Frequently asked questions

The version of mahjong that grew out of the Chinese game in the 1920s and then went its own way. The National Mah Jongg League has published the standard since 1937. Three things separate it from every Asian variant: eight jokers, a mandatory opening exchange called the Charleston, and an annual card that lists the only hands you are allowed to win with.

That last point is the one beginners miss. You do not win by assembling four sets and a pair. You win by matching one printed line on that year's card. See American vs. Chinese mahjong for the full comparison.

No, and the shared tile art is the only connection. Mahjong solitaire is a tile-matching puzzle for one player. Real American mahjong is a four-player game with a card, jokers, the Charleston, discards and scoring. Nothing you learned from the computer version carries over — not the tile meanings, not the goal, not the pace.

152. That is 144 standard tiles plus eight jokers. The 144 breaks down as:

• 108 suited tiles — three suits (dots, bams, craks), numbered 1 to 9, four of each.
• 16 winds — four each of North, East, West, South.
• 12 dragons — four each of red, green, white.
• 8 flowers — all interchangeable with one another.

Plus 8 jokers, which is what makes 152. Full walkthrough on the tiles page.

Do not buy the wrong set. A Chinese set has 144 tiles including eight flowers, but no jokers and no Arabic numerals on the suited tiles. A Japanese set is 136 tiles — it drops the flowers entirely. Neither can play American mahjong. Check the box says 152 and that it ships with racks and pushers. More on sets & accessories.

No. Standard NMJL play has no chows at all. Every group on the card is built from identical tiles (pungs, kongs, quints, sextets), plus whatever pairs and singles the line asks for. You may only claim a discard to make a pung or a kong.

Some card lines do print consecutive numbers — that means three separate pungs side by side, written like 222 333 444, not a 2-3-4 run. You still cannot take an opponent's discard to build it; you collect those off the wall.

No. American sets are designed so you do not have to. Dots and bams carry Arabic numerals in the corner, winds carry N, E, W and S, and dragons are marked Red, Green and White or drawn as literal red and green dragons .

Only the craks keep a Chinese character beneath the numeral, and you can play for years using the numeral alone.

If you play with anyone outside your own living room, yes. The card defines the legal hands for that year and it is rewritten every spring. Last year's card is simply not valid at a club or tournament.

The standard card costs about $14, with a large-print version around $15. Cards are typically mailed in late March to early April, so order in March. Every player should bring their own card — sharing one card around a table slows the game and causes disputes.

At home you can keep playing an old card for as long as all four players agree. Just do not bring a 2023 card to a 2026 club table.

Two organizations publish annual American mahjong cards: the National Mah Jongg League (founded 1937) and the American Mah-Jongg Association. The NMJL card is the more widely used of the two and is what most clubs and tournaments expect.

They are not interchangeable — the hands are different. Ask which card the table plays before you sit down, and bring that one. This site documents the NMJL standard throughout.

Around five to fifteen minutes per hand at a social table, and a full session runs two to three hours. The Charleston adds a couple of minutes before anyone discards. New-player tables run slower, and that is expected.

Not under standard rules. American mahjong is a four-player game: the Charleston depends on having a player directly opposite you, and the wall is built from four equal stacks.

Three-handed variants exist informally but they need modified Charleston rules and are not standard. If you are short a player, look for a fourth rather than improvising.

Three things: a 152-tile American set with racks (roughly $100–$300 for a serviceable beginner set), the current year's card at about $14, and dice. A decent set lasts decades.

Before you buy anything, ask the group you plan to join whether they have spare sets — most community groups do, and newcomers are usually welcome to borrow one for their first session.

Learn this first — every other question in this section assumes you can read a line.

A line is just the groups written left to right, and the numbers do not name a suit. A bare 222 means a pung of 2s; which suit you use is decided by the line's color coding and by what you were dealt.

• Repeated digits = that many identical tiles: 222 is a pung, 4444 is a kong, 55555 is a quint.
• Letters mark the honors: N, E, W, S for winds; D for dragons, with the white dragon usually written 0. Flowers print as F.
• Color is the suit rule — this is the part beginners miss. Groups printed in the same color must all be the same suit. Groups in different colors must be different suits. A line in two colors is telling you to use two different suits.
• Jokers are never printed on the card. Whether you may use one is implied by the group size — a quint or sextet obviously needs a joker, while pairs and singles never allow one.

