American mahjong is played by four people using 152 tiles, four racks, and the current National Mah Jongg League card. You are dealt 13 tiles, exchange tiles through the Charleston, then draw and discard in turn until someone assembles 14 tiles matching a hand printed on the card. A full hand takes 10 to 20 minutes.
This guide covers everything needed to sit down and play a first game: what you need, how to set up, the Charleston, how turns work, what you can call, how jokers behave, and how a hand ends. It assumes no prior knowledge of any mahjong variant.
One thing to know before starting. American mahjong has a steeper first hour than most games and a gentler second one. The card is the obstacle, and once it stops looking like code the rest of the game is straightforward.
What Do You Need to Play American Mahjong?
Six things, and only one of them is complicated.
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Four players | The game is built for exactly four |
| 152 tiles | 108 suit tiles, 16 winds, 12 dragons, 8 flowers, 8 jokers |
| Four racks with pushers | About 18.5 inches each, to hold tiles and build the wall |
| NMJL card | One per player, current year |
| Two dice | To set the dealer and break the wall |
| A table 34 inches square or larger | Four racks need roughly 18.5 inches per side plus corners |
A mat is optional and universally adopted, because tiles on a bare table are loud and the wall slides. Detail on table fit is in the guide to what size table you need for mahjong, and the full contents of a set are broken down in what is actually in an American mahjong set.
The card is not optional and it cannot be improvised. American mahjong has no valid hands outside the ones printed on the current year's card, so a table without cards cannot play. Order one per player from the National Mah Jongg League well before your first game. A new card is issued every spring, typically in April.
How Do You Set Up the Table?
Four steps, and the whole thing takes about three minutes once a group has done it twice.
1. Seat and shuffle
Seats are named East, South, West, and North, running counter-clockwise. East is the dealer. Groups often draw a wind tile to decide who starts as East, then rotate the dealer each hand.
Turn all 152 tiles face down on the mat and shuffle with flat palms until they are thoroughly mixed. This is the loudest part of the evening and there is no quiet way to do it.
2. Build the walls
Each player builds a wall in front of their rack: 19 stacks, two tiles high, which is 38 tiles per player and 152 across the table. Push the four walls together to form a square.
3. Break the wall
East rolls the dice. The total determines which player's wall is broken, counting East as one and continuing counter-clockwise around the table. Count that same number of stacks in from the right end of the chosen wall and break there. Table conventions vary slightly on this step, so agree the method once and keep it.
4. Deal
Starting from the break and moving counter-clockwise, players take four tiles at a time for three rounds, giving each player 12 tiles, then one more each to reach 13. East takes an extra tile and holds 14, because East will make the first discard.
Stand your tiles on the rack facing you, sorted by suit. Keeping pairs adjacent will save time in the next step.
What Is the Charleston?
A structured exchange of tiles that happens after the deal and before play. It is unique to American mahjong and it exists because a random 13 tiles almost never resembles anything on the card.
There are up to six passes of three tiles each, in the order right, across, left, left, across, right. All four players pass simultaneously and face down. The first three passes are required. The last three are optional and any single player can stop them without giving a reason. Afterwards, players sitting opposite each other may make one courtesy pass of one to three tiles if both agree.
Two rules matter more than the rest. Jokers can never be passed at any point in the Charleston. And on the final pass of each set of three, you may blind pass, meaning you hand along tiles you just received without looking at them. Full mechanics and passing strategy are in the guide to the Charleston explained.
Before the Charleston begins, pick two or three candidate hands off the card rather than one. Your tiles will change substantially over six passes, and committing to a hand based on the deal is the most common beginner error.
How Does a Turn Work?
Play begins with East discarding one tile from their 14 and naming it aloud. After that, every turn is the same two actions.
- Draw. Take the next tile from the wall.
- Discard. Place one tile face up in the center and say its name out loud.
Play moves counter-clockwise, to the right. Your hand sits at 13 tiles between turns and briefly reaches 14 after you draw. Naming discards aloud is not politeness, it is a rule: other players need to hear the tile in order to claim it.
The hand continues until someone wins or the wall runs out. If the wall is exhausted with no winner, the hand is a wall game and nobody scores.
What Can You Call in American Mahjong?
You may claim the most recently discarded tile if it completes a group of three or more identical tiles: a pung of three, a kong of four, a quint of five, or a sextet of six.
Say "call" before the next player draws, take the tile, and lay the completed group face up on the sloping front of your rack where everyone can see it. Then discard, and play resumes with the player to your right. This means calling can skip players' turns.
Two limits are essential:
- You cannot call a sequence. There is no chow in American mahjong. Consecutive Run hands exist on the card, but their tiles have to be drawn or received in the Charleston, never claimed from a discard. This is the rule that most surprises players coming from Chinese mahjong, and other differences are covered in American vs Chinese mahjong.
- You cannot call on a concealed hand. Card lines marked C must be drawn entirely by you. The single exception is the final tile that completes the hand, which you may claim in order to declare mahjong.
