The dealer and the person opposite the dealer makes a ‘wall’ of 19 x 2 tiles, whilst the others make ‘walls’ of 18 x 2 tiles.  The table at the start of the game looks like this:

There are two ways to go about deciding how to break the wall, depending on the number of dice used.  The 2 Dice method is said to prevent manipulation or trap dealing but both methods should be ok (unless you’re playing with some real pros).  The dealer should always retrieve the dice and keep them to his/her left immediately after the wall has been broken.

Dealer rolls 2 dice. He/she then counts off the number rolled (e.g. East, the dealer, rolls 7), starting from him/herself and going counter-clockwise.  The person who is sitting in the position that corresponds to this first number (in this example, counting 7 starting from East ends with West) then rolls both dice (in this example, West now rolls a 6).  This second person (here, West) then adds the first and second number (7+6=13) and counts off the total from his/her wall, from the right that amount, he/she then splits the wall (in this example, after splitting, there should be 6 tiles on the left and 13 tiles on the right for West’s wall).

Dealer rolls 3 dice.  He/she then counts off the number rolled (e.g. East, the dealer, rolls 15), starting with him/herself and going counter-clockwise.  The person who is sitting in the position that corresponds to the number then counts off the number from his/her wall, starting from the right.  He/she then splits the wall (in this example, after splitting, there should be 4 tiles on the left and 15 tiles on the right for West’s wall).

After the wall is broken, dealer and each player in turn (moving in counter clockwise direction) take sets of 4 tiles each, starting from the remnant of the broken wall.  After all 4 players have taken 3 sets of 4 tiles, the dealer and each player in turn take 1 tile each.  After this, the dealer again takes another tile.  Doing this, each player should have 13 tiles, while the dealer has 14.  The diagram below shows how the tiles should be distributed.