How to Play Mahjong Solitaire
The matching rules, what actually makes a tile free to select, how the classic turtle layout is stacked, and the ordering habits that stop a board from dead-ending halfway through.
Read the Mahjong Solitaire rulesMahjong Guides
Mahjong covers two quite different games that share the same tiles: the solitaire matching puzzle most people meet online, and the four-player table game with its own rules for passing and wild tiles. These guides explain both in plain English, with no jargon assumed. Read one before you play, or keep it open beside a board.
Start here: the solitaire puzzle
What Do Mahjong Tiles Mean?
A tour of all 144 tiles: the three number suits, the Wind and Dragon honors, and the Flower and Season bonus tiles — including how many of each a standard set contains.
Read the tile symbol guideThe four-player table game
American Mahjong keeps the tiles but adds rules that solitaire players never meet. Two of them trip up almost every newcomer, so each has a guide of its own.
The Charleston
The opening tile-passing ritual: the three passes of the first Charleston, when the optional second one happens, and what to hand away when your rack has nothing obvious to discard.
Read the Charleston guideJokers
How many jokers are in the set, which groups they can stand in for, when another player may exchange for one on your rack, and the situations where a joker is worth less than the tile it replaces.
Read the joker guideCommon questions
Is Mahjong Solitaire the same game as Mahjong?
No. Mahjong Solitaire is a one-player matching puzzle built from Mahjong tiles. Traditional Mahjong is a four-player game closer in spirit to rummy, where players draw and discard to build sets. The tiles are shared; almost nothing else is.
Do I need to know the tile symbols to play?
Not for solitaire — matching identical pictures is enough. Knowing the suits helps you scan a crowded board faster, and it becomes necessary once you sit down at a four-player table.
Where can I try what I have read?
Every mode on this site is free and needs no download. Browse the Mahjong puzzle games or go straight to Mahjong Solitaire.