In mah jong why do we roll the dice?

What are the dice for, And how may we use them?|||In classic Mah Jongg, the dice are used to determine who plays East Wind and where to break the wall. All of the players roll two dice each. The player who rolled the highest number becomes East Wind for that game.





East Wind then rolls two dice. Beginning with himself, he counts the number of players counterclockwise around the table according to the number rolled on the two dice. So East would be 1, South would be 2, etc. If an 8 is rolled, for example, North Wind would be the player to break his wall. The breaking player then rolls the third die, and counts the number of 2-tile columns from left to right according to the roll of all three dice. That column is the location where the wall is broken. The two tiles at the break point are lifted out of their position and placed to the left of the break on top of the wall for loose tiles.





Then East Wind takes the first two stacks of tiles, South Wind takes the next two stacks, and so on in counterclockwise order until each player has three sets of stacks, or twelve tiles. Beginning with East Wind again, each player then takes one tile, giving each player 13 tiles. East Wind takes his final tile, and the deal is complete. After seasons and flowers are dealt with, East Wind will play first by discarding one of his tiles, leaving him with 13. (East Wind does not draw on his first turn.) Game progresses from there.





It is interesting to note that unlike Bridge, where South sits to the left of East, in Mah Jongg South Wind sits to the right of East Wind. This is because the game represents a celestial view of nature. In essence, when you look at the tabletop in Mah Jongg, you are looking at a representation of the sky, not the ground. - LJS