American Mahjong is one of the most social and rewarding tabletop games you can learn. If you've been invited to a game, inherited a set, or just keep seeing those beautiful tiles online and want to know what the fuss is about — you're in the right place. This guide takes you from "I've never touched a tile" to "I understand a full hand," in plain English.

American Mahjong (sometimes spelled Mah Jongg) is a four-player game played with tiles. It grew out of the centuries-old Chinese game in the 1920s, and over the following decades it developed its own distinct character — most famously the annual scorecard, the joker tiles, and a tile-passing ritual called the Charleston. By the end of this article, all three will make sense.

What this guide covers

  1. What makes American Mahjong different
  2. The tiles in your set
  3. The goal of the game
  4. Setting up: building the wall
  5. The Charleston explained
  6. Playing a hand: draw, discard, call
  7. How joker tiles work
  8. Declaring Mahjong & scoring
  9. Where to go next

1. What makes American Mahjong different

If you've read about Chinese or Japanese (Riichi) mahjong, set those rules aside for now. The American version has a few features that set it apart, and knowing them up front saves a lot of confusion:

This combination makes the American game especially welcoming for social play. The card does the hard work of remembering hands, so you can focus on strategy and conversation.

2. The tiles in your set

A standard American set has 152 tiles in play (most boxes include a few spares, bringing the total to around 166). They break down into a handful of groups:

The three suits

Each suit has four copies of every number, just like a deck of cards has four of each rank.

Winds and dragons

Flowers and jokers

Quick tip American tiles often have small Latin letters and Arabic numerals added in the corner, which makes them much easier to read while you're learning. You don't need to recognize Chinese characters to play.

3. The goal of the game

Your objective is simple to state: be the first player to build a complete hand that exactly matches one of the patterns printed on this year's NMJL card. Every player holds 13 tiles (the dealer starts with 14), and you improve your hand by drawing and discarding until it matches a target hand on the card.

A winning hand is always 14 tiles total, arranged into the specific groups that one card line requires. Those groups are built from familiar pieces:

Unlike Chinese mahjong, American hands do not use runs of consecutive numbers in a single suit (a "chow") as a standard building block. Instead you follow the exact recipe the card gives you.

4. Setting up: building the wall

Four players sit around a square table. Seats are assigned the winds — East, South, West, North — going counter-clockwise, and the East player is the dealer for the first hand.

To set up:

  1. Turn all tiles face down and shuffle them thoroughly (this is the satisfying "twittering of the sparrows" sound the game is named for).
  2. Each player builds a wall in front of their rack — a row of tiles stacked two high.
  3. The East player rolls the dice to decide where to "break" the wall.
  4. Going counter-clockwise, each player draws tiles until everyone has 13 — except East, who takes 14.

If the dealer happens to draw a complete hand right away, they may declare Mahjong immediately. Otherwise, the game pauses for the Charleston.

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5. The Charleston explained

This is the part that confuses every newcomer, so let's take it slowly. The Charleston is a structured exchange where players pass three unwanted tiles at a time, hoping to receive tiles that better fit the hand they're chasing. It happens before normal play begins.

The first Charleston goes in this order, three tiles each time:

  1. Pass three tiles right.
  2. Pass three tiles across the table.
  3. Pass three tiles left.

If all four players agree, a second Charleston follows, in reverse: left, across, right. On the very last pass, a player is allowed a "blind pass" — moving tiles along without looking at them if they don't have three they want to give up.

Why it matters The Charleston is where good players quietly set up their whole game. Because you choose which tiles to give away, you're shaping not just your own hand but, indirectly, everyone else's. It rewards thinking a couple of steps ahead.

After the Charleston, there's sometimes an optional "courtesy pass," where the two players sitting across from each other swap an agreed number of tiles (zero to three). Then real play begins.

6. Playing a hand: draw, discard, call

Play moves counter-clockwise. On your turn, the basic rhythm is:

  1. Draw a tile from the wall.
  2. Discard a tile you don't need, placing it face up in the center and naming it aloud.

That's the loop. But there's an important twist: calling. When a player discards a tile, any other player can claim it — out of turn — if it completes a pung, kong, or quint in their hand. (You can't call a discard to complete a single or a pair.)

When you call a tile, you have to expose that group face up on top of your rack for everyone to see. That's a trade-off: calling speeds up your hand, but it tells your opponents exactly what you're building. Play then resumes to the right of the player who called.

Exposed vs. concealed hands

A hand you build entirely from your own draws, never calling a discard, stays concealed — and concealed hands generally score more. A hand where you've called and exposed groups is an exposed hand. The card tells you which hands are allowed to be exposed and which must stay concealed.

7. How joker tiles work

Jokers are powerful but come with clear rules:

Common mistake New players often try to use a joker to finish a pair, or in a Singles & Pairs hand. Jokers never count there. When in doubt, remember: jokers live in groups of three or more, never in pairs or singles.

8. Declaring Mahjong & scoring

The instant your 14 tiles match a hand on the card, you call "Mahjong!" and reveal your tiles. You can declare on a tile you draw yourself, or by calling the final tile from another player's discard.

Scoring in American Mahjong is refreshingly straightforward compared with other variants, because the card does the math for you. Every hand line on the card has a point value printed beside it — easier, more common hands are worth fewer points; rarer, harder hands are worth more. When you win, you collect that hand's value from each of the other three players.

There are a few common bonuses and table rules that groups may use, such as paying extra for a fully concealed win or for drawing your own winning tile. These vary from table to table, so it's always worth confirming house rules before you start.

A note on the card The specific hands and their point values are the NMJL's copyrighted material, and they change every year. We won't reproduce the card here — you'll want an official current card to play, available from the NMJL. Our guide to reading the card walks through how to interpret it once you have one.

What you need to start playing

To run a real game you'll want a complete American set (tiles, racks, pushers, and jokers) plus a current scorecard for each player. If you're shopping for your first set, our buyer's guide covers what's worth your money:

★

A complete beginner's set

Look for a 166-tile American set that includes four racks with pushers and eight jokers — that's everything four people need to sit down and play.

See our recommended sets →

9. Where to go next

You now understand the full shape of an American Mahjong game — the tiles, the goal, the Charleston, calling and exposing, jokers, and how a win is scored. The best way to make it click is to play a few hands; everything above settles into muscle memory faster than you'd expect.

When you're ready to go deeper, these guides pick up where this one leaves off:

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