Western / British Empire style

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] 70-80 special hands varying book to book; optional Charleston or Razzle exchange, and a Goulash after a drawn game. Sloperama calls this 'Vanilla Western' and suggests 'British Empire style' as the better name; played in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India and Italy
• [10] PARENTAGE TENSION: calls Western classical a descendant of the version Babcock introduced, which matches the chart, but then says the term today largely refers to the Wright-Patterson rules used in the US military. The chart makes Wright-Patterson a child of this node rather than a synonym for it
• [1] Re-read 2026-10-09; the rules are unchanged since 2026-09-18. An optional Charleston or Razzle before each turn and a Goulash after a drawn game. Books named: Strauser & Evans, Thompson & Maloney, Whitney, Carkner, Robertson, Pritchard, Glass, Headley & Seeley, with McKeithan added in the overview list. In that overview Millington appears only under Chinese Classical, while Headley & Seeley and Pritchard appear under both Chinese Classical and Western/British Empire. Played in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India and Italy. Sloper once called it Vanilla Western and now suggests British Empire style. The page also says some authorities call it American, and that other 1920s authors wrote down the Chinese Classical rules without Babcock's simplifications
• [2] Headley & Seeley's Know the Game: Mah-Jong (A & C Black, 1994; 2nd edition 2002) was produced with the British Mah-Jong Association. It describes a variant of the Western game, with the Goulash and rules for home and tournament play. Max Robertson's The Game of Mahjong (Whitcoulls, New Zealand, 1974; Stanwick's list adds Whitcombe and Tombs editions of 1941, the 5th, and 1968, the 24th) describes Western-style rules used in English-speaking countries outside North America. Pritchard's Teach Yourself Mahjong (2001) describes the Western game. The De La Rue Pocket Guide to Mah Jong, Containing the Standard Laws (London, 1924), like every 1920s book except Babcock's, describes Classic Chinese rules. The overview at the foot of the page lists Headley & Seeley and Pritchard under Chinese Classical, and gives Western as Strauser & Evans, Thompson & Maloney, Whitney, Carkner and Robertson
• [3] Written 8 March 2009, before Sloper's visit to Mumbai, from what his hosts had told him; he calls their game British ("Western") mah-jong. The column ends with links to sites describing Western rules, noting that every author's description varies. One link is labelled Max Robertson's Western scoring and another the Royal Australian Navy version
• [11] The home page's loose family tree, which starts from Chinese Classical, names Western Mah Jong and lists Wright-Pat, Pusser's Bones and BMJA among the later rulesets. It says most modern rulesets except the Mainland ones use All Pairs and All Green, which came from Western Mah Jong. The wiki's Western scoring page (chart citation 32) answered 404 on 2026-10-09, and its page list has no Western page
• [4] Says the Jewel Dragons come from Western rulesets, particularly those influenced by British Mahjong. They are infrequent in Hong Kong Old Style, and the page's table marks them as never used in Chinese Classical
• [10] Re-read 2026-10-09. Western classical mahjong descends from the version Babcock introduced to America in the 1920s, and today the term largely means the Wright-Patterson rules used in the US military and similar American variants. Elsewhere the article says that in the United Kingdom Alan D. Millington revived the Chinese classical game of the 1920s with The Complete Book of Mah-jongg (1977). It credits Pussers bones to the Royal Australian Navy and does not mention the British Mah-Jong Association
• [12] Headley is President of the British Mah-Jong Association. With Yvonne Seeley he wrote Know the Game: Mah-Jong in 1977, first published by EP Publishing of Wakefield and now by A & C Black. It has sold over 500,000 copies and is called the standard rule book for the game in Britain and the Commonwealth
• [5] Kajongg supports two variants of Classical Chinese, one as played in Germany and one as played in Great Britain; the handbook's description fits both
• [13] Recommends Millington's The Complete Book of Mah-Jongg (1977) as the ultimate reference for Classical Chinese as played in the Western world, and Headley and Seeley's Mah-Jong (3rd edition, A & C Black, 2008) for the rules used in Great Britain as the BMJA defines them
• [6] The BMJA ruleset is described as Classical Chinese as defined by the British Mah-Jong Association. It is built as a modification of the program's Classical Chinese standard ruleset, alongside a German DMJL one
• [7] The adviser plays and teaches BMJA rules and says groups differ, mostly in their special hands; he has seen a website listing 100. Players must agree which rules and special hands they are using before they start
• [14] The software editor of the Adelaide magazine asks readers for a Mah-Jong scoring or playing program that follows all the rules of the British Mah-Jong Association as given in Know the Game: Mah-Jong, published by EP Publishing with the BMJA, and adds "Sorry, no American rules"
• [8] One group's own list of scoring hands, titled Mah Jongg as we play it!, with pictures

Reading it

Sloperama FAQ 2b, re-read on 9 October 2026, still describes the style as a game of 144 or more tiles. Flowers are melded at once, players hold 13 tiles, going out scores 20, meld points are then doubled, all players settle, and there are many special hands. It is played in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, India and Italy. Independent sources now show the same shape. Kajongg's handbook and code score British play with base points, 20 for winning, then doubles, with differences paid among all players. They also give the BMJA's one-chow limit and Knitting hands. Iversen's dead group page and the u3a adviser show the same one-chow rule. Wikipedia's Headley article calls the British Mah-Jong Association's Know the Game book the standard in Britain and the Commonwealth, and a 1984 Adelaide magazine expected BMJA rules and "no American rules". The sources disagree on the name and the parentage. Kajongg, Wikipedia (on Millington) and the overview in Sloper's FAQ 3 call British play Classical Chinese. Only one uncited sentence in Wikipedia ties "Western classical" to Babcock, and that sentence says the term now means Wright-Patterson. Still wanted: the BMJA book itself, Robertson's New Zealand rule book (5th edition 1941), Millington, and De La Rue's 1924 Standard Laws.

