The World Mahjong Federation is an initiative of the Korean based software company TankSoft. For its software game MahKing it developed ' unified rules'. From their website, we quote the objectives of the federation:

"Mahjong, originated from China in the middle of the 19th century, has been wide spread around the world at 1920's. However, the number of mahjong players in Europe and America has been declining since 1930, so in Japan since 1980. The main reasons for the decline are believed to be twofold:

* there are too many variations in the rules.
* the rules are unreasonably complicated.

"Since April 1999, several mahjong devotees from Japan, Korea and HongKong gathered and studied many variations of local rules. They made thorough comparisons and agreed in an unified rule, which is supposed to be more simple and scientific.

"By the same token, they formed a nonprofit organization, the World Mahjong Federation and set the objective as "Promoting a Renaissance of Mahjong".
The ultimate goal of WMF is to increase the happiness of human beings on earth.

"Planned activities of WMF are :

* To publish and maintain an unified rule.
* To operate an active home page [http://www.wmpa.net].
* To expand members world-wide.
* To host an online mahjong game.
* To host world-wide tournaments.
* To approve books, games and instruments of mahjong."

Most of these objectives have been realized, apart from the world wide tournaments. Some years ago, a tournament was planned in Seogwipo, with an expected participation of 200 players. But this event was skipped, probably because of a lack of interest. The participants were not to play against each others, but against computers.

Tanksoft has published a rulebook, while an 'invincable' mahjong computer game was developed. Anyone can play it for free on the internet. It has some elements of riichi mahjong. the game is played at a rather high speed.

Uses 136 tiles.
No flowers or jokers.
Hold 13 tiles in the hand, go out on 14 tiles.
Scoring: First determine the total value ("Faan") of the winning hand, then square it to arrive at the "portion."
Only the winner is paid.
Book: Kingstone Kim: World Mahjong Essence. Publ.: Maekyung Publishing Inc., Seoul, Korea. 232 pages, full-colour. Price: USD 16,-.

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