So FF 2222 6666 8888 reads as: two flowers, a kong of 2s, a kong of 6s and a kong of 8s — fourteen tiles. If those three kongs are printed in three different colors, you need three different suits. Work through real lines slowly on the card guide, then browse the card library for worked examples.

Fourteen tiles that match one complete line on the current card. Not most of a line, not parts of two different lines — one line, in full, grouped the way the card groups it, in the suits the card's colors specify.

Your pair has to be two identical natural tiles, and any hand marked C has to have stayed concealed. Do this in order: read the card first, then arrange your rack. Beginners who sort their tiles into pretty groups before consulting the card waste the Charleston and often commit to a line that is not on the card at all. See how to win for the walkthrough.

Only if that exact combination is printed on the current card. Plenty of beautiful hands are worth nothing because no line on the card describes them.

The habit to build: check the card, not the shape of your rack. A hand that "looks like mahjong" is not evidence of anything.

X (Exposed) means you may pung or kong a discard and lay the group face up on top of your rack.

C (Concealed) means the hand must stay closed: except for the winning tile itself, every tile has to come off the wall — no pungs, no kongs. Concealed hands print at higher values to pay you for the difficulty.

One thing that worries beginners unnecessarily: the tile you win on never counts as an exposure. You may self-draw the winning tile on a C hand, and you may also claim a discard to win on a C hand. More on concealed hands.

Meeting all four of these first is the safest rule a beginner can follow:

• The Charleston is finished and you have seen what you were dealt.
• You have picked the line you are playing — and confirmed it is really on the card.
• The group you want to expose already has most of its tiles.
• The tiles you still need are the kind you can realistically draw or call.

If you cannot say which line you are playing, you are not ready to expose. Early exposure is the single most common way beginners kill a live hand.

Your hand is locked to the line you are playing. You cannot switch to a different hand, even a better one, because your exposures are now public and everyone can read them.

Expose too early and a single missing tile turns the hand into a dead hand. Expose to the wrong line and the hand is dead the moment you do it. Before you reach for a tile, say the whole line out loud in your head.

A hand that can no longer win this round. You stay at the table and keep playing — until someone calls it. You simply cannot declare Mah Jongg yourself; keep drawing and discarding defensively until another player declares your hand dead, then stop. The usual causes:

• Passing a joker in the Charleston.
• Exposing to a line you then cannot complete.
• Using a joker in a pair or as a single.
• Having the wrong number of tiles in your rack.

The trap nobody warns you about: you can be dead without knowing it. If you meant to play a C line and then punged a discard, that hand is already dead. Run the dead-hand checker before you commit to an exposure, and read dead hands for the full list.

Do not announce it and do not push your tiles in. Keep playing defensively until someone calls it. You still draw and discard in the meantime, and your discards still matter — but the moment another player declares your hand dead, you stop.

While your hand is not yet called, two rules: discard tiles that have already been seen, and do not pung anything. You are playing purely to keep other people from winning off you — that is a real skill. The moment another player declares it dead, you stop and sit out for the rest of the hand.

Winning without a single joker in the hand. It doubles the value and applies to both X and C hands — except Singles & Pairs, which forbids jokers by definition and is not doubled again. Since quints and sextets require jokers, a jokerless hand is by definition built from pungs, kongs, pairs and singles only.

The doubling stacks on top of the discard/self-draw multiples, so a jokerless self-draw is worth considerably more than a plain win on a discard.

No. There is no official basic hand and no minimum hand you can always play. When this site says “ordinary hand” it means a line marked X — one where you are allowed to pung and kong discards, as opposed to the harder C lines.

This is why you cannot sit down and "just play mahjong" in the American game. You need the card open in front of you from the first deal.

Your hand is dead. You are out for the rest of the hand — the moment the call fails, you stop drawing and discarding — but you cannot win. The other three players continue. Whether you owe a penalty is a table matter: at a social table it is usually just a dead hand, while clubs and tournaments set their own; ask before the first deal.

