A 1-minute quiz
Question 1 of 5
Quick answer
This quiz sorts the four places players get stuck at American mah jongg: brand new to the tiles, unable to read the card, dreading the Charleston, or plateaued after years of playing. Each one has a different first step.
Brand new
You have not really started. The tiles are unfamiliar, the flow of a turn is unfamiliar, and the card may as well be in another alphabet. Nothing is wrong with you. This game front-loads its jargon.
Stuck on the card
You can follow a game, but the card still reads as rows of symbols rather than hands you could actually build. It is a decoding problem rather than a talent one, which is why it gives way quickly once somebody walks you through the notation.
The Charleston gets you
You know what you are looking at and you still dread passing. Which three go, and what happens if you give away the tile you needed. More hands are decided here than anywhere else in the game.
Plateaued
You play perfectly competently and you stopped getting better a while ago. That happens when practice becomes playing more games rather than training the one skill that separates levels, which is reading a deal.
Not sure which one you are? That is what the quiz above is for, and it takes about a minute. Or skip it: a faster answer is to put a real hand in front of the coach and see which part of the read you cannot do yet. Have a hand read free, or join the Club to keep the coach on call for your own hands.