touhou gensou mahjong, the only mahjong client that allows you to theoretically get a score of 5.19e34 in a game with some randos online
mahjong scoring is really, really weird
there's one number, called Han, that's how many points your hand is worth; this is the one that makes sense. think of it like poker hands, if each poker hand was instead of just being ranked worth X amount of points. So getting all sets of 3 is worth 2 points, getting a 1-9 straight is worth 1 point, getting a flush is worth 5 points, etc. These also add on top of each other; if your hand is a flush that has a straight in it, that's 6 points.
...There's also another number called Fu. Fu is incredibly weird and complicated and i still don't fully understand it, but you get more points for like... having a harder hand to work with. it's harder to get a 123 straight then it is a 456 straight (cause one you could build easily with lots of numbers while the other is stuck on the edge) and its' even harder to get a set of 1-1-1, so that's worth more fu. Don't worry about it. I don't understand fu.
What matters is that the equation to find your score is even MORE complicated... in fact it's so complicated that they throw it out when you hit a certain level of points! everything past 4 Han (the important one) just ignores fu and uses a really simple system of 4-5 Han = 8000 points, 6-7 Han = 12000 points, 8-9 han = 16000 points, and so on. Why do they do this?
Well because as it turns out, the equation you use is specifically Fu * 2(2+han). And this equation is EXPONENTIAL. They have to stop using it otherwise if you got like, 40 han somehow, you'd get 200 bajillion points! This type of scoring is called Aotenjou and nobody uses it.
...Except for, of course, the Touhou Mahjong video game where they decided to do a special table set in BLAZING HELLS where everyone starts off with, instead of the standard 25000-30000 points, TEN MILLION POINTS and there's NO LIMITS. and thus you can, theoretically, if every single possible thing lined up perfectly in a way it never will, get a score of more then 10^34.
