Mahjong FAQ: Learn More About This Popular Tile Game

Mahjong is a tile game that blends skill, strategy and luck. It’s similar to card games such as gin rummy, where the objective is to be the first player to build a winning tile combination by selecting and discarding tiles.

In China, estimates put the number of game variants at more than 30!  The National Mah Jongg League standardized American Mah Jongg in1937. The World Mahjong Organization is the international governing body of the variation known as Mahjong Competition Rules. Here in North America, American Mahjong is the most popular version among players.

Mahjong tiles are made up of three suits of one through nine: Craks (also called Characters, Wan (or Ten Thousand), Bams (also called Bamboos or Sticks), and Dots (also called Balls or Circles). The other tiles include Winds, Dragons, and Flowers. In American Mahjong, Seasons tiles are referred to as Flowers, and Jokers are wildcard tiles.

At Crisloid, we craft Mahjong sets that are designed in-house, and we also occasionally collaborate with outside artists. Either way, our talented employees hand paint each Mahjong tile in our full-sized sets. We’ve also shrunk our famous resin tiles to a more portable size for Flo, our new travel-friendly Mahjong set that’s great for beginners and works well for everyday play.

Experienced players can typically finish a game in around 10 minutes while beginners need a little more time to think through their moves.

Mahjong isn’t difficult to learn, but it demands patience and practice. The basic rules are fairly simple, but there’s a learning curve to mastering strategy and the scoring system used by different game variations. American Mahjong requires players to familiarize themselves with the valid hands that are usually updated annually. For those playing the National Mah Jongg League’s Standard Hands and Rules card, their card is published each year, towards the end of March.

In American Mahjong, “soap” is a nickname for the White Dragon tile, also known as the “blank” or “zero” tile. The White Dragon is used as a substitute for a zero or any missing tile in certain hands.

Generally, Chinese Mahjong is considered harder to learn and play than the American variation. American Mahjong has a simpler set of rules and focuses on completing specific hands outlined on an annual card. Chinese Mahjong is more complex, with a larger range of scoring possibilities and strategies.

The game has different spellings because while it originated in China, Mahjong quickly moved to other regions of Asia and beyond. The different spellings often reflect the pronunciation in different Chinese dialects or how  the game was launched and adapted in various places.

The Chinese word “Mahjong” directly translates to “sparrow” in some southern Chinese dialects. This is linked to the sound the tiles make during reshuffling, which is said to mimic the chattering of sparrows. Some theories also hold that the name’s origins are from an older Chinese card game called “madiao,” which is believed to be a forerunner to Mahjong. 

The Mah Jongg World Championship® (MJWC) is held in Las Vegas each fall and offers the largest purse in American Mahjong with a $5,000 grand prize. The event is run by Destination Mah Jongg, the premier organizer of American Mah Jongg events, and proudly sponsored by Crisloid.

The game is a beautiful blend of memory, pattern recognition, probability, and strategy that creates the perfect platform for brain training.

Many studies have found that regular gameplay can slow cognitive decline, improve memory, and enhance attention. Why not have some fun and give your brain a good workout?