The largest group of criteria concern the contents of the winning hand. Typically, a hand that is more improbable will score higher than one that is more common, but this may not be the case. In variations with scoring minimums, it is generally accepted that, barring improbable high-scoring hands (such as the heavenly victory above, even if the winning hand is otherwise scoreless), at least one point must be from this set of criteria.

Criteria may be formed from the presence or absence of certain groups or tiles in the winning hand:

• 混一色 - (3 fān) - Known in English as the mixed one suit hand, the winning hand must have only honor tiles and tiles from one suit.

• 清一色 (6 fān ) - Known in English as the pure one suit hand, the winning hand must be either all honor tiles, or tiles all of the same suit. This is traditionally the highest value non-special hand, although newer variations have subsets that are of a higher point value. Some variations splinter hands of all honor tiles into a separate rule (below).

• 字一色 (8 fān ) - Known in English as the pure honor hand, the winning hand must consist of all honor tiles.

Or the methods in which melds are formed:

• 門清 (1 fān) - Known in English as a pure hand or a purely concealed hand, this occurs if the winner wins without taking a discarded tile to form a meld. Depending on variation, there may also be the additional requirement of winning by self-pick, in which case, this is known as men qing zi mo, or purely concealed self-drawn hand.

The most common criteria, however, are criteria based on the presence of certain melds, or certain combinations of melds:

• 門風 (1 fān / / / x3) - The winning hand contains a meld of the winner's seat wind.

• 圈風 (1 fān / / / x3) - The winning hand contains a meld of the prevailing wind. In some variations, a double wind, where a certain wind is both the winner's seat wind and the prevailing wind, may result in a point bonus.

• 紅中 (1 fān ) - The winning hand contains a meld of the red dragon.

• 青發 (1 fān ) - The winning hand contains a meld of the green dragon.

• 白板 (1 fān ) - The winning hand contains a meld of the white dragon.

• 平胡 (1 fān )) - Known in English as the sequence hand, this occurs when every meld is a Chow. Some variations make further restrictions in that the hand must be impure (ie. at least one meld is formed by discard), won by a discard, of multiple suits, or the pair not consisting of honor tiles.

• 對對胡 (3 fan ) - Known in English as the triplets hand, this occurs when every meld in the winning hand is either a Pong or Kong. Variations allowing for Joker tiles will also permit melds of five or more, but disallow an all-Joker meld.