Table rotation in a mahjong tournament

Updated 10 September 2026 · Mah Jongg Master Points item 23, with items 5 and 22

The rule [item 23]: after every round, seat A (East) goes up 1 table, B (North) down 1, C (West) up 2, D (South) down 2. Players keep their seat letter all day. Past the last table you wrap round to the first; below table 1 you wrap to the last.

Rotating to a new table after every four games is the standard of tournament play. The MJMP rule is simple enough to print on a slip, and because it is fixed, every player's table for every round is known before the first tile is thrown. This guide works it through for a real room, then covers the cases the rule does not mention.

A worked example: four tables, four rounds

Sixteen players, tables 1 to 4. Take the four people who start at table 2:

Two things to notice. The wrap: A goes 2, 3, 4 and then "up one" from table 4 is table 1. The repeat: with only four tables, C and D from the same table move by two in opposite directions and land together every round — 2, 4, 2, 4. That is not a mistake in the rule; it is what happens when the room is small. Whether that matters to your players is the subject of the last section.

Why the rule is shaped like that

Every seat letter moves a different distance, so a table's four players scatter to four different tables — except when the room is so small that "up two" and "down two" coincide, as above. Because each letter moves by a constant, the pattern needs no lookup: a player who knows their letter and the number of tables can work out their whole day. It also means a player is East (the 14th-tile advantage, dealing first) in exactly the same proportion of games as everyone else, because everyone at a table deals once per round [item 22] and the letters never change.

Three-handed tables

When the player count is not a multiple of four, the last table seats three, in seats A, B and C. There is no Charleston at a three-player table, and for the fourth game all three roll the dice again to decide East, so that the extra deal is not always the same person's [items 3.1 and 5.3]. Nobody sits in seat D at that table, so nobody "moves down two" from it, and the D player who is due to arrive from another table simply takes that table's empty D chair. Put three-handed tables at the end of the numbering so the wrap-around does not send people looking for a seat that does not exist.

Sit-outs instead

The alternative to a three-handed table is to have the extra one, two or three players sit out a round, rotating the sit-outs so nobody misses twice. Every table then has four players and the rotation is clean, but you need a rule for what a sat-out round scores — zero, or that round's average, marked on the standings so nobody thinks the number was earned. Decide before the day.

The fixed rotation versus a "variety" rotation

The fixed MJMP rotation is fair and printable, but it does not try to avoid repeat opponents; in a small room it guarantees some. If your club would rather play as many different people as possible, a variety rotation plans all the rounds at once to keep repeats to a minimum. Two honest facts about that:

• A schedule with no repeats at all exists only for 16, 28, 40, 52 and 64 players (over five rounds). Every other size repeats somebody. Software that claims otherwise is rounding.
• Because a variety rotation is computed, later rounds are announced when they are seated rather than printed on a slip at the start. Players who like knowing their whole day should have the fixed rotation.

Either way, print the seating for the round on the wall and read out where the round's collector takes the cards.

Sources: Mah Jongg Master Points, Official Standardized National Mah Jongg Rules for Tournaments (May 2017), items 3, 5, 22, 23.
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