 1998 rules to the China State Sports Commission. Says Sheng Qi of the State Physical Education Commission wrote the Majiang Yundong, revised in 1999 as the Majiangxue, and quotes Paul E. Festa's article on mahjong politics. Now says MCR 'largely evolved from Guangdong Style and other New Style Mainland variants', while still calling it a synthetic variant. Says international tournaments ceased by the late 2010s
• [5] Read at the source. Dates the rules to September 1998, after the General Administration of Sport recognised mahjong as its 255th sport that January. Calls them a summation of China's regional rules. Says the WMO's 2006 rules are strictly a new ruleset based on the Chinese one rather than a formal revision, and are not used by every Chinese body. A 2014 revision added beginner rules with a 6-point minimum and no 8-point base. Says that despite the name the rules have hardly spread outside China
• [6] Read at the source. Says the rules were standardised by the All-China Sports Federation in July 1998. The first world championship under them was held in Japan in 2002, and their adoption in Europe popularised the game. There is no dead wall, and discards are kept in rows of six
• [7] Read at the source. Says the State Sports Commission recognised mahjong as the 255th sport in January 1998 and defined 'the Official International Rules' that September. No dead tiles; play continues to the last tile
• [8] Read at the source. Calls the game 'the Mahjong Competition Rules (Chinese Official) or the Official International Rules'. Dates its recognition to January 1998 but calls it 'the 25th sport'
• [16] Read at the source. In October 1998 a Tokyo team (井出洋介, 原浩明, 高見沢治幸, 張建民) won the Beijing International City Healthy Mahjong exchange. The body was founded in June 1999 as 国際公式麻将協会 and renamed 日本麻将体育協会 in April 2002. The Japan Championship has run from 2001. Members took part in Chinese events (Ningbo 2001, Tianjin 2005, Emeishan world championship 2007) and won individual titles at European championships (Nijmegen 2005, Baden 2009, OEMC 2014). Also lists 日本麻雀連盟's 国際ルール麻雀大会 (2006-2010)
• [9] Read at the source. The association's own story: Japan–China exchange tournaments in Tokyo (1994), Beijing (1995), Nanjing (1996) and Xi'an (1997) were played under Japanese rules. Its chairman 田邊惠三 then suggested a no-stakes Chinese standard to 王振剛 of the Beijing People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. The sports administration called nine researchers, who over two years cut more than 400 patterns to 200 and then to 81. Three of the association's officers, 井出洋介 among them, sat on the committee. All Japanese yaku except the riichi ones were adopted, and the 1998 rules were first used at an exchange in Hohhot and then at a Beijing world city tournament won by the Japanese team
• [17] Read at the source. In the 1990s Japan–China exchanges the two sides took Japanese rules as the standard, and a Japanese was sent to spend a month teaching Chinese players. The sports administration then invited the local mahjong associations to draft rules together, and after three years of compromise issued them in July 1998. A first world championship planned for Ningbo in 2002 was dropped under the gambling stigma. Mahjong was not on the General Administration's list of officially conducted sports from the 1999 notice to the 2007 one. MIL became an IMSA observer in 2016 and a member in April 2017
• [18] Read at the source. Calls the 1998 rules 《中国竞技麻将比赛规则》, a 'national standard' whose first printing of 150,000 copies sold out in three months. With the General Administration's approval, the Social Sports Guidance Centre held the first national mahjong championship in Guangzhou in December 1998: 40 teams and 222 players, with trained referees and no players under 18. It was meant to be annual but was never held again. In 2012 the state had never approved a competitive mahjong event, organisers worked through the retired cadres' sports association, and mahjong was kept out of the National Mind Sports Games
• [19] Read at the source. MIL's plan aims at entering the Olympic family and grades events from world (S) to certified (D) level. It names MCR, RCR and SBR as competitive rulesets. MIL's world events use the 1998 Chinese rules as the common version of MCR, with adaptations, and are played in duplicate format
• [20] Read at the source (the catalogue record only). Edited by 中国麻将競塞規則編写組 with 麻雀博物館 and published by 竹書房 in October 1999: 141 pages, in Japanese, English and Chinese. Digitised by the NDL (info:ndljp/pid/14137729) but open only on its premises. Held by many Japanese public libraries
• [21] Read at the source (https reset the connection; http answered). On the ranking of 9 October 2026 the page allots 100 seats for the next European MCR championship across 28 countries: France 25, the Netherlands 12, Italy 11, Sweden 7, Spain 6, Germany 5
• [22] Read at the source. The 2006 rules in Chinese and English were compiled under WMO president 于光远 (Yu Guangyuan). At a WMO meeting during what it calls the first world championship, in 2007, members made Chinese, English and Japanese the official languages. The 2014 Chinese–English–Japanese edition revised the wording and is the unified code for referees at member events
• [23] Read at the source. Lists the WMO rulebook in Chinese, in Chinese–English–Japanese, and in a Chinese edition published by 中国社会科学出版社. Copies are ordered from the World Mahjong Contest Center

