American mahjong has a reputation for being complicated. It isn't, exactly. There are a lot of moving parts, but most of them are simple rules that nobody ever sits you down and explains in one place. You learn the deal from one friend, the Charleston from another, exposures from a YouTube video, and you piece it together over six months of "wait, is that legal?"
This is the one-place version. Bookmark it. Send it to the person you're teaching this weekend.
TL;DR: American mahjong in 5 lines
- Four players, 152 tiles, racks, a pair of dice, and the current NMJL card. East deals 14 tiles to themselves and 13 to everyone else.
- Every hand starts with the Charleston (three required passes, three optional, one Courtesy). No jokers allowed in any of it.
- On your turn, you pick a tile (from the wall or someone's discard) and then discard one. You name every tile out loud as you discard.
- You can call a discarded tile to expose a pung, kong, quint, or sextet if it completes part of your card hand. Once exposed, those tiles stay on top of your rack.
- You win by declaring mahjong with a complete hand that matches a hand on the current NMJL card. Settlement uses the point value printed next to that hand, with doubles for self-pick, jokerless, and concealed.
The setup
You need four players, 152 tiles, four racks (with pushers, if you can), a pair of dice, and the current NMJL card.
The 152 tiles break down as: 36 Bams, 36 Craks, 36 Dots, 16 Winds (four each of North, East, South, West), 16 Dragons (four each of Green, Red, and White), 8 Flowers, and 8 Jokers. Many sets ship with extra Flowers, Jokers, or blanks. NMJL play uses only eight Flowers and eight Jokers regardless of what's in the box.
Each player sits at one side of the square table. Each rack holds tiles upright and hidden from the other players. Three-handed play is possible (the NMJL has rules for it) but the standard game is four-handed.
Building the four walls
Every player builds their own wall. The four walls together form a square in the middle of the table. So it's "four walls," not "the wall."
Each player takes 38 tiles from the shuffled pile and builds a wall in front of their rack: two tiles tall, 19 tiles long. (38 tiles per player times four players is 152 tiles. The math works.) When all four walls are built, the table has a closed square of tiles in the middle.
The dice roll (next section) determines where the wall gets broken open. If you've heard someone say "break the wall," they mean the moment East splits the wall at the spot the dice indicate. That's the official start of the game.
Dice and seat assignment
East is the dealer. East rolls two dice to determine where the wall gets broken. The total tells you which player's wall to count from: East = 1, 5, 9, 13; the player on East's right (South) = 2, 6, 10, 14; West = 3, 7, 11; the player on East's left (North) = 4, 8, 12. Then count that many tile-stacks in from the right end of the indicated wall to find the break point.
When East does not win the hand, the East designation passes to the player on East's right for the next hand. East stays East only when East wins the hand.
The deal
After the wall is broken, East deals four tiles at a time to each player (East first, then South, then West, then North) until everyone has 12 tiles. Then one more tile to each player. Then East takes one extra. East starts with 14 tiles; everyone else starts with 13.
East has 14 because East discards first. After that opening discard, every player picks one tile on their turn (rack goes from 13 to 14) and discards one (back to 13). The rhythm is "pick to 14, discard to 13."
The Charleston
Every hand starts with the Charleston: three required passes, three optional, one optional Courtesy. It's the most strategic part of the game and the part most beginners get wrong.
The short version: First Right, First Across, First Left. (Three tiles per pass, always exactly three.) Then the table decides whether to do a Second Charleston (Second Left, Second Across, Second Right). Then an optional Courtesy with the player across from you. And one absolute rule: no jokers in any Charleston pass, ever.
The Charleston has its own guide because the strategy alone fills 3,000 words. For the full breakdown of every pass, the blind pass, the stop mechanic, and the seven mistakes most players make, see the complete Charleston guide.
Picking and discarding
On your turn, you pick a tile from the wall and then discard a tile from your rack. Play moves counterclockwise (East to South to West to North and back to East).
The pick
You pick the next available tile from the wall, in order from where it was broken. You don't get to choose. You take the next tile in sequence.
