Scoring in Mahjong, a game for four players that originated in China, involves the players obtaining points for their hand of tiles, then paying each other based on the differences in their score and who obtained mahjong (won the hand). The points are given a monetary value agreed by the players. Although in many variations scoreless hands (推倒胡 tui dao hu in Mandarin, 雞糊 gai wu in Cantonese) are possible, many require that hands be of some point value in order to win the round. While the basic gameplay is more or less the same throughout mahjong, the most significant divergence between variations lies in the scoring systems. Like the gameplay, there is a generalized system of scoring, based on the method of winning and the winning hand, from which Chinese and Japanese (among notable systems) base their roots. American mahjong generally has wildly divergent scoring rules (as well Because of the large differences between the various scoring systems (especially for Chinese variants), groups of players will often need to agree on particular scoring rules before a game to eliminate possible disputes during the game. As with the gameplay, many attempts have been made to create an international scoring standard, but most are not widely accepted. Criteria Points are obtained for a hand by matching it against various criteria, with different criteria scoring different values. Criteria can include particular melds or other tiles held, how the (winning) hand was completed, possession of various special combinations, etc. Some of these criteria may be subsets of other criteria (for example, having a meld of one dragon versus having a meld of all of them), and in these cases, only the criteria with the tighter requirements is scored. The points obtained may be translated into scores for each player using some (typically exponential) function. When gambling with mahjong, these scores are typically directly translated into sums of money paid between players. The terminology of point differs from variation to variation. A common English term is double, as the point-to-score translation is typically exponential with a base of 2. (This is not to be confused with the doubling applied to the basic point score in some variations.) Chinese variants will use the term 番 (pinyin: fan). Taiwanese mahjong, however, uses the term 台 (pinyin: tái) along with a linear scoring system. Points and score relate to two distinct concepts - based on the points