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What happens if I have Mahjong before the Charleston is over?

If you are East and the deal hands you a complete line from the card, that is a Heavenly Hand: the Charleston is waived and you win at once. If you are East and the Charleston completes your hand, that is an Earthly Hand: you declare it the moment the Charleston ends, before the first discard. Both are paid as self picked, so all three players pay double. Nobody else can win before play begins.

Answered by Prim. Last reviewed 2026-09-29.

Why it is only ever East

After the deal, East holds fourteen tiles and everyone else holds thirteen. A hand is fourteen tiles, so East is the only player who can possibly be sitting on a finished line before the first tile is thrown.

Everyone else is, at best, one tile away. That is a lovely position and it stops nothing. The first Charleston is compulsory for every player, however good the rack looks, and a player one tile from Mahjong passes three tiles like anyone else.

The Heavenly Hand

East looks at the fourteen tiles just dealt and finds a complete line from the current card. That is the Heavenly Hand, and it is the one moment the Charleston does not happen. East declares, shows the hand on top of the rack, the table checks it against the card, and the hand is over before a single tile has crossed the table.

It is rare enough that most players never see one. Check it twice before you say the word.

The Earthly Hand

East does not have it on the deal, but the tiles that arrive in the Charleston complete it. That is the Earthly Hand. East does not stop the first Charleston to announce it; the first Charleston is finished regardless. East declares the moment the passing ends, before the first discard.

The second Charleston and the courtesy pass are both optional. Any one player may stop the second Charleston without giving a reason, and East is a player like any other. On the courtesy pass, if either player wants to exchange nothing, nothing crosses. So an East holding a finished hand is never forced to pass away a winning tile on an optional pass.

How it is paid

Both hands count as self picked, because no one else threw the winning tile. All three players pay East double the value printed on the card.

That double is the whole reward. The Heavenly Hand is not a self pick plus a second double; it is simply the self pick. If the hand is also jokerless, the jokerless double applies as it always does, and each player pays four times the printed value. Some tables drop the special treatment of these two hands altogether, so confirm it before play, the same way you confirm every other double.

New to the words? Heavenly Hand · Earthly Hand · Self-pick · East