Our scoring overview introduces fan as a concept; this article goes deeper on the specific categories you’ll run into most often, with enough detail to actually recognize them mid-hand rather than just in theory.
All Pungs (對對胡) — 3 Fan
Every one of your four sets is a pung or kong — no chows anywhere in the hand. This is a popular target because it’s achievable through aggressive calling and comfortably clears a typical 3-fan minimum on its own. Pair it with a dragon pung and you’re often into 4–5 fan territory without much extra effort.
Mixed One Suit / Half Flush (混一色) — 3 Fan Concealed, 2 Fan Called
Your hand uses exactly one numbered suit plus honor tiles — no tiles from the other two suits. This is often the first “real” fan-scoring hand new players learn to aim for deliberately, since it’s flexible enough to build toward from early in the hand.
Full Flush / All One Suit (清一色) — 7 Fan Concealed, 6 Fan Called
The premium version of the above: entirely one suit, with zero honor tiles anywhere in the hand. It’s a significant step up in difficulty and in value — committing to it early usually means discarding a lot of otherwise-useful tiles from the other two suits.
Small Three Dragons (小三元) — 4 Fan
Two pungs (or kongs) of Dragon tiles, plus a pair of the third Dragon as your eyes. “Great Three Dragons” — pungs of all three Dragons — is a much rarer, much higher-value relative of this hand.
Seven Pairs (七對子)
Instead of four sets and a pair, your entire 14 tiles form seven separate pairs. As noted in our scoring overview, this is a hand where scoring genuinely varies between sources and tables — confirm the value at your table rather than assuming.
Bonus-Style Additions
- Concealed Hand (門前清) — 1 fan for never having called a tile during the hand.
- Self-Drawn Win (自摸) — 1 fan for winning off your own draw rather than a discard.
- Robbing the Kong and Last Tile wins — smaller situational bonuses that come up occasionally and are worth knowing exist, even if you won’t plan around them.
How These Stack in Practice
A realistic strong hand might combine several of these at once. A concealed Half Flush with All Pungs and a self-drawn win, for instance, adds Concealed Hand (1) + Mixed One Suit (3) + All Pungs (3) + Self-Drawn (1) for a 8-fan total — well clear of most minimums and a genuinely good result.
For the rare, high-ceiling hands that pay the table maximum outright rather than adding up incrementally, see our separate limit hands guide.
Every Common Fan Value on One Page
Print the free cheat sheet and count your fan at the table — with 4 scored examples and a score sheet.
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Great Three Dragons (大三元)
The bigger sibling of Small Three Dragons: pungs or kongs of all three Dragon tiles, with any pair to finish rather than a Dragon pair. It’s significantly rarer than Small Three Dragons since it requires completing three separate honor-tile sets instead of two, and it scores considerably higher as a result — in some rule tables treated as approaching limit-hand territory.
All Terminals (清小離)
A hand built using only 1s and 9s across the suits, in sets and a pair — no honor tiles, no middle-numbered tiles. It’s a recognizable, moderately rare pattern that rewards deliberately steering your hand toward terminal tiles from relatively early on, since middle-numbered tiles become dead weight the moment you commit to this shape.
A Practical Tip for Recognizing Categories Fast
Most players learn to recognize fan categories by checking a short mental list at the moment their hand completes, roughly in this order: suit purity first (Half or Full Flush), then meld type (All Pungs), then honor-tile patterns (dragon or wind pungs), then situational bonuses (concealed, self-drawn). Running through that same order every time builds speed faster than trying to spot everything at once.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which fan category is easiest for a beginner to aim for?
All Pungs and Mixed One Suit (Half Flush) are generally the most approachable for newer players — both are flexible enough to build toward without committing extremely early, and both clear a typical 3-fan minimum comfortably on their own.
Can a hand qualify for multiple fan categories at once?
Yes — this is the norm for strong hands, not the exception. Fan values from different categories stack additively, as shown in the worked example in our main scoring guide.
Why does Full Flush score less when called?
Exposing any meld through a call breaks the “concealed” bonus condition that several categories reward, and Full Flush specifically drops from 7 fan concealed to 6 fan called at most tables — a relatively small drop compared to losing the flat 1-fan Concealed Hand bonus entirely.
Categories Worth Learning After the Common Ones
Once All Pungs, Mixed One Suit, and Small Three Dragons feel familiar, a natural next step is All Terminals and Great Three Dragons — both covered above — since they build directly on patterns you already recognize (suit purity and dragon pungs, respectively) rather than introducing an entirely new concept.
How This Connects to Strategy
Recognizing these categories quickly isn’t just about scoring your own hand correctly — it also sharpens your ability to read what opponents might be building, which feeds directly into the discard-reading skills covered in our hand reading guide. An opponent visibly building toward Half Flush in one suit, for instance, is a strong signal to be cautious discarding tiles in that same suit.
A Note on Category Names Across Sources
You’ll sometimes see slightly different English names for the same fan category across different books, apps, or websites — “Half Flush” and “Mixed One Suit” refer to the same pattern, as do “Full Flush” and “All One Suit.” This is purely a translation and naming-convention difference, not a scoring difference; the underlying Chinese terms and point values are consistent even when the English labels vary.
Rare Categories Worth a Passing Mention
Beyond the categories covered above, a small number of rarer patterns — like a hand using only two suits in a specific “knitted” arrangement, or hands built around specific terminal-and-honor combinations — show up in some expanded fan tables but not others. These are genuinely uncommon enough that most casual tables don’t formally include them, and they’re worth knowing exist mainly so an unfamiliar term doesn’t catch you off guard at an unfamiliar table.
