How to Play Mahjong

A mahjong set has three suits, each numbered 1 to 9, with four of every tile. Add the winds, the dragons and eight flowers, and you have a Chinese set of 144 tiles. American mahjong adds eight jokers, for 152.

Chinese and Hong Kong play uses 144 tiles, or 136 without the flowers, and no jokers. Many sets also come with a few spare tiles, such as blanks or extra jokers, so yours may hold more than 152. In American mahjong, Soap also stands in for zero in hands that need one, such as hands that spell out a year.

That is everything you need to start playing. If you want to know what the tiles are pictures of, what the characters say, and how to read a set with no letters on it, we have a page on every tile.

Turn all the tiles face down and shuffle them. Each player then builds a wall in front of their rack, 19 tiles long and two tiles high. In Chinese styles, with 144 tiles, the walls are 18 long. Push the four walls together into a square.

East rolls two dice, counts that many stacks from the right end of their own wall, and breaks the wall there. Nobody deals. Starting with East and going to the right, each player takes four tiles from the break, until everyone holds 12. East then takes two more tiles and everyone else takes one, so East has 14 tiles and the other players have 13.

Before the first turn, American players pass the tiles they don't want to each other. This exchange is called the Charleston. First, pass three tiles to the right, then three across the table, then three to the left.

1. First pass: right
   →
2. Second pass: across
   ↑
3. Third pass: left
   ←

A second round is optional, and it goes the other way: left, across, then right. It happens only if every player agrees, so anyone can stop it after the first round. Last, the players sitting across from each other may swap up to three tiles in a courtesy pass.

On the last pass of each round, you may pass along tiles you were just given without looking at them. This is called a blind pass. Our American mahjong page has the Charleston in full, including how the second round is stopped.

Jokers can never be passed.

East starts by discarding one tile. After that, play moves to the right, and every turn has two moves: take the next tile from the wall, then discard one tile face up in the middle of the table and say its name out loud.

You hold 13 tiles between turns, and 14 during your turn.

You can claim the tile another player just discarded if it completes a set of three or more alike. Call it out loud, take the tile, and lay the whole set face up on top of your rack. Then discard, and play continues to your right, so a player or two may miss a turn.

Jokers can stand in for any tile in a set of three or more, but never in a pair or as a single tile. You can't claim a discard for a pair or a single tile unless it completes your hand. Only the latest discard can be claimed. If two players want it, a claim to win comes first; otherwise the player next in turn gets it.

In Chinese styles you can also claim a discard for a chow, three tiles in a row in one suit, but only from the player on your left. The full rules for claiming a discard, including how long a discard stays open, are on our rules page.

The first player to complete a winning hand says "Mahjong!" and lays the tiles out for everyone to check.

In American mahjong, your 14 tiles must match one of the hands on the National Mah Jongg League's card. The League publishes a new card each spring and sells it. We explain how to read the card, but we never reprint it.

Once you know the basics, our mahjong rules page has the finer points in one place: joker swaps, dead hands, paying the winner, and how the styles differ. If there are only two or three of you, two-player mahjong covers that too, and Chinese mahjong teaches Hong Kong play, one of the most popular styles. Japanese mahjong has its own page, where a finished hand also has to be worth something before it can win. Any word you meet and do not know is in Mahjong Terms.

To find a table near you, our where to play page lists library groups, community centers and clubs that play mahjong, state by state.