01 · Before starting: check the shared basics
Complete Mahjong Lesson 1 first: distinguish suits and honours, sequences and triplets, hand and discards, and perform a 13 → 14 → 13 turn. Reading a glossary does not replace that practice.
This is a separate regional branch; the other two branches are not prerequisites. Familiar pictures now test this branch’s winning eligibility, actions and settlement rather than reteaching every tile. Examples may reset between sections: inspect each starting hand rather than treating them as one continuous game.
02 · Blood Battle is not Bloody River
Sichuan mahjong has local variants. This course chooses Blood Battle: a winner retires from the hand while the others continue. The hand normally ends after three winners or wall exhaustion. Bloody River allows repeated wins by continuing players and is a different variant.
Two-suit complete hand: characters and dots, no bamboo
A win needs a legal shape and the missing-suit/declaration conditions. The standard shape remains four sets and a pair, with seven pairs as an alternative. Winning first does not guarantee the highest match score; do not reset everyone as soon as one player wins.
03 · What Sichuan removes: keeping a two-suit wait
Remove all 28 honours (winds and dragons) from Lesson 1’s 136-tile base set, leaving 108 suited tiles. No flowers are added. Apply the inventory change instead of relearning pictures: you cannot plan an East-pair wait when East is absent from this ruleset.
Thirteen in two suits: four sets and a lone five-character
Another five-character completes the pair; eligibility still applies
Inspect the complete hand in this course’s first illustration: characters 123 and 456, dots 234 and 678, plus a pair of five-characters. Remove one tile from that pair to leave thirteen needing a suitable final tile. This ready state is called tenpai. The later missing-suit conditions still apply: ready is not already won.
04 · Exchange three: agree first, then swap
Exchange-three is a common option, not universal. When enabled here, choose three tiles of the same suit, pass them simultaneously in the agreed direction and receive three. The ranks need not be consecutive: characters 1, 4 and 9 qualify. Agree the direction before anyone chooses based on revealed tiles.
Three passed: all bamboo
Three received
Partial example: give bamboo 1, 4 and 9 and receive characters 2, 5 and 8. Three out, three in preserves the hand count. This is exchange, not discarding into the river. Our teaching order is exchange first, then declare a missing suit; confirm your table’s order.
05 · Declare the suit to eliminate
Declare one of characters, dots or bamboo as the suit to eliminate. In this teaching version, discard that suit while any remains, and have none at a win. After declaring bamboo, a newly drawn bamboo tile must be handled under that rule; you cannot secretly change the declaration.
14 after drawing nine bamboo; bamboo is missing
Discard the missing-suit tile
The pictured characters-and-dots hand waits on five characters. You draw nine bamboo. With bamboo declared missing, discard nine bamboo and keep the original 13; do not discard five characters to pursue bamboo. Even a complete shape cannot win while it retains the declared missing suit.
06 · Pung and kong, but no chow
With two five-characters, you may pung a fresh matching discard when otherwise legal; kongs use four identical tiles. But holding two and three dots does not let you chow the previous player’s four dots. Sequences are still valid: build them through draws rather than a chow call.
Holding 2 and 3 dots: cannot chow 4
Partial five-character triplet
No chow does not mean no discard wins. A fresh discard can still complete a legal winning hand. Do not call missing-suit tiles contrary to the declaration. Confirm call priority, robbing a kong, multiple wins and payment details before actual play.
07 · Retire after winning; end-of-wall checks
After discarding nine bamboo, you next draw five characters. Group the hand as characters 123 and 456, dots 234 and 678, plus a five-character pair. The shape is complete and contains no bamboo. Declare self-draw and retire; the other three continue instead of seeing a whole-table game-over screen.
Legal example: no bamboo, four sets and pair
When the wall runs out with players still unwon, begin the final checks. A forbidden-suit check examines disallowed suit retention; a ready-hand check examines whether non-winners are ready and may create transfers. Apply it here: thirteen waiting on five-characters are ready, but retaining the declared bamboo suit prevents a legal win even if the shape looks one tile short.
Agree on the scoring table before starting. A cap limits the scoring value; a root commonly means four copies of one tile meeting a bonus condition, not necessarily a declared kong; kong points are a separate score from a kong action. Root eligibility, kong refunds and ready-hand payments depend on the chosen table rules. This course demonstrates the missing-bamboo, self-draw and retirement flow without inventing a universal multiplier or using money.