The two errors that cause it: the wrong number of tiles, and the wrong suit relationships (you used two suits where the line demanded one). Check both before you say the words. Nobody at a friendly table will rush you through this.

No, and nobody expects you to. What you need is the ability to find the section that fits the tiles you were dealt. Experienced players narrow it down right after the Charleston, pick two or three candidate lines, and abandon them as the wall proves them wrong.

Print the cheat sheets and keep them by your rack for the first few months.

Eight identical wild tiles, printed JOKER . A joker may only be used inside a group of three or more — a pung, kong, quint or sextet. So is a perfectly legal pung.

It can never stand in for a required pair or a required single tile. That one restriction causes more beginner dead hands than anything else. Full detail on the joker rules page.

No. This is the single most common beginner misconception. Two identical naturals or nothing: is not a pair, but is a legal pung.

The same rule covers singles. A required single is a lone tile the hand needs on its own — NEWS has to be four real winds, and a year hand has to be built from four real digits. No wild substitutions, ever.

As a result, hands in the Singles & Pairs section forbid jokers outright and are always marked C — which is why they carry the highest values on the card.

Four hard limits, no exceptions at an NMJL table:

1. Complete a pair. A pair must be two identical natural tiles.
2. Replace a single. Required singles — NEWS winds, year digits, a specified lone tile — must all be natural.
3. Be passed in the Charleston. Passing a joker kills your hand instantly.
4. Be picked up after a discard. A joker thrown to the center of the table is dead. Nobody may call it, for anything.

A physical habit that prevents most of these: keep every joker at the far right of your rack, physically separated from your pairs. Beginners who scatter jokers through their rack routinely discover at the end that they have been treating one as a pair.

Five or six of the same tile in one group. The set only contains four copies of any tile, so a quint is impossible without at least one joker. This is the main reason jokers are valuable.

Practical consequence: if you are dealt four of a kind and your line wants a quint, hold all four — you only need to find or trade for one joker, and that is often easier than it sounds.

When an opponent has an exposed group containing a joker, you may swap the matching natural tile out of your rack for their joker. You give them the real tile, you take the joker, and the group on the table stays complete.

The conditions matter, and beginners get these wrong:

• It must be your turn, and you exchange before you draw.
• The joker must be in a group already exposed on the table. You cannot reach into someone's concealed rack.
• The natural tile must come from your own rack.
• The opponent cannot refuse. This is a legal play, not a favor.
• No exchanges during the Charleston.

Two times not to do it: when that natural tile is the pair or single your line requires, and when you are chasing a jokerless hand — taking a joker forfeits the double. Details on the joker rules page.

In American mahjong the eight flowers are ordinary tiles, not a bonus. They sit in the wall like anything else, all eight are interchangeable, and you keep what you draw — there is no replacement tile.

When a card line asks for flowers, they form part of the winning structure. But they are not equivalent to a pung: flowers have no suit, so they never satisfy a suit requirement, and a line needing flowers usually specifies how many. When your line does not want them, they are dead weight to pass in the Charleston or discard early.

This is a real difference from Chinese mahjong, where flowers score immediately and are replaced from the wall.

The compulsory opening exchange, and the most distinctive feature of American mahjong. Every player picks three unwanted tiles and passes them right, then three across to the opponent, then three left — all passes happen simultaneously, and you only pick up after everyone has pushed.

A second, optional Charleston runs the other way (left, across, right) if all four players agree, and some tables then allow a courtesy pass. Full walkthrough on the Charleston page.

This is the first real decision of every hand and most beginners get it wrong. Pass your most isolated tiles — the ones least likely to join anything.

Work in this order:

• Keep anything you already hold two or three of. Pairs and near-pungs are the skeleton of almost every line.
• Keep tiles that appear together in a line you might plausibly play.
• Pass lone tiles that share nothing with the rest of your rack — a lone 2-crak when you hold nothing else in craks is the classic example.
• Pass flowers early if your likely lines do not want them.

