Tell Me About Your Wind

Sets often include bone or plastic discs or cubes to indicate the prevalent wind of each game. At first sight this may seem unnecessary, as the round wind only changes once every four games, but, as with many aspects of mahjong, this is not as simple as it seems.

The full game is comprised of four rounds, each of which is given a name in accordance with the Chinese compass, so the first is East followed by South, West and North. The four seats around the table are also corresponded to the directions in this order, running anti-clockwise around the table. The dealer of each of the four games within each round is however always treated as East, so each player’s ‘wind’ changes with every game as the dealer rotates around the table. The direction of the seat in which each player sits does not change as it establishes who sits next to whom over the course of each set of four games, and directs where each player needs to move to at the end of each round. The rotation of the dealer however means that after the first game of the round the ‘seat wind’ of each player will no longer correspond with the direction given to the seat in which they sit. After four games the round wind changes and the players physically move seats. 

In order to keep track of these different levels of change of prevalent and seat wind, the wind indicators are used. The indicator displays the wind of the round and is placed next to the dealer who is always East. In this way each player can see both the round wind and their seat wind by calculating their position in relation to the dealer. The fact that the Seat Winds always run East, South, West and North anti-clockwise around the table never changes.

The seat rotations over the four rounds are intended to allow every player to occupy a different seat and to sit next to every other player in the course of the 16 games. Changing wind seat each time the dealer changes allows every player the opportunity to claim a high scoring seat wind peng, or set of three tiles, in each round. The aim of these rules are to avoid cheating and equalise opportunities to score well. The wind indicators allow all the players to know where these opportunities lie and to minimise disputes when scores are calculated.