Quick answer
Sort the deal by suit and number, then count how many of your tiles serve each family on the card, such as consecutive runs, even numbers, odd numbers, quints, winds and dragons, or singles and pairs. Check each leading family for a pair you can make from real tiles, since a joker can never be part of a pair. Keep your top two directions through the Charleston, pass what serves neither, and commit once one is clearly ahead.
Thirteen tiles land in your rack, fourteen if you are East, and the card has dozens of hands on it. The question is which one. One method is to read the deal for direction first, then check the card. Here it is, step by step.
Sort the deal so it can tell you something
Group your tiles by suit, then by number inside each suit, with winds, dragons, flowers and jokers off to one side. Sorted this way, the rack shows runs of neighbouring numbers, matching pairs, three of a kind, and the gaps between them.
Do this before you look at the card, so you already know which suits and numbers you hold when you start reading it.
Count toward categories, not toward hands
The card is organised in sections, and each section is a family of hands built the same way, such as consecutive runs, even numbers, odd numbers, quints, winds and dragons, and singles and pairs. Count how many of your tiles could serve each family. A deal with 6-6-7-8 in one suit and a 7 in another already has five tiles pointing at consecutive runs, whatever the exact line turns out to be.
The families with the highest counts are your candidate directions. Only now is it worth reading the specific hands in those sections of the card.
Find your pair prospect
Jokers cannot be used in a pair, so any pair a hand needs has to come from real tiles. A direction that needs a pair you do not have and cannot reasonably draw is weaker than it looks on the count alone.
If your deal already holds a natural pair that fits one of your candidate families, that family moves up. If your best-counting family needs a pair of a tile you have not seen, note that as its risk.
Let the Charleston decide, not the deal
The first Charleston passes nine tiles out of your rack before the first discard, and an optional second Charleston can pass nine more, so the deal is only a starting point. Pass the tiles that serve none of your candidate families. Keep anything that serves two of them.
By the third pass of the first Charleston you should be able to name your top two directions. If the table plays a second Charleston, use it to confirm the leader, or to switch if the incoming tiles clearly favour the backup.
Keep two directions open until the tiles close one
Committing on the deal to a single hand risks passing tiles that would have made a better one. Hold your top two families through the Charleston and let the draws break the tie.
A useful test is a tile that serves only your second direction. Keep it while the two are close, and pass it once the leader is clearly ahead.
Commit, then play the table
Once one direction is clearly ahead, commit. Now the tiles from the losing direction become your discards, and your attention shifts to what other players expose and discard, so that you do not throw the tile that completes someone else's hand.
This whole sequence, from sorting the deal to naming the leader and the backup, is what the coach does out loud when it reads a hand. Reading hands that way is practice for doing the same at the table.
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.
You have just read the method. Mei, our AI coach, runs it on a dealt hand and says which category leads and what to pass, in plain English.