What Is Mahjong?

What type of game is mahjong?

Mahjong is a tile game. You play with small tiles, not cards. The tiles have numbers, symbols and pictures on them.

It is a game of skill, strategy and luck. Luck decides which tiles you get. Skill decides what you keep and what you throw away. People often compare it to the card game rummy.

What are mahjong tiles?

An American set has 7 kinds of tiles, 152 in all. A Chinese set has 144 tiles and no jokers.

• Dots, bams and craks: the 3 suits. Bams is short for bamboo, and craks for characters. Each suit runs from 1 to 9, with 4 of each tile. That makes 36 per suit.
• Winds: East, South, West and North, 16 in all.
• Dragons: red, green and white, 12 in all.
• Flowers: 8 in all. Chinese sets split them into 4 flowers and 4 seasons.
• Jokers: 8 wild tiles in American sets. A joker can stand in for another tile, but only in a group of 3 or more alike.

What is the object of mahjong?

The object of mahjong is to be the first player to build a winning hand. That is the purpose of every game.

In most styles, you hold 13 tiles. On each turn, you take a tile, then discard one. A discard is a tile you throw away, face up. When one more tile completes your hand, you win.

What counts as a winning hand depends on the style.

• Chinese styles: 4 sets plus a pair, 14 tiles in all. A set is 3 or 4 matching tiles, or 3 in a row in one suit.
• American mahjong: 14 tiles that match one hand on this year's card. The National Mah Jongg League prints a new card each year.

How is mahjong played?

Mahjong is played by drawing and discarding tiles until someone wins. Here are the steps.

1. Build the wall. Players mix the tiles. Then they build a square wall of tiles, 2 tiles high.
2. Take your tiles. Each player takes 13 tiles. The dealer, called East, takes 14.
3. Swap tiles. In American mahjong, players pass tiles to each other first. This swap is called the Charleston.
4. Take turns. East discards first. Then each player takes a tile and discards one. Play moves to the right, or counterclockwise.
5. Take a discard. You may claim the last discard to finish a set or to win.
6. Win. The first player to finish a winning hand wins. In American play, you call out "Mah Jongg."

See every step in our guide on how to play mahjong.

What is mahjong called in Chinese and English?

In English, the game is called mahjong. You will also see it spelled mah jongg or mah-jong. The National Mah Jongg League uses mah jongg.

In Mandarin Chinese today, the game is called majiang. Its first name was maque, which means sparrow. Some say shuffled tiles sound like chattering sparrows. Read more in our guide to mahjong history.