Play with friends, bots, or both. New to mahjong? The coach and the guide have you covered.
Then pick Coach or Hard mode, and fill the chairs with friends, bots, or both.
Friends join with this code (or the link). Add bots to the chairs you want filled; any chair still empty gets a bot when you start.
Mahjong is a bit like the card game rummy, played with tiles. Four players sit around a table. Everyone holds 13 tiles. On your turn you take one tile and throw one away, trying to turn your 13 tiles into a complete hand. The first to finish shouts "Mahjong!" and wins the hand.
A game is a few hands (you pick how many). Whoever has the most points at the end wins.
There are 136 tiles: four copies of each of these 34.
Three suits, numbered 1 to 9. Like the hearts and spades of cards:
Honor tiles have no numbers, so they can't make runs, only groups of the same tile:
How to read them: Dots and Bamboo: count the circles or sticks (the 1 of Bamboo is a bird). Characters: the top is a Chinese number (δΈ 1, δΊ 2, δΈ 3, ε 4, δΊ 5, ε 6, δΈ 7, ε « 8, δΉ 9) above θ¬, "ten thousand". Winds: ζ± East, ε South, θ₯Ώ West, ε North. Dragons: δΈ Red, ηΌ Green, and the empty frame is White. Stuck? Hold your finger or mouse on a tile to see its name, or press 12 at the top of the table to show small numbers on the tiles.
A winning hand is 14 tiles: four sets + one pair. A set is one of:
Here is a complete winning hand:
One special hand also wins: seven pairs (seven different pairs, nothing else).
Play goes around the table: you, then the player on your right, and so on.
When someone throws a tile, you can sometimes take it instead of waiting for your draw. Buttons pop up when you can:
If several people want the same tile: Mahjong beats Pung/Kong, which beats Chow. After a Pung or Chow, it's your turn: throw a tile (no draw). The set you grabbed goes face up in front of you and can't be changed.
If you get four of a tile on your own, you can declare a hidden Kong on your turn. And if you already have a face-up Pung, you can add the fourth tile to it when you draw it.
If the wall runs out before anyone wins, the hand is a draw: no points change.
A winning hand is worth 1 point + its fan (bonus points for special features):
| Self-drawn (you drew the winning tile yourself) | 1 |
| Concealed hand (you never grabbed anyone's tile) | 1 |
| All chows (every set is a run) | 1 |
| Pung of any dragon (each) | 1 |
| Pung of your seat wind / of the round wind | 1 each |
| Last tile of the wall, or winning on a kong's bonus tile | 1 |
| All pungs (no runs at all) | 3 |
| Half flush (one suit + honors) | 3 |
| Seven pairs | 4 |
| Full flush (one suit only) | 7 |
| All honors (only winds and dragons) | 10 |
Who pays: if you win on someone's thrown tile, that player pays 3Γ your hand's value. If you draw it yourself, each of the other three pays 1Γ.
Winds: each player has a seat wind (the dealer is East, then South, West, North around the table), and each round has a wind too (the first 4 hands are the East round). If the dealer doesn't win a hand, the dealer moves on to the next player.
These are simplified Hong Kong rules, the style most people learn first. Bigger tables use flower tiles, minimum points to win and many more special hands; we left those out so you can start playing right away.
The host picks one when setting up the table.
Coach mode has no clock: take as long as you like. Bots play slowly so you can see what they do, and the coach helps: it puts a β on the tile it would throw, says how close you are to winning, and tells you whether grabbing a tile is a good idea.
Hard mode has no coach and a clock on every move (the host picks 5 to 60 seconds). When it runs out, your newest tile is thrown for you. Grab buttons have a shorter clock: if you don't press in time, you pass. Miss two turns in a row and a bot plays for you until you tap I'm back.