Hong Kong Mahjong · Limit

All Honours (字一色) in Hong Kong Mahjong: Limit Hand, Examples and Odds

In Hong Kong mahjong, All Honours (字一色) is a limit hand, scored at Limit: when you win, the whole hand — including claimed sets — is honour tiles (East, South, West, North, Red, Green, White), without a single character, dot or bamboo.

Honours can't be chowed, only punged or konged, so All Honours is always four pungs plus a pair — All Pungs as well — but the limit already covers that.

The rules for All Honours

• All 14 tiles (including claimed sets) are honour tiles — no suit tiles at all
• Four pungs or kongs plus an honour pair
• Claiming is fine — it doesn't need to be concealed
• Scored at the limit; dragon pungs, round and seat wind, All Pungs and No Flowers are not added

All Honours vs Mixed and Pure One Suit

The three are one family; only the highest counts.

How All Honours is scored

The fan below are computed live by the same scoring code the game uses.

How it relates to other hands

• Mixed One Suit: add one suit and it's Mixed One Suit, 3 fan; if All Honours doesn't come off, Mixed One Suit with All Pungs is still a big hand.
• Great Three Dragons: three dragon pungs plus a wind pung and an honour pair is All Honours, scored at the limit instead of 8 fan.
• Great Four Winds, Small Four Winds: four wind pungs with a dragon pair, or three wind pungs plus a wind pair and a dragon pung, are both All Honours and a four-winds hand — limit either way.
• Dragon pung, round wind: dragon and wind pungs inside All Honours are not counted individually.

All Honours odds

There are 28 honour tiles (four each of seven kinds), and All Honours needs 14. A 13-tile opening hand has five or more honours about 9.8% of the time, seven or more only 0.55%, and nine or more 0.007%.

Over 100,000 hands of computers playing normally on this site, All Honours came up 0 times. Honours can only be punged, so every set depends on a discard or your own draw — and with only four of each, two in the discards kill that pung.

When it's worth going for

• Lots of honour pairs at the start: with three or four honour pairs, think seriously once two or three are punged.
• Drop suit tiles early: once you commit, don't keep suit tiles — but expect others to hold honours after you expose a few honour pungs.
• Mixed One Suit is the way out: keep one suit in hand, and fall back to Mixed One Suit with All Pungs.

To try it, open a table of online Hong Kong mahjong — the computers play with you and count the fan for you.

All Honours in other mahjong styles

• Japanese mahjong: Tsuuiisou is a yakuman, see the Japanese mahjong yaku list
• Taiwanese mahjong: see the Taiwanese mahjong tai table
• Chinese Official (Guobiao): see the Guobiao fan table
• American mahjong: hands made only of winds and dragons are covered in American mahjong Winds and Dragons

FAQ

How many fan is All Honours?

In Hong Kong mahjong All Honours is a limit hand: it scores the 10-fan maximum straight away.

Can you claim tiles for All Honours?

Yes. Honours can't be chowed anyway, only punged or konged, and claimed pungs still count.

Does All Honours also score All Pungs or dragon pungs?

No. It's always All Pungs and may contain dragon or wind pungs, but as a limit hand it is scored at the maximum without adding anything.

Related hands

Mixed One Suit 3 fan One suit plus honours — 3 fan, enough to win by itself. Examples, the difference from Pure One Suit, combos and how many tiles you need to go for it. Great Three Dragons 8 fan Pungs of Red, Green and White — an 8-fan big hand: examples, the difference from Small Three Dragons, when it hits the limit and how many dragons you need. Great Four Winds Limit Pungs of all four winds — a limit hand scored at the maximum at once: the difference from Small Four Winds and why it's so rare.