Quick answer
An American Mahjong set has 152 tiles. There are 108 suit tiles, four each of 1 to 9 in Craks, Bams and Dots, plus 16 winds, 12 dragons, 8 flowers and 8 jokers. Each dragon belongs with a suit, Red with Craks, Green with Bams, and the white Soap with Dots.
An American Mahjong set has 152 tiles in five groups, the three suits, winds, dragons, flowers and jokers. This guide takes them one group at a time, with how many of each there are and what each can do.
Craks, Bams, and Dots (108 tiles)
Three suits, numbered 1 to 9, four copies of each tile. Craks carry the Chinese character 萬 ('wan', ten thousand), the suit's nickname comes from 'character.' Bams show bamboo sticks (the 1 Bam is traditionally a bird, don't let it fool you). Dots show circles.
When players name a tile, they say the number and then the suit, as in 'three Crak' or 'five Bam,' and a group the same way, as in 'a pung of seven Dots.'
Reading a Crak's number
A Crak carries two Chinese characters, one above the other. The lower one, 萬, is the same on all nine Craks and marks the suit. The upper one gives the number. 一 is 1, 二 is 2, 三 is 3, 四 is 4, 五 is 5, 六 is 6, 七 is 7, 八 is 8 and 九 is 9.
If your set prints a small number in a corner of each tile, that number gives the same value. The tiles drawn on this site show only the corner number and the 萬. Without a corner number, start with the strokes. 一, 二 and 三 are one, two and three horizontal strokes. 四, the 4, is a box with two short strokes inside it, and 八, the 8, is two strokes that spread apart toward the bottom.
Winds (16 tiles)
North, East, West, South, four of each, marked with their letter. Winds group only with themselves, and entire hand families on the year's card are built around them. East also names the dealer position, which rotates each game.
Dragons, and the Soap (12 tiles)
Red Dragon (中), Green Dragon (發), and the White Dragon, plain or framed depending on your set, which American players call the Soap. Each dragon belongs to a suit for card purposes. Red goes with Craks, Green with Bams, and Soap with Dots. The Soap has a second job too, because on many cards it stands in as the zero in year-number hands.
Flowers (8 tiles)
Eight flower tiles, fully interchangeable with each other in the American game. The card states how many flowers each line wants, and a joker cannot stand in for a single flower or a pair of them, so think before discarding one.
Jokers (8 tiles)
The wild cards. A joker substitutes for any tile in a group of three or more identical tiles, pung, kong, quint, but never in a pair or as a single. A joker can never be passed in the Charleston or the courtesy pass. If an exposed group on any rack contains a joker, a player holding the matching real tile may exchange it on their own turn, putting the real tile in the group and taking the joker.
Count the jokers you can see the way card players count aces. Eight exist, and every one in an exposure or dead in the discards changes your odds.
What each tile is called
A suit tile is called by its number and then its suit, from one Crak to nine Dot. Craks are the character suit, Bams the bamboo suit and Dots the circle suit, and some sets list them on the box as Characters, Bamboos and Circles.
The winds are North, East, West and South, called by their direction. The dragons are the Red Dragon, the Green Dragon and the White Dragon, which American players call the Soap. A flower is called a flower whatever picture it carries, and a joker is a joker.
Two of the dragons carry words. 中 on the Red Dragon means middle, and 發 on the Green Dragon is short for a phrase that means to strike it rich. Some sets print a small C in a corner of the Red Dragon and an F on the Green, taken from those Chinese words. That F belongs to the dragon. On the card, an F stands for a flower.
Put it into practice
New to the game? Start the course at Lesson 1, Meet the Tiles. The first three lessons are free and need no account.
Already play? Have the coach read a real dealt hand for you, free. It names the direction the hand goes for, what to keep, what to pass, and the reasoning behind each call.
Once the tiles make sense, the next question is what a rack of them is going for. Mei, our AI coach, reads a hand tile by tile, names the direction, and says what to keep and what to pass, free.