Do I have to say the name of the tile I discard?
Yes. Every discard is named aloud, clearly enough for the player farthest from you to hear. A discard is final once it is fully named or has touched the table, whichever comes first. A tile that is named wrong can be called for nothing except Mahjong, and if it is called for Mahjong, the player who misnamed it pays.
Answered by Prim. Last reviewed 2026-09-18.
Naming is part of the turn
A turn has two halves. You draw one tile from the wall, and you discard one tile face up into the center while saying what it is. The name is not a courtesy added on top. It is how the other three players learn a tile is available, and a call on a discard depends on it.
Say it for the far side of the table. A murmur that reaches only the player beside you is a discard the table cannot act on fairly, and a quiet table is where mistakes about who called first begin.
How to say it
Number first, then suit: Four Bam, Seven Crak, Two Dot. A Wind is its direction, North or East or West or South. A Dragon is its color, Red or Green, and the white one is Soap (White Dragon). A Flower is simply Flower, whatever picture is on it.
A Joker may be named Joker or same. Joker is the plainest and the least likely to cause confusion, and since a discarded Joker is dead the moment it lands, nobody will be calling it anyway.
Name the tile and nothing more. Discards are the only tiles anyone names during play. Nobody announces what they are collecting or what they still need.
When a discard becomes final
A discard is committed as soon as it is fully named or touches the table, whichever happens first. After that it cannot be taken back, cannot be swapped for a Joker in an exposure, and belongs to the table. Down is down.
A partial name does not commit. If you begin to say Five and realize the tile in your hand is not the one you meant to throw, you have not yet discarded it.
When the name is wrong
Misnaming happens at every table, and the rulebook handles it cleanly. If the discarder corrects the name before anyone acts on it, there is no penalty, and the tile is available under its right name.
If nobody corrects it, a misnamed tile can be called for nothing but Mahjong. A player who calls it for an exposure has a dead hand, and the player who misnamed it pays nothing, because every caller is expected to look as well as listen. A player who calls it for Mahjong wins, and the misnamer alone pays four times the value of the hand while the other two pay nothing. The full story has its own page.
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