The dealer — also called East — is the player who deals the tiles, gets an extra tile each hand, and discards first. Who holds that seat is decided differently at the start of a session versus every hand after.
Short answer: the very first dealer of a session is picked by an initial dice roll and count around the table. After that, it's not random at all — East stays dealer after a win or a drawn hand (East Retains), and passes the deal counterclockwise to the next seat whenever anyone else wins (Next Dealer).
In mahjong, the four seats are named after the winds — East, South, West, North — and the deal rotates counterclockwise between them over the course of a session. East is not a fixed chair; it's whichever seat currently holds the deal. Being East matters beyond just handling the tiles: the dealer receives 14 tiles instead of 13, discards first, and in most scoring systems East's wins and losses are worth more.
Before the very first hand of a session, there's no previous result to base anything on, so the starting dealer has to be picked some other way. The common approach: roll two dice and count seats counterclockwise from a fixed starting point to land on the first East. This part is the least standardized rule in mahjong — it only matters once per session, so plenty of casual games just agree on a starting seat, deal a hand to see who draws a particular tile, or use whatever method the group has always used. It's worth doing consistently, but it isn't worth arguing about.
This is the part that's actually strict, and it's identical in Chinese (MCR) and American (NMJL) mahjong:
East stays dealer if East won the hand, or if the hand ended in a wall game (every tile drawn, nobody wins). Seating stays the same — but a fresh roll still happens to find the next wall break.
The deal passes counterclockwise to the next seat whenever a player other than East wins. That seat becomes the new East for the following hand.
Because deal-passing depends entirely on the outcome of the hand, there's no dice roll involved here at all — only the initial pick and the per-hand wall-break roll use dice. See how the wall break is determined once the dealer for a hand is set.
The East Retains / Next Dealer logic above is standard across Chinese and American tournament play. Some casual house games use variations — for example, always rotating the deal after a fixed number of hands regardless of outcome, or skipping formal dealer tracking for quick, informal games. If your group plays that way, that's a house rule, not an error — just be consistent about which version you're using for the session.
The first dealer of a session is picked with a preliminary roll and count. After that, it's determined by the previous hand's outcome — East Retains on a win or a wall game, Next Dealer otherwise.
East is the seat currently holding the deal, not a fixed physical position. It rotates counterclockwise as the deal passes between hands.
The current dealer stays dealer for the next hand — happens after East wins, or after a drawn wall game.
The deal passes counterclockwise to the next seat — happens whenever anyone other than East wins.
Yes, East Retains and Next Dealer are identical in both. The rulesets diverge afterward, in how the wall break is found.
Mahjong Dealer has dedicated Next Dealer and East Retains buttons built in — tap the right one and it rolls the new wall break for you, correct rules for Chinese or American play, no mental math required.
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