How to Play Mah Jongg Solitaire

Mah Jongg solitaire is played with small white tiles.

Mah Jongg solitaire is a single-person game played with a set of 144 small tiles. These tiles are stacked into one of several possible designs, and the player's goal is to clear the entire board by removing the tiles two at a time in matching pairs. Though the concept might seem simple, winning a game of Mah Jongg solitaire can be quite difficult, and novice players typically find they are left with several tiles on the board after they have exhausted the available moves.

Instructions

1. Identify the tiles that are free to be removed. You cannot remove a Mah Jongg tile unless at least one of its vertical sides is completely unobstructed and has no other tiles on top of it.

2. Find matching pairs of unobstructed tiles. A complete Mah Jongg set consists of 144 tiles. The majority of these are suit tiles which can be divided into three suits -- bamboo, circle and character. Each of these suits has a range of nine distinct tiles representing the numbers one through nine. Each number is represented four times within the suit, for a total of 36 tiles in each suit. This gives you two possible pairs of identical tiles. In addition to the suits, you also have two types of honor tiles -- wind and dragon. You have four types of wind tiles representing the four directions, with four of each direction for a total of 16 tiles. The dragon set consists of three types of dragon tiles with four of each for a total of 12. Finally, your set contains eight bonus tiles. Four of these are flowers and four are seasons. Each bonus tile is distinct, so there are no identical matches. You can pair a flower with any other flower and a season with any other season.

3. Remove tiles from the board, two at a time. If you are playing Mah Jongg solitaire on a computer, you will do this by clicking on the two tiles that you want to remove. Removing tiles typically will reveal new tiles beneath. If you have three of the same tile available for removal, you must look at the tiles beside them to determine which two are most beneficial to the game when removed.

4. Continue removing tiles in pairs until you have cleared the board or have no options left. Computer versions of the game will often tell you when you are out of moves. These also might give you the option of "shuffling" your tiles to move them around and reveal new pairs.

References

• Solitaire MahJongg: "Rules"
• Ultimate Mah Jong: "How to Play"
• Mahjong: "Mahjong Tiles"