Two rules that override everything: never pass a joker, and never pass a tile that could complete a pair you are keeping. Passing away the third copy of a tile you hold two of is a self-inflicted wound.

Never. A joker passed in any round of the Charleston makes your hand dead on the spot. You keep playing until someone calls it — you still draw and discard in the meantime — but once your hand is declared dead you stop, and you cannot win.

Check your three tiles before you push them. It takes two seconds and it is the cheapest insurance in the game.

If you are handed three tiles and one turns out to be a joker, you did not create the problem: show it and return it. Most tables handle it that way, but confirm the table's practice before you start.

An optional private exchange of up to three tiles with the player sitting opposite you, after the Charleston is finished. Either player may decline, and you do not have to reveal why. It is common at social tables and entirely voluntary.

At a club or tournament, yes — the first round is part of the standard game, not an optional warm-up. At home you can drop the optional second round, or drop the Charleston entirely, as long as all four players agree before the first deal.

Confusing this is the fastest way to play a whole hand dead without noticing. Learn these four numbers:

• 13 after the deal (East starts with 14).
• 13 after the Charleston — you pass three and receive three, so the count does not change. Count your rack the moment the Charleston ends.
• 14 whenever it is your turn and you have drawn — you discard one to return to 13.
• 14 when you win.

Every pung or kong changes the count. After a pung you discard one extra tile to get back to 13. After a kong you draw a replacement tile from the wall, then discard. Losing track here is a leading cause of "I called Mah Jongg and I was wrong".

This is the decision you make on every single turn, so have a method rather than a feeling. Work down this list:

• First: anything left over that your chosen line does not use. If you committed to a line, its leftovers are dead weight — get rid of them.
• Second: lone honors and isolated suited tiles that pair with nothing in your rack.
• Third: tiles an opponent has already discarded several of — they are demonstrably not collecting them.
• Last resort: breaking a pair. Only do it if the line you are playing genuinely needs something else more.

Do not break a pair just to make your rack look tidy, and say the tile's name out loud as you discard it. Naming it slows you down just enough to catch a tile your line actually needs.

Only if that tile serves the line you have already chosen. A pung is not a free tile — it locks your hand to one line for the rest of the round.

Before you call, ask yourself two things: which line am I playing? and does this group appear in it? If you cannot answer the first question, do not call. Beginners pung because the tile is there; experienced players pung because the card says so.

No. Once a group is exposed, your hand is committed to that line. The tiles are public, the table can read them, and switching would mean playing a hand your exposures do not support.

This is why the rule is decide the line, then expose — never the other way round. Say the whole line to yourself before your hand goes down.

It depends on how close they look to finishing — and this is one of the most useful reads a beginner can learn.

• Early in the hand: usually fine. If you discard the natural tile, they swap their joker for it — but a joker in their hand early is not yet decisive, and you may need to empty that tile anyway.
• Late in the hand, or when their rack looks close to complete: do not. You would be handing them a joker at exactly the moment it wins the hand.

The general rule: the closer an opponent looks to winning, the more you avoid discarding tiles that match a joker they are holding. Read more on defensive play.

You may, but never do it. A discarded joker is dead the moment it hits the table — nobody can call it, for any purpose. You have simply destroyed the most valuable tile in the set.

If you cannot use a joker, keep it. It is currency: you can trade it for a natural tile in a joker exchange, and holding one costs you nothing. A joker in the rack is an option; a joker in the center of the table is rubbish.

The player to the discarder's right — the next player in turn order — has priority. This is the single most common source of arguments at social tables, so know it before you need it.

Priority matters most when one player wants it for a pung and another wants it to win: a Mah Jongg call always beats a pung or kong, regardless of seating. See rulings for the edge cases.

Yes. Speak before the next player draws from the wall. Once they have drawn, the tile is gone and your claim is void — there is no arguing it back.

Call loudly and clearly the moment you want it. A quiet or late claim is not a claim.

Stop optimizing and start managing risk.

• Do not switch lines. You are closer than any alternative.
• Discard your safest tile, not your most useless one. Every discard from here is a chance to feed someone.
• Remember the payout shape: on a self-draw all three players pay double; if someone else discards your tile, only the discarder pays double and the other two pay single. Holding out for the self-draw is often worth a turn.

