Quick answer
Not as a game. The National Mah Jongg League's rules cover four players and short-handed games of three and two. There is no one-player game in them. Alone, you can practice the decisions about your own rack. Deal yourself thirteen tiles and read them against the card, choose Charleston passes, and play a hand through the wall. Calling and defence need opponents, at a table or against bots.
American mahjong is a game for four, and the League's rules go down to two players, not one. Several of its decisions depend only on your own rack, though, and those you can practice alone. Here is what you can do with a set of tiles and the card, what only other players can teach you, and how to practice the rest online.
Is there a one-player version?
Not as a game. The National Mah Jongg League's rules cover four players, and short-handed games of three and two, in which the Charleston is skipped. There is no one-player game in them.
The game is built around other players. You call their discards to complete exposed sets, you can win on a discard, and you defend against three racks while you build your own. Alone, none of that happens.
What you can practice alone are the decisions that depend only on your own rack, which are reading a deal, choosing a direction, and choosing what to pass.
Read a deal against the card
Turn the tiles face down, mix them, and deal yourself thirteen. Then read them against the card. Find the two directions the rack could go for, and decide which one is ahead and why.
Count your jokers only toward pungs, kongs and quints, because a joker can never be part of a pair or a single. A direction that needs a pair you do not hold is weaker than its count makes it look.
Write your call down before you check it, then lay out the line you chose and count what is still missing. Our guide to getting better between game nights covers this drill and how to keep a record of your reads.
Practice the Charleston alone
Yes. Choosing a pass needs no opponents. Deal thirteen, choose three tiles to pass, and set them aside. Then draw three from the wall as the tiles you receive, and choose your next pass. Do it three times, once for each pass of the first Charleston.
Jokers may never be passed in the Charleston or the courtesy pass, so keep any joker you are dealt.
The wall is only a stand-in. At a table, the tiles you receive are ones another player chose to give up, so they tell you something about that player's hand. Tiles drawn from the wall tell you nothing about anyone, which makes this a drill for your own passing, not for reading what comes across.
Play a hand through the wall
You can. Build the wall, deal yourself thirteen, and draw and discard one tile at a time until the hand is complete or you stop. It shows you whether the direction you picked at the deal is the one that came together.
Set a limit on your draws. After a four-player deal, 99 tiles are left in the wall, and they are shared out among the four players in turn. Stop after about twenty-five draws to keep a solo hand close to a real one.
What practicing alone cannot teach
Calling. Whether to call a discard, expose a set and show the table your direction is a decision made against other players, and alone there is no discard to call.
Defence. Choosing a safe discard means reading three opponents' exposures and discards, and alone there is nothing to read. Nor does solo practice give you the pace of a table, where you make each discard while three other players wait.
A two-player game adds one opponent, which brings calling and some defence back, with one discard pile to read instead of three. Our two-player guide covers the League's rules for it.
Practicing alone online
Yes. Here, Play a Hand puts you at a practice table against three bots, so the parts that need other players are there. You play from the middle of a hand, drawing, reading the other racks' exposures and discarding, and the coach grades each throw. Three hands a day are free.
Charleston Practice is a free simulator of the passing. You pass three tiles, receive three back, and the coach grades each decision, with no signup. Hand of the Day gives everyone the same fresh hand each day, read tile by tile.
The Drill Room covers reading the deal, the Charleston pass and the mid-game throw. Read the Hand and Best Pass are free, and so are three Defend the Table positions a day. The first three of our ten lessons are free too.
Is mahjong solitaire a way to play alone?
No. Mahjong solitaire is a matching game for one player, in which you clear a layout of tiles by removing open pairs of identical tiles. It takes the tiles and the name from mahjong, and its play is unrelated to the table game.
If it uses traditional tile faces, it can teach you the suits, winds and dragons by sight. It has no hand to build, no card and no Charleston. Our guide to mahjong vs mahjong solitaire covers the differences.
Put it into practice
Reading about it is one thing. 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.
Want the coach on call? The Club adds the coach for your own tiles and for each morning's hand, all 10 lessons, and every new NMJL card taught the week it lands, for $14.99 a month, cancel anytime. See what the Club includes
The hard part of practicing alone is checking your read. Deal yourself a hand and call its direction, then put it into the free read. Mei, our AI coach, reads it tile by tile, says which direction it goes for and which tiles do nothing for it, and explains why.