Reading it

The defining facts are corroborated again by sources the chart does not cite. Japanese and French Wikipedia, Mahjong Time and the WMO's own site agree on 144 tiles, 81 patterns from 1 to 88 points, an 8-point minimum and a sixteen-hand game. The 1998 date holds: Chinese press of 2012 and 2019 puts the rules in July 1998 and records a first print run of 150,000 copies and a single state championship in Guangzhou that December. Two claims are weaker. 'China's 255th sport, January 1998' and 'international rules, September 1998' appear only in English and Japanese secondary sources, sometimes in the same words. A 2019 Chinese article says mahjong was left off the state's list of sports from 1999 to 2007. On origin, Chinese accounts describe a synthesis of the regional styles. Japan's Health Mahjong Association says it proposed the project and that the 8-point minimum was modelled on the one-han rule, and the 2019 article agrees that Japanese rules were the first common standard. The canonical wiki now derives MCR largely from Guangdong style and says its tournaments ended in the 2010s. EMA and JMSA pages of 2026 contradict that, and MIL still bases its world events on the 1998 text. Still wanted: the 1998 book, 1998 press reports, the state's list of sports and the 1999 Japanese edition.

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.

• Official rules 《中国麻将竞赛规则（试行）》, 1998, the full book (ISBN 7-5009-1630-2) — The Wikisource text is an excerpt: it lacks the table of the 81 patterns and the pages (97-98) Chinese Wikipedia cites for the drafting history.
  Where: An image scan of the whole book, hosted by the Mahjong International League: https://mahjong-mil.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Chinese_mahjong_rules_try.pdf (linked from https://mahjong-mil.org/rules_inter/). National Library of China; WorldCat OCLC 768652206. Tried: Found on 2026-10-14. The scan has no text layer, so it can be looked at but not quoted; pp. 24 and 26 of the fan table were read by eye (recorded on MCR scoring reference). A transcription of pp. 97-98, which Chinese Wikipedia cites for the drafting history, is still wanted.
• Rulebook Du Weizhong (杜维忠), 《中国麻将竞赛规则（试行）》问答. Beijing: 人民体育出版社, 2006, ISBN 7-5009-3062-3 — An authorised question-and-answer guide to the 1998 rules, cited by Chinese Wikipedia for the early history and the sixteen-hand match.
  Where: WorldCat OCLC 276447975. Tried: Not online.
• Forum Baidu Tieba, 国标麻将吧 (tieba.baidu.com/f?kw=国标麻将) — The main Chinese players' forum for the rules, where questions of interpretation, and the split between the 1998 text and the WMO rules, are discussed
  Where: tieba.baidu.com. Tried: Answered 403 with Baidu's security-verification page on 2026-10-14 (the site's refusal). Reddit r/Mahjong also refuses automated readers, and Google Groups' rec.games.mahjong search answered 429 (the site's rate limit)
• Historical 彭汶, 晓霞 编. 《麻将十日通》 (十日通丛书). 北京: 京华出版社, 1998. ISBN 9787806002872. 247 pp. — A popular manual published a month after the rules, with an appendix introducing 《中国麻将竞赛规则》: how the new rules were presented to players in 1998
  Where: Beijing public libraries, Guangzhou and Jilin Provincial Library, per Douban. Tried: Only Douban's listing (book.douban.com/subject/1021127, read 2026-10-14) is online; no digital copy found
• Journalism People's Daily (人民日报) and 中国体育报 reports of 1998 on the issue of 《中国麻将竞赛规则（试行）》 and on the first national mahjong championship (Guangzhou, December 1998) — The contemporary record of the rules' issue and of how the state framed them. It would settle the competing dates (July, September, November 1998) and the '255th sport' claim
