Eight short chapters — from setting the table to calling your first Mahjong, the mistakes everyone makes, and the habits of good players. Read it once, then take a seat; the table will teach you the rest.
American Mahjong seats exactly four players around a set of 152 tiles. Before a single tile moves, know what's in the box.
108 suit tiles split across three suits — bams (bamboo), craks (characters), and dots — numbered 1 through 9, four copies of each. Add 16 winds (East, South, West, North), 12 dragons (Red, Green, and the white “Soap”), 8 flowers, and 8 jokers: 152 tiles in all.
Each player receives thirteen tiles; the dealer (East) takes a fourteenth. Everything left over is stacked face-down as the wall — the shared stock every draw comes from.
At this table the dealer sets everything for you the moment you enter a name — no building walls or rolling dice.
Be the first to hold fourteen tiles that exactly match one line on the card. There are no runs or free-form sets as in Chinese mahjong — only the card's patterns count, tile for tile.
The card is the rulebook, the scoreboard, and the entire strategy of the game in one folded sheet. Learn its shorthand and everything else follows.
Every line on the card is a recipe of exactly fourteen tiles, grouped into pairs, pungs (three of a kind), kongs (four), and sometimes quints or singles. Colors on the card mean “any suit, but keep the groups in different suits” — they don't name a specific suit.
After the deal, sort your tiles and find two or three lines your hand already leans toward. Chase the strongest, keep a fallback, and let the Charleston sharpen the choice. The in-game strategy panel does this reading for you and names the tiles you still need.
The American game's signature opening: a ritual exchange of tiles named after the dance craze, played with a poker face.
Slide three tiles you don't want to the player on your right. Everyone passes at once, face-down.
Three more tiles go to the player opposite you. By now your hand should be whispering which lines it wants.
A final three to your left completes the first round. The dealer then calls it: stop here, or dance the full league ritual with a second round and a courtesy pass.
Pick three tiles your candidate lines don't use.
Step 1 of 4After the first round, the dealer decides whether the table dances again — this time left, across, then right. On that final right pass you may go blind: pass fewer than three of your own tiles and top up the difference, unseen, from the tiles being passed to you.
Once the Charlestons are done, you and the player directly across may agree to trade up to three final tiles — zero to skip entirely. It's the last chance to shed dead weight before the first draw.
The rhythm of the game: draw one, discard one — and pounce when a rival throws the tile you need.
On your turn, draw the next tile from the wall, then discard one face-up, naming it aloud. Fourteen in hand for a moment, thirteen when you're done. If the wall empties before anyone declares Mahjong, the hand is a wash — no winner.
Any player may claim the newest discard to complete a pung (three identical tiles), a kong (four), or Mahjong itself. Claimed groups are exposed — laid face-up on your rack and locked for the rest of the hand. You may never claim a discard just to form a pair.
When two players want the same discard, a Mahjong call beats every other call — always. Between two pung or kong claims at a solo table, the player next in turn order wins; at a shared table, where every human calls inside the same window, the first call recorded wins. The house referee enforces this at every table, so a disputed tile is never yours to argue over.
The player across throws a 5 dot.
Step 1 of 4Eight fully wild tiles — the American game's most generous gift and its sharpest edge. Knowing when to spend one is half the craft.
A joker may stand in for any tile inside a group of three or more — pungs, kongs, quints.
It may never fill a pair, a single tile, or any part of a line built from singles and pairs. Those you must find honestly.
If any exposed group — a rival's or even your own — contains a joker and you hold the real tile it represents, you may swap your tile for that joker on your turn. A redeemed joker is a small heist — and often the tile that finishes a hand.
Spend jokers to lock up hard-to-find kongs; hoard them while your hand is still deciding what it wants. And remember: a discarded joker becomes a dead tile no one may claim, so throwing one is almost always a mistake.
A rival's exposed pung of 7 bams is leaning on a joker.
Step 1 of 4Fourteen tiles, one exact line on the card, and the sweetest word at the table.
You never have to spot it yourself. The house referee checks your rack against the card after every draw and every joker swap, and the moment your fourteen tiles match a line exactly the hand ends in your favour. The one call you make yourself is on a discard: when the newest throw completes your hand, call Mahjong inside the claim window — the button only lights up when the match is real, so a mistaken call can't slip through.
