Learn to Play
How Many People Do You Need to Play Mahjong?
Four. That is the short, traditional answer: the table game is built around four seats, four winds and a wall dealt for four hands.…
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Guides, history and the occasional argument about tiles. The practical pieces explain how the game is actually played — the scoring, the suits, the difference between the boards you meet online and the four-player game they descend from. The rest is context: where the tiles came from, how the set reached the West, what shows up when the game appears on screen.
Nothing here needs reading before you play. The boards work without any of it. But the difference between clearing a layout and understanding why it deadlocked is usually one paragraph of rules, and that paragraph is somewhere on this shelf.
Types & Variants
Filipino Mahjong Rules: the Sixteen-Tile Game
Filipino Mahjong is the sixteen-tile school: the everyday game of the Philippines, faster and more forgiving than its thirteen-tile relatives, with a wild-tile rule…
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Types & Variants
Siamese Mahjong Rules: the Two-Player American Game
Siamese Mah Jongg is the two-player answer inside the American school: a variant created by Gladys Grad in 2015 in which each player runs…
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Types & Variants
Hong Kong Mahjong Rules and Scoring
Hong Kong style is the game most people mean when they say Cantonese Mahjong: the classic 144-tile table game with flowers, played fast, scored…
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Types & Variants
American Mahjong Rules: How a Hand Is Played
American Mah Jongg is the League game: 152 tiles, eight jokers, and a printed card of legal hands that changes every year. This page…
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Learn to Play
How to Play Mahjong With 3 Players
Three people and a Mahjong set is a real, documented way to play, not a compromise waiting for a fourth chair. Japan, Korea and…
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Glossary
Mahjong Glossary: Table Calls and Board Terms
Two different games answer to one name, and they do not share a vocabulary. At a table with four players you build a hand…
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Types & Variants
Mahjong Solitaire vs Connect: Which Board Suits You
Both formats ask you to remove identical tiles in pairs, and there the resemblance ends. Solitaire gives you a stacked pile and total freedom…
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Strategy
Mahjong Strategy: The Solitaire Layout and the Four-Player Table
Two entirely different games answer to the name mahjong, and advice written for one is close to useless for the other. The first is…
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Strategy
How to Win at Mahjong Solitaire More Often
Most boards are decided long before the last few tiles, and the deciding move is usually a match that looked completely safe. Win rates…
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