Mahjong is played with not only Mandarin characters and symbols, but also numbers, as well as pictures of people, animals, and plants. In France, mahjong games are played either online with 136 tiles, or with 144 tiles.
When beginning a game of mahjong, each player begins with a hand of 13 tiles. The playerās aim is to match the tiles with the other tiles in the game. Tiles can only be matched if their values are the same. Players can also create sets of tiles of the same type in order to create more matches, which is known as a pung.
When a player is attempting to create a pung, the tiles must either be all the same suit or all the same number. The pungs are then divided into three basic divisionsāsimples, honors, and terminals. Simples refer to the number tiles, honors refer to the seasonal cards and winds, and terminals refer to the flowers and jokers.