Every line on the card carries its own value — harder patterns pay more. A few lines are marked concealed: no claimed discards may touch them; every tile must come from the deal, the Charleston, or the wall.
Bring a hand home without a single joker — on a line where jokers were allowed — and its value doubles. Seven Pairs never had the option, so it takes no bonus.
The card value is only the opening bid — this parlor settles up like a league night, and all three rivals pay the winner. Throw the winning tile and you pay double for the privilege while the other two pay the straight value. If the winner draws their own final tile — off the wall or by finishing on a joker swap — every seat pays double.
The winner's total collection, not the printed value, is what lands beside their name on the honours board the moment the hand ends.
Set up a table with “My own card” and the referee steps aside for your seat: the deal, the Charleston, claims, jokers and the wall all run as usual, the bots keep playing the house card, but the house never checks your rack against a card it has not seen. When your fourteen tiles match a line on your card, tap Declare, enter the value printed beside it — and mark it jokerless only if no joker sits anywhere in your rack, which doubles the value like any other hand — then confirm. A solo table takes you at your word. At a shared table your rack opens to the other players, who have a short window to confirm or dispute; silence lets the win stand, and a dispute ends the hand with no result, since the rack has already been seen.
Own-card hands settle like any other — the discarder pays double, self-draws collect double from every seat — and they count in that night’s ledger, marked as self-declared. They stay off the honours board, the house record and the daily board, and the coach, suggested hands and card-based cautions sit out, because every one of them reads the house card your table is not scoring by. The tile memory ledger still keeps count. This parlor never asks for, stores or reproduces the contents of your card.
Every one of these has been made at this table, most of them by good players. The referee stops some; the rest simply cost you the hand.
A discarded joker is dead: nobody may claim it and nobody may swap for it. The table lets you throw one — it just never helps.
A discard may only be claimed to complete a pung, a kong, a quint, or Mahjong itself. Two of a kind in hand plus the discard is a pung; one of a kind is a wish. Pairs are drawn honestly.
An exposure is locked for the rest of the hand, so a claim that isn't part of your target line — or that touches a concealed line — quietly kills the hand. Before you call, check that the group sits on the line you're chasing.
The referee refuses jokers and any pass that isn't exactly three tiles; the blind pass on the final right is the one exception. What it can't refuse is a pair you'll wish you'd kept, or three of one suit that tells the player on your right exactly what you're not collecting.
There are four copies of every tile. Once the exposures and the discard pool show that the ones you need are gone, the line is dead — the coach's nudge says so. Keep a second candidate alive until the first draw, and switch the moment the count turns against you.
A discard can only be claimed while it is the newest tile on the table — five seconds at Normal pace, three at Fast, eight at Relaxed, and at a solo table the referee holds a tile your rack could actually use for longer (eight seconds at Normal). Once the next player draws, the tile belongs to the pool for good.
Whoever throws the tile that completes a Mahjong pays double. Late in the hand, a tile that matches a rival's exposures is a loaded discard; prefer tiles already in the pool, or tiles no exposure on the table needs.
The card decides what wins; the table decides who gets there first. Six habits that separate a lucky evening from a good player.
There are four of every suit tile, wind, and dragon. Exposures and the discard pool are public: subtract them and you know how many of each tile you still need are actually left. A line that needs a tile with all four already visible is finished.
Find the two or three lines your rack leans toward and pass only the tiles none of them use. Commit by the first draw — the Charleston is for narrowing, the wall is for finishing.
A joker in a kong or a quint saves you the rarest tile; a joker in an easy pung is wasted. Hoard while your hand is still choosing its line, and redeem any joker from an exposure — yours or a rival's — the moment you hold the real tile.
Each exposed pung or kong narrows a rival's hand to a few lines on the card. Look them up, note the tiles those lines still need, and stop throwing them as the wall runs low.
When your hand isn't going to make it, the goal changes: don't pay double. Throw tiles already in the pool, tiles no exposure needs, and winds or dragons no line at the table seems to want. A wall game costs nothing.
Full coaching shows a keep-score for every tile and names the tiles each candidate line still needs — read the reasons, not just the pick. Drop to Nudges once you're choosing the same tiles the coach does, and try the learning table, where the bots never declare Mahjong, to finish hands at your own pace.
