How to Play Mahjong
Mahjong (also known as Mahjong solitaire or Shanghai solitaire) is a single-player matching game that uses a set of mahjong tiles. The objective is to clear the board by matching identical tiles to remove them from the screen.
While Mahjong typically refers to online game Mahjong Solitaire, it’s not to be confused with the original game “Mahjong”, which is a four-player board game popular in China.
On classic-mahjong.com, you can play unlimited Mahjong games for free on your phone, or desktop in full screen.
Objective
Your goal is to remove tiles from the screen by matching tiles with identical images. When two tiles are matched, they disappear from the screen and unlock more previously blocked tiles. You continue to remove tiles until there are no more left, at which point you win the game.
Mahjong Solitaire Rules
Like in any puzzle game, there are some rules the game follows to make it more interesting:
- You can only match open tiles. A tile is considered open if it is not blocked by other tiles above it, and it is not blocked on either of its horizontal sides(tile can “slide out” to the left or right). You can enable open tiles highlighting in the game settings to make it easier to spot open tiles. For example:
- You can only match tiles with identical images. Each tile is assigned a suit. You can match tiles that are of the same suit, with an exception for Season and Flower suit tiles. For example:
- Match any Season and Flower tiles together. Season and Flower tiles all have different suits. You may match any Flower with any other Flower, and you may match any Season with any other Season. For example:
Locked Position
Although all puzzles generated by our game can be solved, you might choose the wrong pair of tiles at some point during the game, leading to a locked position, meaning that there are no more tiles to play.
If you end up in that situation, our game allows you to shuffle the board and continue. Alternatively you can use the undo button to backtrack your moves one by one.
Tiles
Similarly to card games, in Mahjong, tiles are assigned a suit and a rank. There are in total 7 suits: circles, bamboo, symbols, dragons, winds, flowers, and seasons. Ranks differ from suit to suit. There are 9 ranks for circle, bamboo, and symbol tiles, 3 ranks for dragons, and 4 ranks for winds. Season and Flower tiles are considered to be of the same suit and don’t have a rank.
Mahjong Puzzles
You can select from 120 original Mahjong layouts to play. Each layout offers its own unique challenges and some layouts can be more difficult than others. For beginners we recommend to start with the classic Turtle layout. When you want more challenge try other layouts like Fish, Dragon Face and King Midas.
3 Tips to Win Mahjong Solitaire
While Mahjong is a relatively easy and relaxing game, there are some things you might want to look out for if you want to win more games:
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Order Matters. Order in which you remove tiles can greatly impact whether you will get the locked position. If you see only one pair of open tiles, don’t remove them immediately and leave them for later. The tiles won’t go anywhere, and by keeping tiles on the board, you guarantee that you will be able to unlock another pair later in the game.
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Prioritize which pair to remove. Often, during the game, you will have a situation when you have an option to remove many different pairs. How do you choose? Remove the pair that will unlock more tiles first. This way you increase the number of possible tiles to play in the next move.
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Scan from top to bottom. Focus on removing tiles from the top-most layer first. A big stack of tiles can be hard to remove at the end of the game, so getting rid of them at the start is a good idea.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to have Flash Player to play Mahjong?
No, you can play our game without a flash player. Our game uses modern technology called HTML5, which allows it to be played on any device without a Flash player. Mahjong Solitaire is available for iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can play on any platform, as long as it has a modern browser like Google Chrome, Firefox, Edge or Safari.
Can All Mahjong Games be Solved?
Yes! Our version of Mahjong generates only solvable boards, and every game can be won.
Can I play Mahjong without a timer?
If you want to play at a relaxed pace and don’t want an added challenge, you can disable the timer in the game settings.
How many tiles is used in the game?
The number of tiles differs from one version of Mahjong to another and ranges from 136 to 144 tiles. In our version, all puzzles have 144 tiles and 72 pairs. Each pair appears exactly twice in the game. Use that knowledge to your advantage to predict what tiles might be hidden under the stack.
The game doesn’t work.
If the game doesn’t work or there are some problems, ensure you use the latest version of your browser. We support all modern browsers like Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Brave, and Edge. Internet Explorer is not supported, and we recommend upgrading to one of the newer browsers.
If you are still having issues, feel free to contact me at info@classic-mahjong.com, and I will do my best to help you!