Mahjong rules
Mahjong Solitaire is played with a set of 144 Mahjong tiles arranged in a specific layout (often a turtle shape).
Tiles are stacked in layers, with some tiles partially or fully covering others.
Objective
The goal is to remove all tiles from the layout by matching pairs of identical tiles.
Tiles
- Dots (1 to 9)
- Bamboo (1 to 9)
- Characters (1 to 9)
- Winds (North, East, South, West)
- Dragons (Red, Green, White)
- Flowers (four tiles with different floral designs)
- Seasons (four tiles with different seasonal designs)
Except the Flower and Season tiles, each tile appears four times.
Matching
A pair of tiles may be matched if they are free (also called open) and identical (e.g. two 5 of Bamboo).
A tile is free if no tile is on top of it (even partially) and at least one of its left or right sides is free from adjacent tiles.
For Flowers and Seasons, any Flower matches any Flower, and any Season matches any Season (since each design is unique).
Game end
The game is won by successfully removing all tiles from the board following the matching rules.