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By the end of this page you'll have every rule of American mahjong you need at the table, one line each: the deal, the Charleston, a turn, calling, jokers, mahjong and who pays. The same rules fit on one printable letter page, made to sit beside your rack during your first games.
Each section links to the full lesson if you want the why. If you'd rather follow a whole hand from the wall to the win first, start with how to play American mahjong.
The goal and the tiles
- Four players, a 152-tile set and this year's League card.
- Be the first to build one line of the card exactly, with 14 tiles, then call "mahjong."
- A line is one winning hand. Reading one takes a minute once you know where to look (how to read the mahjong card).
The set: Dots, Bams and Craks run 1 to 9, four of each (108 tiles), plus 16 winds, 12 dragons, 8 flowers and 8 jokers. Every tile, pictured and named, is in American mahjong tiles.
Setup and the deal
- Each player builds a wall 19 tiles long and 2 high; push the four walls into a square.
- The highest dice roll is East, the dealer. East rolls again to choose where to break the wall.
- Deal four tiles at a time, three times, then one each and one extra for East. East holds 14 tiles, everyone else 13.
- After every hand, the deal passes to the right.
The full setup, from the box to the first pass, is in how to set up a mahjong game.
The Charleston rules: right, across, left
Before play starts, everyone trades three tiles at a time, face down, all at once.
- 1RequiredRightThree tiles to the player on your right.
- 2RequiredAcrossThree tiles to the player facing you.
- 3RequiredLeftThree tiles left. A blind pass is allowed.
- ·Your callStop?Any one player may stop here. If nobody does, the second round runs left, across, right.
- Courtesy pass, by agreement: zero to three tiles with the player across. If you disagree on the number, pass the lower one.
- Blind pass: passing on tiles you just received, unseen. Only on the first left and the last right.
- Never pass a joker, in any round.
Every pass, drawn, plus what to give away first: the Charleston, explained. It has its own printable too.
A turn: draw, discard, say it
- East discards first, without drawing (East already has 14).
- Then play goes to the right. Each player draws one tile from the wall, keeps what fits, and discards one tile face up, saying its name ("four bam," "north").
- You end every turn with 13 tiles.
- Once your discard touches the table or you've named it, it's gone.
When can you call a discard?
- To finish a group of identical tiles, three or more (a pung is 3 of the same tile, a kong 4, a quint 5, a sextet 6), in a hand marked X on the card. You lay the group face up on your rack (an exposure), then discard.
- Any tile at all if it gives you mahjong, even for a pair or a single.
- A hand marked C (concealed) can call only for mahjong.
- A discarded joker can never be called.
- If two players call the same tile, mahjong beats an exposure. Otherwise the player next in turn after the discarder gets it.
You have until the next player puts the tile she drew on her rack, discards, declares mahjong or swaps for a joker. Call it out loud.
Joker rules in one line
A joker can stand in for any tile in a group of three or more identical tiles, never in a single or a pair.
- On your turn, you can take a joker out of anyone's exposure by giving its owner the real tile it stands for.
- A discarded joker is dead: nobody can pick it up, not even for mahjong.
- No joker in the year itself (2026 on this year's card): each digit is a single tile.
If you only memorize one rule on this page, make it the pair rule. It's the one that catches everybody in the first month. The rest is in mahjong joker rules.
Mahjong, dead hands and wall games
- Call "mahjong" and lay your whole hand face up so the table can check it against the card. Everyone else keeps their tiles standing until it's checked.
- A wrong mahjong call: if you've already laid your tiles down, your hand is dead; if not, you can take it back.
- Dead hand: your tile count is wrong, or your exposures can't match any line. You stop drawing and discarding, and you still pay the winner.
- Wall game: the wall runs out with no winner. Nobody pays, the deal passes right.
Who pays: the scoring cheat sheet
The value of each hand is printed at the end of its line on the card, usually 25 to 50. At most tables it's counted in cents. Here is a 25 hand:
| How she won | Who pays what |
|---|---|
| On a discard | the player who threw it 50¢ (double), the other two 25¢ each |
| Self-pick (she drew the winning tile from the wall), or by taking a joker | all three 50¢ |
| On a discard, jokerless | the player who threw it $1.00, the other two 50¢ each |
| Self-pick, jokerless | all three $1.00 |
The jokerless bonus counts only if she announces it when she calls mahjong, and a Singles and Pairs hand (which never uses jokers anyway) doesn't get it. Every case worked out, including wall games and dead hands, is in American mahjong scoring.
Print it
The one-page version has all of this in eight boxes, one per stage of the hand. Print it on plain letter paper, or choose "Save as PDF" in the print window to keep it on your phone. Most sets come with four racks (the sets worth buying), and the sheet slips right under one.
American mahjong rules on one pageThe deal, the Charleston, a turn, calling, jokers, mahjong and who pays, on one letter page. Free to print for your table.Get the printable