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Mahjong is a four-player tile game of skill, strategy and luck. Learn what mahjong is, how the tiles work, the main rulesets around the world, and how it differs from the tile-matching games you may have seen online.

Learn how to play mahjong from scratch: build the wall, deal, draw and discard, call pong and kong, and win your first hand. A complete beginner walkthrough with no assumed knowledge.

The complete beginner-friendly guide to mahjong rules. Learn the tiles, the wall, turns, calling, winning hands and scoring — plus a full hand played turn by turn, what happens when nobody wins, and how to choose your first ruleset.

What do mahjong tiles mean? A full guide to the 144 tiles — suits, winds, dragons, flowers and seasons — with the symbols explained for beginners.

How mahjong scoring works across rulesets: faan in Hong Kong, han in Riichi, points in Chinese Official. The common patterns and how to count your hand.

Mahjong is built for four players, but you can play tonight with two or three. Learn exactly what changes: the wall, claiming, the Charleston, sanma, Siamese racks, which tiles to remove, and how scoring adjusts.

A practical mahjong strategy guide: tile efficiency, hand value, reading discards, and when to push or fold. Every number verified against a real scoring engine.

Which starting tiles to keep and which to throw away first. Real shanten counts for the shapes that matter, plus the opening mistakes that quietly cost you the hand.

A practical guide to mahjong defence: reading danger, choosing safe tiles, and knowing when to abandon your own hand. Covers suji, visible copies, and the fold decision.

The ten mistakes that cost beginner mahjong players the most hands, from calling too often to chasing value, each with the correct play and a concrete example.

How to choose what to discard in mahjong: comparing candidate tiles, counting live copies, using the discard pile as a threat map, and handling ties.

From Hong Kong and Riichi to American, Taiwanese and Sichuan — compare every major type of mahjong, what makes each one different, and which style to learn first.

American mahjong and Chinese mahjong are very different games. Compare jokers, hand cards, scoring and tile counts to see which style suits you.

American mahjong is not the game in Chinese mahjong guides. Learn the 152-tile set, the Charleston, jokers, the annual NMJL card, dead hands and how scoring really works — with a full walkthrough of your first hand.

Practical mahjong strategy for beginners: choose a hand direction early, discard honours, read the discard pile, avoid over-calling, and reach ready faster. Beat the bots more often with these tips.

Play mahjong online free — no download, no install. Learn where to play, how the online rules work, and the etiquette of playing against bots and strangers.

The fascinating history of mahjong — its origins in 19th-century China, the 1920s Western craze, its reinvention in Japan and America, and where it stands today.

Learn the etiquette of mahjong — how to handle tiles, when to call, reading the flow, and the social rules that keep the table friendly.