Chicken Hand

Chicken Hand (ji hu) is a scoring rule unique to Chinese Official rules (MCR, the Mahjong Competition Rules). MCR requires that every legal winning hand score at least 8 points from defined patterns; a hand that completes the four-melds-plus-pair structure but happens to match none of the scoring patterns would otherwise be worth zero and therefore could not be declared a win. Chicken Hand is the safety valve: such a patternless winning hand is awarded exactly 8 points so that it clears the minimum and is legal.

Because it is defined as the absence of every other fan pattern, Chicken Hand cannot combine with anything — the moment any real pattern appears, the hand is no longer a Chicken Hand and scores that pattern instead. It is therefore the floor of MCR scoring rather than a bonus. A qualifying hand typically consists of mixed chows and pungs across suits with no flush, no all-chows pinfu-style pattern, no terminal/honor concentration, and an inconsequential pair, plus winning on a tile that grants no situational bonus.

For a concrete picture, imagine winning on a discard with a hand of 234m, 567s, 678p, a pung of 4m, and a pair of 5p, where no flowers, terminals, honors, or special draws apply — nothing matches an MCR pattern, so it scores as Chicken Hand for 8 points. A frequent confusion is treating Chicken Hand like the Hong Kong 'chicken hand' (gai wu), which there means a no-faan hand worth little or nothing; in MCR it is specifically the 8-point patternless win. Note also that flowers add their own points, so a true Chicken Hand cannot include scoring flowers.