  Where: 人民日报图文数据库 (data.people.com.cn, by subscription); the archives of 中国体育报. Tried: Chinese web searches on 2026-10-14 returned no 1998 report; both archives are by subscription
• Law 国家体育总局 (General Administration of Sport). 《国家体育总局关于公布我国正式开展的体育项目的通知》, 1999, and its revision of about 2007 — Sina (2019) says mahjong was not on this list of officially conducted sports from 1999 to 2007. That runs against the claim, found only in English and Japanese sources, that mahjong became China's 255th sport in January 1998
  Where: sport.gov.cn; the State Council gazette; PKULaw. Tried: Web search and a Chinese Wikisource search on 2026-10-14 did not find the text
• Official rules 中国麻将競塞規則編写組, 麻雀博物館 編. 『世界麻雀2000国際公式統一ルール : 麻雀用語解説中国・日本・米国3ヶ国語』. 竹書房, 1999. 141 pp. — The first Japanese edition of the rules, trilingual and co-edited by the Mahjong Museum. It would show how the 1998 rules reached Japan and whether a separate 'international' version of September 1998 existed
  Where: NDL Digital Collections, info:ndljp/pid/14137729 (NDL premises only); many Japanese prefectural libraries. Tried: The NDL record was read on 2026-10-14. The digital copy is restricted to the NDL's reading rooms (the library's restriction)
• Scholarship Aono Shigeru 青野滋. 「中国麻将の手役分類考」 (On the classification of hands in Chinese mahjong). 大阪商業大学アミューズメント産業研究所紀要 12 (2010): 133-160 — A Japanese study of how MCR's scoring patterns are classified, which bears on the claim that the 81 patterns took in the Japanese yaku
  Where: NDL (call number Z71-C554); CiNii CRID 1520009409293146752. Tried: Only the NDL and CiNii records were found; the article is not in the Osaka University of Commerce repository (API search, 2026-10-14)
• Scholarship Aono Shigeru 青野滋. 『中国のマージャン : 日本麻雀に映る中国麻将の影』 (Chinese mahjong: its shadow in Japanese mahjong). 大阪商業大学アミューズメント産業研究所, 2022 — A monograph on Chinese mahjong as reflected in Japanese mahjong; probably the fullest Japanese account of how MCR relates to Japanese rules
  Where: NDL (R100000002-I032097666). Tried: Catalogue record only (NDL Search, 2026-10-14)
• Scholarship Festa, Paul E. "Mahjong Politics in Contemporary China: Civility, Chineseness, and Mass Culture." positions: east asia cultures critique 14, no. 1 (2006) — The academic study the canonical wiki cites on Sheng Qi's 'healthy mahjong' and the state's project behind the rules
  Where: Duke University Press (positions). Tried: Known from the wiki's citation. The journal is by subscription and was not tried in this lean pass
• Official rules The Chinese edition of the WMO's Mahjong Competition Rules (2006), published by 中国社会科学出版社 (China Social Sciences Press) — The Green Book says the Chinese edition prevails over the English in any dispute. The WMO also issued a Chinese–English–Japanese edition in 2014
  Where: World Mahjong Organization / World Mahjong Contest Center ([email protected]); 中国社会科学出版社. Tried: The WMO's site (mindmahjong.com, info id=131, read 2026-10-14) names the publisher but gives no text. WorldCat answered 403 with a challenge

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 2026-10-14.

Names searched: Chinese 国标麻将, 國標麻將, 中国麻将竞赛规则, 中國麻將競賽規則, 麻将竞赛规则, 国际《麻将竞赛规则》, 竞技麻将, 競技麻將, 中国竞技麻将比赛规则, 国标; English Mahjong Competition Rules, MCR, Chinese Official, Chinese Official Mahjong, Chinese Official Rules, Official International Rules, Competition Mahjong, Guobiao Majiang, Guóbiāo Májiàng, Green Book; Japanese 中国麻雀, 中国麻将, ちゅんま, 国標麻将, 国際公式ルール, 国際公式麻将, 中国ルール, 麻将競賽規則; French Règles de compétition du Mah-jong, Mah-jong Competition Rules, MCR.