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The Game involves the following steps:
(1) Picking The Seats
(2) Creating And Breaking The Wall
(3) Dealing The Tiles
(4) Drawing The Tiles
Picking The Seats – The players initially assume their seats randomly and they pick up a wind tile each. They then put them face down on the table. Then two tiles, one of odd number and the other of even number, are taken and placed face up on either side of the shuffled wind tiles. The wind tiles are sandwiched between the numbered tiles. Now the two (sometimes three) dice are thrown by a random player and the player indicated by the count on the dice is given with the dice. This player again throws the dice and if the count on the dice is odd he picks the wind tile first at the "odd number" end and this course of action passes in the counter clockwise direction as the players pick the subsequent tiles. If the dice count is even, the same process is continued starting from the "even number" end. The player who got the "East" wind tile takes his respective seat and the remaining players occupy the seats in counter clockwise direction (as seen in the figure above).
In a hand each player belongs to a certain wind direction and a wind tile matching the seat’s direction is one’s "Seat Wind" and melding a "Seat Wind" would help a player score more points. The East player is referred to as dealer and after each hand (irrespective of a hand won or lost) the players change their seats and therefore change their wind directions. When we consider the player who sat in the east seat as the east player and also identify the other players with directions of the seats of their first hand, then the directions of their seats in subsequent hands can be visualized as in the figure below:
Building And Breaking the wall – As of now the players have assumed their seats. The 136 tiles (144 with flower and season) are shuffled and are placed on the table faced down. Each player now selects 34 tiles (36 if the flower and season tiles are included) and places them on the table arranging them in 2 stacks of 17 tiles (18 with flower and season) each. These tiles are moved forward by each player forming a hollow square generally referred to as the "Wall". The Wall can be seen in the figure below.
The player on the "East" throws the dice to determine the side (direction) where the breaking of the wall procedure has to start. Now as the side is determined by the dice count, the player at this point again throws the dice and the number of tiles (stacks) as in the dice count is counted starting from the right end and are shifted apart slightly to show a distinction thus breaking the wall and these tiles are generally referred to as a "Dead Wall". The tiles on the left of the Dead Wall are known as a "Live Wall".
Important Note: The Dead Wall is reserved for the replacement tiles whenever a player has Concealed Kong or when he encounters a flower or season tile. Generally in the Mahjong, whenever a flower or season tile is dealt or drawn from the wall, the tile has to be put aside face up and a replacement tile has to be drawn from the Dead Wall. If the tile drawn from the Dead Wall is again a flower or season tile, this has to be put aside and another tile has to be drawn. When a player has a Concealed Kong, he can retain it to the end of the hand or else he can declare it to pick up a replacement tile.
Dealing The Tiles: East being the priority wind, starts with taking two stacks (that is four tiles) from the Live Wall, followed by the South player taking two stacks, the West player taking two stacks and finally the North player. This continues until the players have twelve tiles each. The players other than the East player pick one tile each and the East player picks two tiles as he has to start formally with the first tile discard. The East player can pick up the last two tiles in two different ways. In one way, he picks two tiles after every other player picks his 12th tile. In a different approach, he picks one tile after everyone has picked his 12th tile and another tile after everyone has picked his 13th. The second way is shown in the figure:
Drawing The Tiles: The player to the East side, with an extra tile, starts the play by discarding a tile. The discarded tile is placed face up in the middle of the wall. The player to the right of the dealer may pick up this discarded tile or can draw a tile from the wall. If the discarded tile is not claimed, the player to the dealer's right ie South draws and discards a tile followed by the West drawing and discarding a tile and finally North drawing and discarding a tile. If the discarded tile is claimed by any of the players, then the player claiming it picks and discards a tile consequently breaking the sequence and the game continues from there.
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