Babcock's Rules for Mah-Jongg/Chapter 3
Irregularities in Original Draw: If a player on the Original Draw draws one or more tiles belonging to another player, by drawing out of turn or otherwise, any player has a right to demand another shuffle and a new Draw for that hand.
At the beginning of play any player may ask for sufficient time to properly arrange and count his tiles before allowing East to make his first discard or the following player to play.
Irregularities in the Draw may be corrected prior to the time that the first draw has been made from the wall after East's first discard. After this at any time during the play a hand containing more or less than the correct number of tiles is a Dead Hand.
Dead Hand: A Dead Hand is one which is discovered and declared by an opponent to contain more or less than the correct number of tiles or to have certain irregularities in the combinations in that part of the hand exposed on the table, which were discovered too late for correction. A player holding a Dead Hand must continue to draw and discard and may Chow and Pung but cannot, of course, complete his hand for MAH-JONGG. The penalty is that a player holding a Dead Hand must pay the winner and pay each other player his total score, the Dead Hand scoring as nothing, regardless of combinations contained therein. No player pays the Dead Hand.
Discarding: A discard once quitted cannot be reclaimed.
There is no penalty for miscalling a discard, but as a matter of courtesy this should not be done intentionally. In order to protect himself against a possible disclosure of what he may have concealed in his hand, each player should wait until the discarder has placed his discard on the table face up and quitted it, before he Pungs or Chows, as there is no recourse should the player be misled by the miscalling of a discard.
Exposed Tile: A tile from wall or hand which is exposed is replaced without penalty. If, in discarding, a player accidentally discards two tiles, he is allowed time to declare which is his proper discard, and the other exposed tile may be taken back into his hand.
Drawing: The tiles must be drawn from the wall in their proper sequence. If any player draws the wrong tile from the wall, he must put it back into the wall in its proper place.
Punging and Chowing: See paragraphs under the headings "To Pung" and "To Chow."
If a player lays down an incorrect combination after Punging or Chowing (as, for example, the four, five, nine of bamboo instead of the four, five, six; or two threes of characters and a two of characters instead of three threes), if the error can be corrected from within the player's own hand, such correction may be made prior to his own next draw. Any correction that cannot be made within his own hand must be made prior to the next player's discard. Unless so corrected, the hand containing the irregular combination is Dead.
A player may declare to Pung or Chow and then alter his declaration and draw from the wall, provided he has not discarded. There is no penalty for this.
Should a player draw from the wall before or after the preceding player has quitted his discard, he must abide by his draw and may not Pung or Chow the discarded tile.
MAH-JONGG: A player who-has drawn for MAH-JONGG must place the tile drawn face up on the table and not include same in the concealed portion of his hand; otherwise, he can produce no proof as to the identity of the tile drawn. As a penalty for failing to observe this rule the player may not count those scores which are dependent for proof upon the identity of the drawn tile. These scores are the following Special Bonus Scores:
- To complete the hand by filling in the only possible place to win.
- No score other than Game, MAH-JONGG.
A tile drawn for MAH-JONGG in this way still counts as a part of a concealed combination for scoring purposes. (See first paragraph under "MAH-JONGG" on Page 22.)
There is no penalty for incorrectly calling MAH-JONGG with a hand which is incomplete, even though all of the other players expose their entire hands. Each player must protect his own hand, and no hand should be disclosed until the player who has declared MAH-JONGG has exposed a complete hand face up on the table.