American mahjong

American mahjong is the version played at most US clubs and game nights. It uses the same tiles as the Chinese game, plus jokers, and three things make it different: every hand must come from the card, the game starts with the Charleston, and jokers fill gaps in your sets.

The set: 152 tiles

• Three suits, 1 to 9, four of each: dots, bams (bamboo) and cracks (characters).
• Winds (16) and dragons (12). Each dragon goes with a suit: red with cracks, green with bams, white (“soap”) with dots. Soap also counts as zero.
• Eight flowers and eight jokers.

See every tile in the mahjong tiles guide. American sets usually come with racks that hold each player’s tiles; the mahjong set guide covers what to buy.

The card

Each spring the National Mah Jongg League publishes a new card listing that year’s winning hands, grouped into sections such as the year (for example 2026), 2468, like numbers, quints, consecutive runs, 13579 and winds and dragons. A hand you build must match one line exactly. Each line shows whether the hand may be exposed (X) or must stay concealed (C), and what it pays. The card is copyrighted, so buy it from the NMJL; see how to read a mahjong card.

The Charleston

Before play, everyone passes unwanted tiles to shape their hand toward a line on the card:

1. First Charleston (required): pass three tiles right, then three across, then three left.
2. Second Charleston (optional, any player can stop it): three left, three across, three right.
3. Courtesy pass (optional): trade zero to three tiles with the player across.

Jokers may never be passed.

Playing a hand

1. East starts with 14 tiles and discards; everyone else has 13. Play goes to the right.
2. On your turn, draw from the wall and discard one tile, naming it aloud.
3. You can call a discard to complete a pung, kong or quint, which you then expose on your rack, or to win.
4. You can’t call a discard for a single tile or a pair unless it completes your winning hand.

Joker rules

• A joker can replace any tile in a group of three or more identical tiles: a pung, kong, quint or sextet.
• A joker can never be used in a single or a pair.
• On your turn, if another player has exposed a joker, you can swap in the real tile it stands for and take the joker.

Winning and paying

Call “mahjong” when your 14 tiles match a hand on the card. The player who discarded your winning tile pays you double the hand’s value and the others pay single; if you drew it yourself, everyone pays double. Many groups double again for a hand with no jokers. A player who exposes sets that can’t match any hand on the card has a dead hand and stops playing until the next game.

Play mahjong online

American mahjong needs the year’s NMJL card, which can’t be reproduced. To practice drawing, discarding and calling tiles against the computer, play Hong Kong mahjong: the same tiles and table play, without jokers or the card.

Practice the tiles

Spotting tiles quickly is half of mahjong. A few rounds of mahjong solitaire or the daily challenge is an easy way to learn them.

Questions

What is the mahjong card?

A list of the hands you may win with, published every year by the National Mah Jongg League (NMJL). Every winning hand must match a line on the current card, which is why players buy a new card each spring.

How many tiles are in an American mahjong set?

152: the 144 tiles of a Chinese set, with all eight bonus tiles used as flowers, plus eight jokers.

Can you play American mahjong with two people?

Yes, with house rules; see 2 player mahjong. Groups of two or three usually skip passes to empty seats in the Charleston and otherwise play as normal; four is standard.

Can jokers be used in a pair?

No. Jokers can stand in for any tile in a group of three or more identical tiles, but never in a single tile or a pair.

What is the Charleston?

A series of tile passes before play starts: three tiles to the right, across and left, then optionally left, across and right, and finally an optional courtesy pass across.