Mahjong solitaire rules

In Mahjong Solitaire, 144 Mahjong tiles are stacked in a layered pile, and you clear the pile by removing matching pairs. You can only take a tile that is "free": nothing on top of it, and its left or right side open. Any flower matches any other flower, and any season any other season; every other tile needs its identical twin. Clear all 144 tiles to win. Play it now in the free Mahjong Solitaire game.

Mahjong Solitaire vs four-player Mahjong

Searching for "mahjong rules" can turn up two very different games that share the same tiles:

	Mahjong (the original)	Mahjong Solitaire
Players	Usually four	One
Goal	Build a winning hand, a bit like rummy	Clear the pile by matching pairs
Tiles	Drawn and discarded in turns	All laid out in a stacked pile from the start
Skill	Hand building, reading opponents, scoring	Spotting free pairs, planning which pairs to take

Four-player Mahjong is generally dated to 19th-century China and has many regional rule sets. Mahjong Solitaire is much newer: it is commonly credited to Brodie Lockard's 1981 game on the PLATO system, and Activision's 1986 game Shanghai made it widely popular. This guide covers the solitaire game, which is what our free game is.

The tiles

A full set has 144 tiles:

Group	Tiles	How many	How they match
Dots (circles)	1 to 9	4 of each, 36	Same number and suit
Bamboo	1 to 9	4 of each, 36	Same number and suit
Characters	1 to 9	4 of each, 36	Same number and suit
Winds	East, South, West, North	4 of each, 16	Same wind
Dragons	Red, green, white	4 of each, 12	Same dragon
Flowers	4 different	1 of each, 4	Any flower with any flower
Seasons	4 different	1 of each, 4	Any season with any season

So most tiles have three identical partners, which matters for strategy: you often have a choice of which two to pair. Flowers and seasons are the exception, since each picture appears only once.

The layout

The free game uses the classic "turtle" layout. It has five levels: a wide base of 87 tiles, then layers of 36, 16 and 4 tiles, and a single tile on top. A few tiles stick out at the ends of the middle rows, one on the left and two on the right, like the turtle's head and tail.

Mahjong rules for the solitaire game

1. Choose two matching tiles that are both free. Click or tap one, then the other. They disappear.
2. A tile is free when:
   • no tile lies on top of it, even partly, and
   • its left side or its right side is open (there's no tile directly next to it on that side, on the same level). The top and bottom edges don't count. A tile in the middle of a row is blocked until the tiles to its left or right have gone.
3. Matching: identical tiles match. Any flower matches any flower; any season matches any season.
4. Win by clearing all 144 tiles. If no free pair is left, you're stuck.

If you click a second tile that doesn't match the first, the game simply selects the new tile instead, so a mis-tap costs nothing.

Как это сделать play the free Mahjong Solitaire game

1. Open the free Mahjong Solitaire game and press Deal the tiles.
2. Tiles that can't be taken yet are shaded, so the free ones stand out. Turn this off with Shade blocked tiles in the pause menu if you want more of a challenge.
3. Click a free tile, then its match. The selected tile is highlighted in yellow.
4. Hint highlights a matching free pair in pink.
5. Undo takes back the last pair (or the last shuffle).
6. Shuffle re-deals the tiles that are left over the same spaces. The game counts how many times you've shuffled.
7. New deal, in the pause menu, deals a fresh turtle.

The bar above the board shows Tiles left, the clock (starting with your first click) and your Best time, saved in your browser.

On a phone held upright the turtle is dealt standing on end (8 tiles across, 15 down), so every tile fits on the screen and stays large enough to tap without panning. The open sides are then its left and right as you see it.

Can every game be won?

Every deal in our game can be cleared. Each layout is built backwards from a finished game, so at least one order of moves removes every tile. That doesn't mean every order works: take the wrong pair early and you can still end up with "No more matching pairs". When that happens you can Undo back to a better choice, or Shuffle the rest. A shuffle is also arranged so the remaining tiles can still be cleared.

Quick tips for your first games

• Work on the long rows from the ends. Middle tiles stay blocked until the ends are gone.
• Clear the top of the pile early. The single top tile and the layers under it each block several tiles.
• When three or four copies of a tile are free, think before matching. Pick the pair that frees the most tiles.

The Mahjong Solitaire tips go deeper into planning, including how to handle the four copies of each tile. And if you like matching games, the free memory game is a quicker one with cards.

Start a game

Open the free Mahjong Solitaire game, look for a free pair, and start clearing. It runs in your browser with no sign-up, and nothing is sent anywhere.