Quick answer
Sort by suit, then by number, honours to one side, jokers apart. A sorted rack answers the card's questions; an unsorted one hides them.
Thirteen tiles land in front of you and the temptation is to start hunting the card immediately. Sort first. It takes ten seconds, it is the cheapest edge in the game, and a properly sorted rack tells you what you have before you ask the card what you need.
The sort itself
Group by suit first: craks together, bams together, dots together. Inside each suit, put the numbers in order. Winds and dragons go to one end, flowers next to them, and jokers at the far end on their own.
That is the whole system, and the order matters. Suit first and number second is what makes runs visible; sorting by number across suits hides them. Keeping jokers apart stops you counting them as though they were real tiles, which is the most common way a rack looks stronger than it is.
Why sorting is a decision, not housekeeping
A sorted rack shows you its own shape: neighbouring numbers in one suit, the same number repeating across suits, pairs sitting together, a cluster of honours. Those shapes map directly onto the card's sections, which is why counting toward categories only works once the tiles are in order.
Unsorted, you will read the card looking for something that matches, and you will find whatever you looked at first. Sorted, the rack proposes two or three directions and the card confirms which exist this year.
Count your most repeated number
Once sorted, ask one question before anything else: which number do I hold most of, and in which suits. Three or four copies of a single number across suits points at Like Numbers. A run of neighbours in one suit points at Consecutive Run. A rack that skews even or odd with nothing else points at the numbered sections.
This count takes a few seconds and replaces five minutes of scanning the card line by line. It is the same first move the coach makes when it reads a hand for you.
Re-sort after the Charleston, every time
Nine tiles move through your rack during the first Charleston. The rack you carefully sorted at the deal is not the rack you are holding by the third pass, and players who pass on autopilot are reading a stale picture.
Re-sort between rounds and re-count. It is the single easiest way to notice that your second direction has quietly become your first.
Rack habits worth having
Keep your tiles standing and angled toward you. Do not shuffle your rack constantly while thinking, because the fidgeting itself is information: a player who reorganises three times after a draw has just told the table that the draw mattered.
Some groups teach beginners with open racks, tiles face out, so a teacher can talk through decisions. That is a teaching convention rather than a rule of play, and it is worth agreeing before you start rather than assuming either way.
The mistakes that cost the most
Sorting into a specific card line before the Charleston, which locks you into one direction while nine tiles are still moving. Counting jokers as if they were the tiles they might become, which flatters every rack. And leaving a natural pair split across the rack where you stop seeing it, when pairs are the bottleneck of most hands.
The last one is worth a habit: when you spot a natural pair, put it together and leave it there. It is the tile you cannot fill with a joker later.
Put it into practice
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Sorting shows you the shape; naming the direction is the next step. Mei, our AI coach, takes your sorted rack and says which category it leads toward, what the backup is, and what to pass.