The lessons · lesson 1 of 11

American Mah Jongg basics

The tiles, the four players, who is East, the wall, the deal and the goal. Start here.

1. The tiles

   American Mah Jongg is played with 152 tiles. Most come in three suits, numbered one to nine. There are also winds, dragons, flowers and jokers. The next lesson shows every one of them.

   A 16-second video, with captions.

2. Sort the tiles by suit

   Put each tile with its suit. The number in the corner is its number, and the picture tells you its suit.

   You try it. You build this from a tray of tiles, and a wrong tile tells you why.

3. Who is East, and the wall

   Four people play: you and three opponents. First, each player rolls the dice. The highest roll is East, the dealer for this game. This time, you rolled highest, so you are East. All the tiles are turned face down and mixed. This is called washing. Each player builds a row against their rack: nineteen stacks, two tiles high. The rack is as long as the row. The four rows make up the wall. When a row is needed, its player pushes it toward the middle with the rod on their rack.

   A 36-second video, with captions.

4. The deal

   East rolls again and counts that many stacks from the right end of their row. The wall is split there, and those stacks are saved for the end of the game. The tiles are dealt from the other side of the split. Everyone gets thirteen. East gets fourteen. Your tiles stand on your rack, facing you. Only you can see them.

   A 23-second video, with captions.

5. Find East's rack

   Straight after the deal, East has one more tile than everyone else.

   Which of these racks is East's? Yes. This rack has 14 tiles, one more than everyone else, so it is East's.

6. Play, and how you win

   Before anyone throws a tile, the players pass tiles to each other. This is called the Charleston. Don't worry about it now: it has a whole lesson of its own. East has fourteen tiles, so East starts by throwing one into the middle. Then each player in turn draws one tile from the wall and throws one. A thrown tile is called a discard, and everyone can see it. Every tile drawn comes from the wall, so the wall gets shorter as the game goes on. Each year a card lists the hands that win. You win by making one of them with fourteen tiles and calling Mah Jongg.

   A 41-second video, with captions.