Lesson 2 of 5Next: The Charleston
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What is a mahjong card?
Every line on the American mahjong card is one winning hand: fourteen tiles, written in a kind of shorthand. To win, you build one of those lines exactly, and the first player to do it calls "mahjong."
The shorthand is the hard part. Once you know what the colors, the letters and the little marks at the end mean, any line on any year's card reads the same way.
Where to get the 2026 card
The card comes from the National Mah Jongg League, which publishes a new one every year. The League sells the 2026 card for $14 (standard size, 5 1/8 by 4 inches) or $15 (large size, easier to read) on its website, nationalmahjonggleague.org (League prices, checked October 2026). New cards go out in the spring, and many clubs and synagogues take group orders for the League ahead of time.
We don't reprint the card here (it belongs to the League), and every example on this page is drawn for teaching, not copied from it.
Anatomy of one line
Here is an example line, drawn with tiles, and what each mark tells you:
- Flowers. On the card they're written as F. Any flower counts: all eight are the same tile in the American game.
- Colors mean suits, not specific suits. One color is one suit, a second color is a different suit. Here the three colors mean three different suits, but which suit goes with which color is up to you. Don't read the card's red as Craks or its green as Bams.
- A single tile. A tile written once has to be the real tile. No joker can stand in for it.
- X or C, then the value. X means you may expose groups by calling discards; C means the whole hand stays concealed. The number is what the hand is worth, here 25.
So this example asks for: a pair of flowers, three 2s in one suit, four 4s in a second suit, four 6s in the third suit, and a single 8 in that same third suit. Jokers can go in the 2s, the 4s and the 6s, but not in the flowers or the single 8.
Colors on the card
The colors are what confuse people most, so here's the rule again: the card uses colors to show which groups are in the same suit and which are in different suits. Two groups printed in the same color go in the same suit. Groups in different colors go in different suits. The actual suit is your choice.
Dragons follow their suit too. On the card, a dragon printed in a group's color is the dragon that goes with that suit: Red with Craks, Green with Bams, Soap with Dots.
Letters and numbers
- 1 to 9 are the numbers of the suit tiles.
- N, E, W, S are the four winds.
- D is a dragon, in the color of its group.
- F is a flower.
- 0 is a Soap, the white dragon, used as zero (that's how years are spelled). As a zero it belongs to no suit, whatever color it's printed in.
Some lines carry a note in parentheses, like "any 2 suits" or "any like numbers." Read it before you plan: it can widen what the line allows, or narrow it.
The sections of the card
Lines are grouped under headings, and most years use the same families: the year, even numbers (2468), any like numbers, quints, consecutive runs, odd numbers (13579), winds and dragons, 369, singles and pairs, and in some years an Addition Hands section. A heading tells you what all its lines have in common, so when you look at your rack, start with the heading that matches most of your tiles.
X or C: why it matters
An X hand lets you call another player's discard to complete a group, then lay that group face up on your rack. A C hand never shows anything until you win: the only discard you can call is the last tile, for mahjong. Concealed hands are usually worth more, because you can't get help from the table.
The short version
Each line is one hand of fourteen tiles. Same color means same suit, different colors mean different suits. Single tiles and pairs are always natural, never jokers. And the X or C at the end tells you whether you can call discards, followed by what the hand is worth.
Next, see how players trade toward a line before the game starts: the Charleston, explained. And before your first game, check where jokers can and can't go.
