How to play Mahjong Solitaire
- Find two matching tiles that are both free. A tile is free when no tile lies on top of it and its left or right side is open.
- Tap the first tile, then the second, and the pair leaves the table. Any flower matches any flower, and any season matches any season.
- Keep going until the table is clear. Stuck? Hint shows a pair you can take, and Shuffle mixes the tiles left into a layout you can still clear.
Tips for clearing the table
- Free long rows from both ends. The rows on the ground floor are long. Take tiles from the ends you can reach, and don’t leave a row with only blocked middles.
- Go for the tall stacks. The top of the turtle covers many tiles below it. Clearing the middle stack early opens more of the table.
- Mind the fourth tile. When three of a kind are free and the fourth lies under one of them, take the tile on top in your pair. If you take the other two, the last two are stacked on each other, and a tile can never be matched with the one under it.
- Take the side tiles. The single tiles sticking out on the left and right block whole rows. Clear them when you can.
- Use the hint, then think. Hint shows a pair that’s free now, not the best one. Before you take it, check whether another pair would open more tiles.
The tiles
A mahjong set has 144 tiles. There are three suits, dots (circles), bamboo (sticks) and characters (Chinese numbers with the sign for ten thousand), each numbered from 1 to 9, with four of every tile. Then come the honor tiles: the four winds (east, south, west and north) and three dragons (red, green and white), four of each. Eight bonus tiles finish the set, four flowers and four seasons, each one different. The solitaire game lays all 144 out in the shape of a turtle, five layers high in the middle.
Mahjong solitaire was first written as a computer game by Brodie Lockard in 1981, and it became widely known through Activision’s Shanghai in 1986.