The card is the rulebook
Every spring the National Mah Jongg League publishes a new card. It lists every hand that is legal to win with for that year — and nothing else counts. Buying the current card is not optional; it is the game.
A new card every spring
Cards are mailed in late March to early April. The standard card costs about $14, with a large-print version around $15. Proceeds support charitable causes including the Alzheimer's Association and the American Heart Association.
Read it literally
A winning hand must match one line exactly: tile identities, group sizes, which suits must match or differ, and whether the hand may be exposed. Close enough is not a win — it is a dead hand.
Grouped by category
The individual hands change every year, but the category structure is stable. Learn the categories and you can navigate any year's card within a session or two.
Two rules that decide most beginner mistakes
1 · Color = how many suits, not which suit.
Blue, red and green on the card mark one, two or three suits in play. You choose which suits (dots, bams or craks) to use, and their order must follow the color order. A two-color line always means exactly two suits — never read a color as “this must be bams.”
2 · Dragons lock to suits — except White-as-zero.
When a dragon shares the hand's color it must match: Red = Craks, Green = Bams, White (Soap) = Dots. When White is used as a zero in a year hand it is suitless, usable with any suit. Flowers and Winds are always suitless too (always printed blue).
Decode one line: 2468 222 444 6666 (Any 2 Suits)
Two colors → two suits. Here the singles 2·4·6·8 plus the pungs 222 and 444 are one suit (craks); the kong 6666 is the second suit (dots). “Any 2 Suits” means you may assign the two suits however you like. Jokers may fill the pung or the kong, but never the singles — a single tile can never be a joker. A dragon in the same color would have to match that suit (Red=Craks, Green=Bams, White=Dots).
The categories you will meet
Select a category. The patterns below are illustrative of each section's logic; the exact lines are printed only on the official card for the year you are playing.
The year section
Built around the digits of the current calendar year — on the 2026 card, the digits 2, 0, 2 and 6. This is the only section that is completely rewritten every year, and it is usually where the most creative hands live. Because the digits repeat, these hands often reward players who notice early that they are sitting on usable pairs.
Beginner note: do not start here. Year hands tend to be intricate and unforgiving. Work through Like Numbers or Consecutive Run first, and come back once reading the card feels automatic.
2468 — the evens
Hands built exclusively from even-numbered tiles: 2, 4, 6 and 8. Odd tiles are dead weight here, which makes the Charleston unusually important — dumping your odds early is often the whole strategy. Popular with players who like clean, legible patterns.
13579 — the odds
The mirror image of 2468: only odd-numbered tiles, 1 through 9. Because five of the nine numbers qualify, these hands tend to fill faster than the evens once the Charleston has done its work. A favorite at tables that play a quick game.
Consecutive Run
Sequential numbers such as 1-2-3 or 5-6-7, often across more than one suit. Note the American twist: you still collect matching tiles to form pungs or kongs — the numbers run consecutively, you do not build a chow. Many beginners find this the easiest section to recognize visually.
Like Numbers
The same number repeated across different suits — all 3s, or all 7s, in two or three suits. This is usually the friendliest section for a first win, because a Charleston pass that lands three matching tiles in one suit opens several lines at once.
369
Hands restricted to tiles divisible by three: 3, 6 and 9. Narrow, structured, and quick to evaluate — you either have the tiles or you do not. Because the tile pool is small, the section dries up fast once two players are visibly chasing the same numbers.
Quints
Five of a kind. Since the set contains only four copies of any tile, a quint mathematically requires at least one joker. That makes the section a joker-management exercise: count your jokers before you commit, and remember that a joker cannot rescue a required pair elsewhere in the same hand.
Winds & Dragons
Built on the honor tiles — North, East, West, South, Red, Green and Soap. Competitive, because honor tiles are slow to be discarded and many players hoard them. If two opponents are clearly collecting winds, the section can dry up in a single round.
Singles & Pairs
Hands made entirely of single tiles and pairs, with no large matching groups at all. Jokers are usually forbidden outright in this section, and that is precisely what makes the hands hard: every tile must be collected naturally. They carry the highest values on the card for that reason.
Flowers
Hands that use flower tiles prominently. Flowers are interchangeable, so any flower satisfies an F — but there are only eight in the set, so a hand calling for four takes a third of the global supply. Flower hands can develop surprisingly fast when the Charleston cooperates.
Card notation, decoded
Numbers are tile ranks and do not name a suit — a 5 means the 5 of some suit. Colors are the suit key: tiles in the same color must be the same suit, tiles in different colors must be different suits, and you choose which suit maps to which color. N E W S are the winds, F is a flower, D is any dragon with R, G and 0 naming red, green and Soap specifically, NEWS means one of each wind, X means any suit, and a C after the value means the hand must stay concealed.
Reading one line, slowly
- FF — any two flower tiles
- 111 — a pung of 1s, one single suit
- 222 — a pung of 2s, in that same suit
- 333 — a pung of 3s, in that same suit again
- C — concealed: no exposures, you draw everything yourself
Read the whole line before you commit. The C is what makes this worth what it is worth — drop the concealment requirement and the hand gets much easier.
- FF — any two flowers
- 2026 — the year digits, once
- 2026 — the year digits, a second time
- DD — a pair of dragons, one color
- X — one more group, any suit
This is the shape of a typical year hand: flowers, the year repeated, honours, and a free slot. Read it in chunks — never try to swallow the whole line in one glance.