Beginners lose more hands here than anywhere else, usually by discarding carelessly because they are already thinking about the win.

Three steps, and this is the one advanced skill beginners can learn quickly enough to matter:

• Count their exposed tiles. Every group on their rack is public information.
• Work out which lines are still possible for someone holding those groups. You do not need to name the exact line — you need to know which tiles would complete it.
• Avoid discarding those tiles. Prefer tiles that have already appeared, or tiles their exposures make impossible for them to use.

Drill this on reading practice, then read reading the table for the same skill under time pressure.

Every line on the card carries a fixed point value, and no hand is worth more than the card says. What changes is who pays and how much:

You win on a discard: the discarder pays double the value, the other two players pay the single value.
You self-draw from the wall: all three players pay double.
You win jokerless: double again. Doubles stack.

Most tables keep score on paper, in points, and settle up at the end of the session. Many also double whatever the dealer (East) pays and receives — that one is a house rule, so confirm it before the first deal. Details on the scoring page.

When the wall runs out before anyone declares Mah Jongg. Nobody pays, nobody wins. The tiles are reshuffled, the wall is rebuilt, and the turn passes to the next player — the player to the dealer's right becomes the new East. The deal does not stay with the same dealer.

No. A home game can play by house rules, provided all four players agree before the first deal. Change nothing mid-session.

The moment you sit down with strangers, at a club or a tournament, the full NMJL standard applies and the current year's card is the final authority. See rule variants for what commonly differs.

The usual candidates: skip the optional second Charleston, keep playing a previous year's card, adjust the scoring multiples, or drop the courtesy pass. None of these change how a hand is built, so nothing you learn at home becomes wrong at a club.

Leave the joker restrictions alone. Allowing jokers in pairs or as singles, letting players call discarded jokers, or letting jokers be passed in the Charleston does not simplify the game — it turns it into a different game with different strategies, and it will not prepare anyone for a club table.

Also keep the core principle intact: the hand must match one printed line in full. That is what makes American mahjong itself.

Some do, most do not. Scores are kept in points, and plenty of groups play for nothing at all, or for a small stake that changes hands at the end of the session. The game does not require it, and no official rule mentions it.

In this order, and resist the urge to skip ahead:

• The tiles — what the 152 are and how they group.
• How the card is organized — sections, notation, X and C.
• The Charleston — including what to pass.
• What makes a hand dead — the joker restrictions above all.
• Reading opponents — their exposures are free information.
• Scoring — last, because it changes nothing about how you play a hand.

The roadmap lays this out as a path, and reading practice drills the decisions that cost beginners the most points.

Four habits cover almost all of it. Each one is a physical action you can take at the table:

• Keep your jokers at the far right of your rack. It makes using one in a pair physically difficult.
• Count your rack after the Charleston, and after every pung or kong. Wrong tile count is the most common reason a called Mah Jongg is disallowed.
• Name your line before you expose anything. If you cannot say which line you are playing, you are not ready to expose.
• Check the whole hand against the printed line before you declare — count the tiles, confirm the suit relationships, confirm whether it had to stay concealed.

Long enough that you should not measure it in weeks. Most players can get through a hand without help after a handful of sessions. Reading the card quickly — the part that actually takes time — settles in over a season of regular play.

The thing that speeds it up is not studying the card; it is playing with people who will tell you when you are about to make a mistake.

Community centers, libraries, synagogues and adult-education programs run beginner classes and open play sessions. Many are listed locally rather than online, so asking at a community center desk is often more effective than searching — and a beginner class is the fastest route into a regular game, because you meet three other new players at once.

Organized events run year-round across the United States and Canada. Start with where to play, and check tournaments if you want a structured event.

The card lists the hands; it does not teach you how to choose between them, or how to keep other people from winning. Start with strategy for picking a line after the Charleston, defensive play for reading what opponents are building, reading the table for the same skill under time pressure, and glossary for the vocabulary you will hear at the table without explanation. Rulings and edge cases live in the rulings library.