Anyone may call a discard to complete a winning hand, and that claim takes priority over a claim for a pung or kong.
How Do Jokers Work?
A joker substitutes for any tile inside a group of three or more. It can sit in a pung, kong, quint, or sextet. It cannot be used as a single tile or inside a pair, and it can never be part of a flower pair.
Jokers also move during play. If another player has an exposed group containing a joker, you may swap the real tile from your hand for that joker on your turn, taking the joker into your own hand. This is called redeeming, and it is one of the few ways to gain a joker after the deal.
Because pairs and singles cannot take jokers, the Singles and Pairs section of the card is the hardest on it. More detail is in the guide to mahjong jokers and blanks.
How Do You Win a Hand?
Assemble 14 tiles that exactly match one hand printed on the current card, then declare mahjong out loud and expose your tiles for the table to verify.
Exactly is the operative word. The pattern must match, the suit relationships must match, and the concealed or exposed requirement must have been respected throughout. There are no partial credits and no hands off the card. If your exposures make every hand on the card impossible, your hand can be declared dead and you sit out the remainder while play continues.
Reading a card line means reading five things: the tile groups, the colors that indicate which groups share a suit, any note in parentheses, the C or X marking, and the point value. Colors on the card never mean specific suits. Same color means same suit, different colors mean different suits, and you choose which actual suits to use. Full detail is in the guide to how to read the NMJL card.
How Is American Mahjong Scored?
The card does the work. Each printed hand carries a fixed value, generally 25, 30, 35, 40, or 50 points, with higher values marking harder hands.
The winner collects that value from each of the other three players. The amount doubles when the winner draws the winning tile themselves, in which case all three pay double, and for the player who discarded the winning tile, who pays double while the other two pay the base amount.
There is no minimum score to reach and no calculation to argue about, which is one reason American mahjong works well as a social game. Many casual groups play for pennies or for nothing at all.
What Do Beginners Get Wrong?
Six mistakes account for most first-game frustration.
- Committing to a hand before the Charleston. The deal is noise. Wait until passing is finished.
- Passing a joker. Against the rules, and it throws away the most useful tile in the game.
- Calling a discard on a concealed hand. Check for C or X before you call anything.
- Breaking pairs. American hands are built on matched groups rather than runs, so pairs are worth more than near-sequences.
- Chasing a 50 point hand. A completed 25 point hand beats an unfinished masterpiece every time.
- Refusing to pivot. If you are eight turns in and no closer, look at your tiles fresh and find a different line on the card.
How Long Does It Take to Learn?
The mechanics take one evening. Drawing, discarding, calling, and the Charleston sequence are all learnable in a single session, and most groups find that hands four onward move at a normal pace.
The card takes a season. Recognizing hands on sight, knowing which are joker-friendly, and reading what opponents are building from their exposures all come from repetition. Plan for a few months of playing regularly before the card feels comfortable, and note that a new one arrives every spring, so the process partly repeats.
The fastest way through it is a standing weekly game. Practical guidance on setting one up is in how to host a mahjong night, and if you cannot reliably field four players, the adjustments are covered in playing mahjong with 3 players.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many players do you need for American mahjong?
Four. The game is built around four seats, four racks, and a wall divided four ways, and every hand on the card assumes four players. Three-player and five-player variations exist as house adaptations.
How many tiles are in an American mahjong set?
A standard American set has 152 tiles: 36 Bams, 36 Craks, 36 Dots, 16 winds, 12 dragons, 8 flowers, and 8 jokers. A Chinese set has 144 or 136 and no jokers.
Can you play American mahjong without the NMJL card?
No. Winning hands are defined only by the card, so there is nothing to build toward without one. Every player needs their own copy of the current year's card.
Can a joker be used in a pair?
No. Jokers only substitute inside groups of three or more tiles. Pairs, singles, and flower pairs must be made of real tiles.
How long does a game of American mahjong take?
A single hand runs 10 to 20 minutes for experienced players and 25 to 30 for beginners. A typical evening covers four to six hands across about three hours.
Is American mahjong the same as the tile-matching game on phones?
No. Mahjong solitaire is a single-player tile-matching puzzle that uses mahjong tiles. American mahjong is a four-player draw and discard game with no relation to it beyond the artwork.
Your First Game: The Short Version
- Four players, 152 tiles, four racks, one card each, two dice.
- Shuffle, build walls of 19 stacks two high, roll to break, deal 13 tiles and 14 to East.
- Charleston: right, across, left, then optionally left, across, right. Never pass a joker.
- East discards first. Then draw one, discard one, moving counter-clockwise.
- Call discards only to complete groups of three or more, and only on hands marked X.
- Jokers work in groups of three or more, never in pairs.
- Win by matching a card hand exactly with 14 tiles. Declare mahjong out loud.
American mahjong has been played to an annually rewritten card since the National Mah Jongg League was founded in New York City in 1937, and the structure has barely changed since. If you want the story behind that, it is in the history of American mahjong. If you are ready to buy a set, start with what to look for in a beginner set.
Shop Starter Kits
Everything in This Guide, in One Box
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