Quick answer
Mahjong solitaire is a one-player matching game. You clear a layout of 144 tiles stacked in layers by removing open pairs of identical tiles. Mahjong is a table game for four players, in which each player builds a hand. American mahjong uses 152 tiles, eight of them jokers, and a winning hand matches one line on the year's card exactly. Solitaire borrows the tiles and the name, and its play is unrelated.
Mahjong solitaire and mahjong share the tiles and the name, and the play is unrelated. One is a matching puzzle for a single player. The other is a game for four, played at a table. Here is how each is played, where the solitaire game came from, what carries over if you know it, and how to start on the table game, with American mahjong as the example.
What is mahjong solitaire?
Mahjong solitaire is a matching game for one player. Its 144 tiles are stacked in a layout four layers deep. One layout is called the turtle.
You remove tiles in pairs. The two tiles must be identical, and both must be open. A tile is open when it can slide out to the left or the right without disturbing any other tile.
You win when every tile is gone. If no open pair is left, the game is lost. The game also goes by Shanghai solitaire, Taipei, Kyodai and The Turtle.
Is mahjong solitaire the same as mahjong?
No. Mahjong is a game for four players at a table. The tiles are built into a wall face down, each player is dealt a hand, and the players take turns drawing a tile and discarding one, each working toward a complete hand.
Mahjong solitaire takes its name and its tiles from mahjong, and its play is unrelated. There is no hand to build, no opponents and no discards. You clear the layout one pair at a time.
Where did mahjong solitaire come from?
Brodie Lockard wrote the first version in 1981 on the PLATO computer system and called it Mah-Jongg. Activision released it as Shanghai in 1986, and other versions under other names followed.
Mahjong itself is much older. The four-player game dates from the mid to late 1800s in China, with the earliest known sets from the 1870s. The American game took its shape in the 1930s and added joker tiles in 1961.
How is American mahjong played?
Four players share a set of 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 player is dealt thirteen tiles, and East, the dealer, starts with fourteen.
Before play, the players pass tiles to each other in a series of exchanges called the Charleston. Jokers may never be passed in the Charleston or the courtesy pass.
Then each turn you draw a tile and discard one. You may call another player's discard to complete a pung, kong or quint, which you then expose face up, and never for a run. Any discard may be called to win.
You win by matching one line on the National Mah Jongg League card exactly, fourteen tiles in all. The League publishes a new card each year. A joker can stand in for a tile in a pung, kong or quint, and never in a pair or a single.
What carries over from mahjong solitaire?
The tiles. If the solitaire game you played used traditional tile faces, you already know the suits, the winds and the dragons by sight. Craks carry a Chinese character, Bams show bamboo sticks and Dots show circles.
Everything else is new, from the card and how to read it to the eight jokers and their rules, the Charleston, building a hand toward one line, and three opponents whose discards and exposures you have to read.
Can you play real mahjong online, not solitaire?
Yes. A game of real mahjong seats four players, deals each a hand and has them draw and discard. An American mahjong game also has a Charleston and a card. Those are the signs that you are playing the table game and not the matching game.
Here, Play a Hand puts you at a practice table against three bots. 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.
To learn the game first, the first three of our ten lessons are free in your browser. In the Drill Room, Read the Hand and Best Pass are free, and so are three Defend the Table positions a day.
From solitaire to the table game
Learn the full American set first, including the eight jokers. Then learn to read the card, where each line is one complete hand written in shorthand.
Next, learn a single turn, drawing, calling and discarding, and the Charleston that comes before play.
Then read a dealt hand. The free read shows you a hand, and Mei, our AI coach, says which direction it goes for, which tiles do nothing for it, and why.
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
Try the table game on a real hand. Mei, our AI coach, reads a dealt hand tile by tile, says which direction it goes for and which tiles do nothing for it, and explains why, free.