Looked for, not found

• Tournament rules FAQ 3 says Headley and Seeley's BMJA book includes tournament rules; it is wanted under official-rules. Web searches for BMJA tournaments on 2026-10-09 found none, only university societies playing other rulesets
• Law No statute or regulator names the British/Western home game. Not searched in the statute databases, which cover Asian jurisdictions where other styles are played
• Forum Not searched: Reddit and BoardGameGeek refuse automated readers, and the rec.games.mahjong archives were not attempted within the lean budget
• Organisation Web searches on 2026-10-09 found no website of the British Mah-Jong Association. It is known here only through its book, Wikipedia's Headley article, the u3a page, Kajongg and MICRO-80
• Collection Not searched: no museum or library record of a British-rules set or booklet was looked for. FAQ 3's list of 1920s British booklets (De La Rue, Chad Valley) comes from Michael Stanwick's collection

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 Headley, Gwyn, and Yvonne Seeley (later See). Mah-Jong (Know the Game). EP Publishing, 1978; A & C Black 1984, 1994, 2002, 2008; Bloomsbury 2019, ISBN 9781472970091. Written with and endorsed by the British Mah-Jong Association — The BMJA's own rules, called the standard rule book in Britain and the Commonwealth; it would settle the special hands, the one-chow limit, the Goulash and the tournament rules at first hand
  Where: Internet Archive lending items mahjong0000head (A & C Black, 1984) and mahjong0000unse (1994); libraries; in print from Bloomsbury. Tried: 2026-10-09: IA metadata marks both items access-restricted, and their djvu.txt files answered 403 and 401. That is IA's own lending restriction; they can be borrowed by hand with an account
• Rulebook Robertson, Max. The Game of Mah Jong. Whitcombe and Tombs, New Zealand (5th edition 1941, 24th edition 1968); Whitcoulls 1974 and 1981; Penguin NZ 2007, ISBN 9780143006596 — FAQ 3 calls it a Western-style rule book used in English-speaking countries outside North America. Its fifth edition of 1941 is the earliest dated Commonwealth Western-style rule book found, and the first edition's date is unknown
  Where: National Library of New Zealand, Trove-listed Australian libraries, second-hand booksellers. Tried: 2026-10-09: web search found only booksellers' listings; it is not on the Internet Archive. Papers Past and Trove were not reachable by script
• Rulebook Millington, A. D. The Complete Book of Mah-Jongg. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1977 (later paperbacks to 2003) — The main British rule book of the period. Wikipedia and Kajongg call it Classical Chinese and FAQ 3 calls it Classical Chinese as played in the West; reading it would show whether British play is a Western style or the 1920s Classical game, and its history chapter covers the Babcock question
  Where: Libraries; second-hand. Tried: 2026-10-09: an Internet Archive search by title and creator found no copy
• Rulebook Pritchard, D. B. Play and Win Mah-Jong. Teach Yourself, London, 2013 (descended from Teach Yourself Mahjong, 2001, revised by Gareth Saunders) — FAQ 3 says it describes the Western game, while FAQ 3's overview files it under Chinese Classical; a British rule text either way
  Where: Internet Archive lending item playwinmahjong0000prit. Tried: 2026-10-09: djvu.txt answered 401 and the item is access-restricted (IA's own lending restriction). Gareth Saunders' page on the book answered its own 403 (nginx)
• Historical The Pocket Guide to Mah Jong, Containing the Standard Laws. Thomas De La Rue & Co., London, 1924 — A British code of laws from the 1920s craze. Sloper says it, like every 1920s book except Babcock's, gives Classic Chinese rules; it would show what British play descended from
  Where: A PDF used to be on Gareth Saunders' site (garethjmsaunders.co.uk); Michael Stanwick's collection; the British Library. Tried: 2026-10-09: garethjmsaunders.co.uk answered its own 403 (nginx). A Wayback CDX search of the domain showed mah-jong posts but no PDF of the booklet among the matched URLs
• Scholarship Rep, Jelte. The Great Mahjong Book: History, Lore and Play. Tuttle, 2007 — A collector's history whose OCR snippet says the British Mah-Jong Association guards the regulations; it may date the BMJA and trace British rules
  Where: Internet Archive lending item greatmahjongbook0000repj. Tried: 2026-10-09: djvu.txt answered 401 and the item is access-restricted (IA's own lending restriction)
• Journalism The Hong Konger. Article on mahjong's growing popularity in the UK, 14 April 2025. hongkonger.world/2025/04/14/mahjong-gains-popularity-uk-cultures/ — A search summary says it claims Queen Club Rules spread across the British Empire in the 1930s. That claim is unverified and bears on the node's British Empire extent
  Where: https://hongkonger.world/2025/04/14/mahjong-gains-popularity-uk-cultures/. Tried: 2026-10-09: the site's Cloudflare returned its own block page (403, "Sorry, you have been blocked")
• Commercial Masters Traditional Games. "The Rules of Mah Jong (Mahjong)." mastersofgames.com/rules/mah-jong-rules.htm — A British games retailer's rules page that, by search summaries, gives Chinese and British versions; a further independent account of British scoring
  Where: https://www.mastersofgames.com/rules/mah-jong-rules.htm. Tried: 2026-10-09: the site answered with its own Cloudflare managed challenge (403, cf-mitigated: challenge). Not bypassed, and no archived copy was used

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 Western / British Empire style, British Empire style, Western/British, Western/British/Australian, Vanilla Western, Western Classical, Western classical mahjong, Western Mah Jong, Western-style mah-jongg, British mah-jong, British Mahjong, British rules, BMJA rules, Classical Chinese BMJA.