Taiwanese Mahjong · 4 tai

All Pungs (Peng Peng Hu) in Taiwanese Mahjong: Tai, Examples and Odds

In Taiwanese mahjong, All Pungs (碰碰胡, peng peng hu) is worth 4 tai: when you win, all five sets are pungs (three identical tiles, or a kong), plus one pair. A single chow — claimed or built in your hand — breaks it.

The rules for All Pungs

• All five sets are pungs or kongs: claimed, self-drawn, exposed or concealed kongs all count
• No chows at all, so you cannot chow
• The pair can be any tile
• Any suits: characters, dots, bamboo and honors can be mixed

How All Pungs waits

A ready All Pungs hand has only two shapes.

Two pairs: waiting on either one

You hold two pairs; drawing or claiming either tile turns it into a pung and wins. Two tiles to wait on, so it wins more often than a single wait.

Single wait: five pungs done, waiting for the pair

All five pungs are complete and one lone tile waits for its match. Only one tile wins, so it also scores single wait for 1 tai.

How All Pungs is scored

Tai add up, but within one family only the highest counts. The tai below are computed live by the same scoring code the game uses (dealer and dealer-streak tai are added on top).

Common combinations:

How it relates to other hands

• Concealed pungs: pungs you drew yourself. Three or more score extra (three 2, four 5, five 8 tai) on top of All Pungs. A pung completed by someone else's discard is not concealed.
• Pure One Suit: five pungs all in one suit score both, 12 tai in total.
• Half One Suit: one suit plus honors, stacks with All Pungs. Honors can only be punged, never chowed, so Half One Suit often ends up as All Pungs too.
• All Honors, Big Four Winds: all honor tiles, or four wind pungs, are always All Pungs. All Honors (16 tai) and Big Four Winds (16 tai) already include it — it is not added again.
• All exposed: all five sets claimed and a single wait won on a discard adds 2 tai.

All Pungs odds

How many pairs in the opening hand

All Pungs needs five pungs and a pair, so the more pairs you start with, the better. A 16-tile opening hand has 4 or more pairs about 13% of the time, and 5 or more only 2.1%.

Source: 1,000,000 random 16-tile deals (flowers already replaced).

Is it worth forcing All Pungs?

We let computers play on this site's table: in every hand, the player with the most opening pairs had to go for All Pungs — pung only, never chow, and never win with anything else — while the other three played normally. Then we compared the average result with the same opening hands played normally.

Source: computer play on this site. In each of 20,000 hands the seat with the best start forced All pungs (碰碰胡); the other three played normally. Money at 100 base + 20 per tai, dealer tai included.

All Pungs is far easier than Pure One Suit, but forcing it still doesn't pay.

• With 5 or more pairs, forcing it works about 9.6% of the time; finished hands averaged 5.9 tai after 9.3 draws.
• Yet the average result was −33, against +16 for the same starts played normally: pung only, no chows and no other wins is just too slow, and 84% of hands ended with someone else's win.
• Fewer pairs make it worse: with 3 pairs, forcing it only works 3.6% of the time.
• When the computers play normally, All Pungs is 0.09% of all wins.

Which hands suit All Pungs

• Five or more pairs in the opening hand, or several pungs already: you are only a few tiles away.
• Honor pairs: honors can't be chowed, only punged, so they are natural pung material — and dragon, round-wind and seat-wind pungs score extra tai.
• Pairs whose tiles haven't been discarded: once two of a tile are out, that pair can no longer be punged; only the last copy from the wall can help.
• Others notice after two pungs: two or three exposed pungs and no chows tell everyone you're going for All Pungs, and they'll hold the tiles you need.

When to give up: less than half the wall is left and you still need two or more sets, or the tiles your pairs need are already in the discards. Switch back to normal play or start defending. To practise the call, open a table of online Taiwanese mahjong — the computers play with you and count the tai for you.

All Pungs in other mahjong styles

"All pungs" exists in every style, but scores differently:

• Japanese mahjong calls it "Toitoi", 2 han (Toitoi in Japanese mahjong)
• Hong Kong mahjong: "All Pungs", 3 fan (All Pungs in Hong Kong mahjong)
• Sichuan mahjong: "All Pungs", 1 fan (All Pungs in Sichuan mahjong)
• Chinese Official (Guobiao): "All Pungs", 6 fan (All Pungs in Guobiao mahjong)

FAQ

How many tai is All Pungs?

In Taiwanese mahjong All Pungs is worth 4 tai. It stacks with concealed pungs, Half or Pure One Suit, dragon pungs, concealed self-draw and more.

Can you chow in All Pungs?

No. A chow is always a run, and All Pungs needs all five sets to be pungs — one run and it no longer counts.

Is All Pungs the same as "dui dui hu"?

Yes, both mean five pungs plus a pair. Taiwanese tables usually say peng peng hu.

Do kongs count for All Pungs?

Yes. A kong is four identical tiles and scores as a pung; a concealed kong also counts as a concealed pung.

How many tai is a concealed self-drawn All Pungs?

If you never claimed anything and self-draw the win, all five pungs are concealed, so it is always Five Concealed Pungs as well: concealed self-draw 3 + All Pungs 4 + Five Concealed Pungs 8, at least 15 tai.

Related hands

Pure One Suit 8 tai Every tile from a single suit — an 8-tai big hand. Examples, Half One Suit vs Pure One Suit, and how many suited tiles you need to go for it. Three Concealed Pungs 2 tai Three self-drawn pungs for 2 tai: which pungs count as concealed, when a discard costs you one, and how to upgrade to four. Half One Suit 4 tai One suit plus honors — a 4-tai hand. Examples, Half One Suit vs Pure One Suit, and how concentrated your start must be.