What you can do after one sitting
- Name craks, bams, dots, winds, dragons, flowers, and the joker.
Crak, bam, dot, wind, dragon, flower, joker. - Pass the first Charleston in order, and know when a blind pass is allowed.
Three tiles leave together. These three craks are a clean first pass. - Tell a legal joker group from a pair, a single, or a mix of different tiles.
Two 6 Dots and a joker can stand as a pung. - Call a pung, discard the stranger, and declare when a practice line is complete.
One original practice line: two flowers and even bams. Fourteen tiles.
Jokers never travel in the Charleston.
American mahjong, in one minute
Four people play. Each starts with 13 tiles. Before anyone draws, the table exchanges tiles in a fixed dance called the Charleston. East then draws the 14th tile and discards, unless that draw is already a win. From there, turns move around the table. A discard can be called to complete a group of three or more identical tiles, or to win. There is no chow: you do not call a discard just to build a sequence.
You win with 14 tiles that match one line on the card everyone at the table agreed to use. In National Mah Jongg League play, that card changes every year. This site teaches the motion of the game with original practice lines. It does not reproduce the paid annual card.
Which game were you invited to?
The row at the top of the page is the kind of mahjong. This course is the American one: a Charleston, eight jokers, and a printed line. The other invitations are shorter orientations: Japanese riichi, Hong Kong, Sichuan, Taiwanese, and MCR.
Questions people ask before the first night
Is this the official NMJL card?
No. Study Mahjong is not the National Mah Jongg League and is not affiliated with it. Buy the current authorized card before you play a real game. Our practice lines are teaching recipes we wrote, not this year’s official hands.
What is the Charleston?
It is the opening exchange. The required first round passes three tiles right, then across, then left. A second round, left then across then right, happens only if all four players agree. Jokers are never passed.
How is this different from Chinese mahjong?
The American set has 152 tiles, including eight jokers and eight flowers. Wins are printed lines on a card, not any four melds and a pair. The Charleston does not exist in Chinese mahjong, and a free chow does not exist in American mahjong.