Practice and Solitaire

When you are a beginner, especially, or when a new card comes out each year, it is helpful to find some ways to become more familiar with the hands on your National Mah Jongg League card. The purpose of these exercises is to build your skill at recognizing hands on the card and improving your speed during play.

You can download these instructions on the downloads page if you want to do so. You may find it easier to read.

Most Mah Jongg “solitaire” games on line are just matching games where you match maj jongg tiles to remove them from a layout in front of you. You win when you remove all the tiles. Unfortunately, that has nothing to do with learning to play the American Mah Jongg game where you must build hands. We suggest the following ideas to practice either by yourself or with one other person.

Building Hands.

This is the exercise we had you do in one of our handouts. Take the current card from the National Mah Jongg League and practice building the hands as many ways as you can from a set of mah jongg tiles turned face up on the table. Don’t try to get all of them. On the 2016 card there was one hand that had 42 ways it could be built even without using jokers. Doing this can help you to see how different tiles can be used in hands. It increases your awareness of how tiles you draw could fit into various hands.

Finding Hands.

Draw 14 tiles from face down tiles in a set in front of you. Put the tiles in your rack and see how many hands you could start with those tiles. Compete against yourself. Draw three sets of tiles and see how many hands you can find tiles which fit each set, give yourself 3 points for each hand with six or more, 2 points for each hand with five and 1 point for each with 4. Keep a record of your score and try to beat it. Remember to be creative and use jokers when you can. If you want a variation, start with one or two jokers in each hand (but remember this may limit the hands you can play).

Solitaire 1. No Calling

Set up your National Mah Jongg League card in front of you and your rack in front of the card. Put all the tiles face down in front of you. Draw 13 tiles and place them on your rack. Move about half the remaining tiles from the table in front of you (or count out 50 of them for a more precise game). Push the remaining tiles aside. Arrange your tiles to give yourself a starting point. Then, draw tiles one at a time from those in front of you. Treat them just as you would tiles you draw during the game. When you draw one, place it in your rack. See if it fits into the hand you have selected or is better than other tiles you already have, then discard a tile face up off to one side. At first, take your time to review your card carefully to be sure you are considering all possibilities before discarding. Change your hand if necessary to better fit the tiles you have. After you have become more experienced, give yourself a time limit to complete a hand using this process, I recommend 20 minutes as a first time limit. The idea here is to help you make your decisions on what to do more quickly.

Solitaire 2. With Calling

Set up is the same initially as in the first version of the game. When you draw your tile either place them in your rack at that time or leave them face down in front of you until you complete the setup for the game. After you have drawn your tiles pick 20 tiles at random and, without looking at them, place them face down on the right side of your play area. These tiles will be dead tiles and will not be used during play.

Second, pick nine tiles and without looking at them, line them up in front of you face down. The remaining tiles can either be built into one or two walls on your left or can be just be face down on your left in a random group – we will call these tiles, whether they are in a wall or just face down randomly as the “draw pile”. (See our first two illustrations below.)

Before you begin play, look at the tiles in your rack and arrange the tiles to help you decide what hand you might play or what group of tiles you might want to keep. Begin play by drawing a tile from the group of 9 tiles in front of you. When you draw a tile, place it in your rack, decide whether it is one you might need and then discard a tile. It can either be the one you drew or any other tile in your hand.

Continue drawing from and discarding from these 9 tiles in front of you until they have all been drawn and you have discarded. This should leave you with 13 tiles in your rack.

At this point you will begin using the tiles in the draw pile. To simulate other players, beginning at this point you will pick up a tile from draw pile and turn it face up on the table. This simulates a draw and discard from another player. If you want to call the tile which is discarded, you may do so. Follow the rules you would during a regular game. You must be able to complete the full set of tiles you need for the hand you are playing to call a tile and you must place that set of tiles exposed on the top of your rack. If you are playing a concealed hand, then you can only call for the final tile you need.

If you do not call the first tile turned up, then pick up a second one from draw pile and place it face up next to the first. (See our third illustration below.) Again, if you want, and are able, to do so, you may call this tile. If not, then draw a tile for you from the draw pile. This third tile will go into your rack and after you have considered whether it might be useful, then discard a tile. Place your discard next to the two previous ones drawn making a row of three tiles.

If you do call a tile, place it with the rest of the set it belongs to (including any jokers, if needed) exposed on the top of your rack. Then discard a tile and place it next to the one or two in the discard row. Since a call interrupts the pattern of draws, always start a new set of three tiles with the next one picked. There will normally be two picks from the draw pile before you get a draw to place in your rack. After you have drawn you want to make sure you return to this pattern, so building a new group of three discards helps remind you of where you are in the process. (Check our illustration below and/or watch the video showing draws and discards in the Solitaire game.)

Continue this pattern of picking two tiles and turning them face up then drawing a tile for your rack (unless, of course, you call a tile) until you either complete a mah jongg or all tiles have been drawn. If you fail to complete a mah jongg, the game wins!

If you want to see what a game might look like, here is a video. It just has a small part of a game in progress. A little too much of my bald head, but I hope it gives you a better idea what the game might be like. If you want to see the full video of the solitaire game instead (it includes this video) it is further down the page.

Video of Mah Jongg Solitare Instructions.