On this page
To set up a game of American mahjong, take the 152 tiles you play with out of the box, mix them face down, and have each of the four players build a wall 19 tiles long and 2 tiles high in front of her rack. Then roll the dice to choose East, East breaks her wall, and everyone picks tiles until East holds 14 and the other three hold 13.
It sounds like more than it is. Here is every step, in the order you do them at the table.
What you need on the table
- One American set, with jokers (what's in a set). If you're still shopping, here are the American sets worth buying.
- Four racks, the long stands that hold your tiles facing you. Most come with a pusher, an arm that clips on the back of the rack to slide your wall toward the middle.
- This year's card from the National Mah Jongg League, one for each player (how to read it).
- The dice from the box.
- A square table, ideally with a mat on it: the wall slides better and the tiles stay quiet (which mat fits your table).
Sit one player on each side of the table. The seats have names: East is the dealer, South sits on East's right, West across from East, and North on East's left. Play always goes to the right, from East to South, and so on around.
1. Count out 152 tiles
Many sets sold today have more than 152 tiles: a couple of spare jokers and a few blank tiles, kept as replacements. For a game played to the League's rules, put the blanks back in the box and keep exactly eight jokers.
2. Mix the tiles face down
Turn every tile face down in the middle of the table and mix them with both hands, everyone at once. Keep them face down the whole time: a tile that flips over gets turned back and mixed in.
3. Build the wall
Each player builds a wall in front of her own rack: 19 tiles long and 2 tiles high, so 19 stacks of two. Four walls of 38 tiles use all 152.
Line your wall up along the front of your rack, angled a little so its ends touch the walls on either side: the four walls make a square. Leave them there for now. Each wall gets pushed toward the middle only when the pick reaches it, East's first.
4. Choose East
For the first hand, everyone rolls the dice, and the highest roll is East, the dealer. After that, nobody rolls for it: when a hand ends, the deal passes to the right, and the player on East's right becomes the new East.
How do you break the wall in mahjong?
East rolls the dice and counts that many stacks along her own wall, starting from its right end and going left. She separates the wall there: that gap is the break.
- The stacks to the right of the break stay where they are. They're the last tiles anyone will draw in this hand.
- East pushes the rest of her wall, the part to the left of the break, toward the middle with her pusher (or her hands), so everyone can reach it.
Rolling for the break is there for fairness, like cutting a deck of cards: nobody can stack good tiles where the deal begins.
How do you deal in American mahjong?
In American mahjong, East doesn't hand out tiles: each player picks her own, starting just left of the break and taking the tiles in order along the wall.
- East takes two stacks, four tiles, from just left of the break.
- South takes the next two stacks, then West, then North.
- Go around three times. Everyone now has 12 tiles.
- East takes two single tiles: the top tile of the next stack and the top tile of the stack after that (skip the one in between). Then South, West and North take one tile each.
That leaves East with 14 tiles and everyone else with 13. When a wall runs out, the pick carries on along the next wall to the left, and whoever sits behind that wall pushes it toward the middle.
Keep your tiles in their stacks, face down, until all the tiles are picked. Picking up tiles while others are still reaching across the table is how tiles get knocked over and seen.
Stand your tiles on the rack
Once the pick is over, stand your tiles up on your rack, facing you. Then sort them, so you can see what you have and match it against the card.
Honestly, I'd count my tiles before the Charleston every single time: 14 if you're East, 13 if you're not. A wrong count can leave you with a dead hand, one that can't win (what a dead hand is), so it's worth five seconds before the first pass.
Fewer than four players
The setup barely changes. With three of you, all four walls still get built and nobody picks for the empty seat (how to play with three players). With two, you can play Siamese mahjong, where each of you plays two racks (two-player mahjong).
Next: the Charleston
Your tiles are racked and sorted, and East says "first right." That's the Charleston, the three rounds of passing that happen before the first discard: here it is, pass by pass, with every direction drawn. After that, the rest of the hand is in how to play American mahjong, start to finish.
