Editing Mahjong (section)

==== Legal hand ====
A winning hand consists of 14 tiles. Since players always have 13 tiles in their hand during play, they must win by either drawing a piece from the wall that completes a 14-tile hand ("winning from the wall") or claiming a discard from another player which completes a 14-tile hand ("winning by discard"). The winning hand is made of four ''melds'' (a specific pattern of three pieces) and the ''eyes'' (a pair of identical pieces). The exceptions to this rule are the special hands listed below.

Most players play with a table minimum, meaning a winning hand must score a minimum number of points (which can be seen in the scoring section). In Hong Kong mahjong the most common point set is three, but can be higher or lower depending on house rules.