Each contestant begins with a set of 13 tiles. Each type of honor tiles has a set of four. In addition, there are 4 flower and 4 season tiles. When the player takes the wind, east kick-starts the game by choosing one tile from the wall.
Then a counter-clockwise turn of collecting tiles by players ensues while they discard a single tile each turn. A player may claim a discarded tile by another player in a kong or pong scenario and in that case, the one who discarded loses their go-around turn. At any given time, players should hold 13 tiles until a Mahjong hand (with 14 tiles) is declared.