The discard
After you pick, you discard one tile into the middle of the table and name it out loud. "Four Bam." "Red Dragon." "Flower." The naming is required, not optional. It's how everyone tracks the discard pile without leaning across the table.
If you misname a discard, correct yourself immediately. The correction is what matters.
The "no picking before someone discards" rule
You cannot pick from the wall until the previous player has discarded. If South discards a Three Dot and you (West) want to call it for an exposure, you have to call it BEFORE you reach for the wall. Once you've picked, you've taken your turn and the call window is closed.
Calling exposures (pung, kong, quint, sextet)
When another player discards a tile that completes a set you're building, you can call it. Calling means you take the discarded tile, add it to the tiles in your hand that match, and place the completed set face-up on top of your rack. That's an exposure.
The set types you can call:
- Pung: three of a kind (three matching tiles)
- Kong: four of a kind (four matching tiles)
- Quint: five of a kind (five matching tiles, only used in hands that call for quints, like the 2026 Quints section)
- Sextet: six of a kind (six matching tiles, rare, only in specific card hands)
You cannot call for a pair. Pairs stay on your rack, hidden. The only exception is the very last tile to declare mahjong: if a discard completes your hand and the missing tile happened to be a pair tile, you call mahjong (not "pair"), and the game ends. You still cannot call a discard mid-game to expose a pair.
What you must show
You announce what you're calling: "Pung!" or "Kong!" or "Quint!" Then every tile in that set goes face-up on top of your rack, including the discard you just took. Exposures are public information; the tiles still on your rack are not.
What you give up
Once a set is exposed, you cannot move those tiles back, and you've committed to the hand family that uses them. You also lose the "concealed" bonus on settlement: a hand with any exposed sets is no longer concealed.
The discard rule after a call
When you call and expose, you do not pick from the wall. You discard from your rack as your next move. Play continues with the player to your right. Calling skips the turn order, so the players between the discarder and you lose their turn that round.
Jokers
Jokers are wild tiles. You can use a joker in any exposed pung, kong, quint, or sextet to substitute for a tile you don't have. You cannot use a joker in a pair, and you cannot use a joker for the single tile in a Singles and Pairs hand. You also cannot pass a joker in any part of the Charleston.
You can redeem a joker from any exposure on the table (yours or another player's) if you have the actual tile in your hand. Hand over the real tile, take the joker, use it or save it. There is no cap on the number of jokers you can redeem in a single turn. The redemption has to happen after you have officially started your turn (by picking from the wall and racking the tile, or by claiming a discard and placing it). This is one of the most powerful moves in the game and one of the most underused. Full breakdown in the joker rules guide.
Declaring mahjong
You win by declaring mahjong. To declare, your tiles (exposed and on your rack combined) must exactly match a hand printed on the current NMJL card. Not "mostly match." Exactly match.
The moment
You can declare mahjong on two kinds of tiles:
- A tile you just picked from the wall (a self-pick, or "off the wall"). You pick, you see that the tile completes your hand, you declare before discarding.
- A discard from another player. If another player discards a tile that completes your hand, you call mahjong on the discard.
The call and verification
You call out "Mahjong!" The table stops. You lay your full hand down on top of your rack and name the hand: "2026 #1" or "Consecutive Run, Line 3." Naming makes the verification step faster.
Before any settlement happens, the table verifies that your tiles actually match the hand you named. Every player has the right to check the card. If the hand is correct, settlement proceeds.
If the hand does not match, what happens depends on how much you exposed when you declared. If you declared but did not expose any tiles from your rack, you can retract without penalty. If you exposed only the current exposure (the one you were about to complete), you can retract but you are committed to that exposure for the rest of the hand. If you exposed your whole rack (or more than the current exposure), you are disqualified. Your turn ends without a discard, newly exposed tiles return to the rack, and you are out of the hand. The exception is if another player has an intact hand and you cause the error; in that case, you pay the intact-hand player double the value of the hand you were attempting.
Dead hands
A dead hand is a hand that can no longer reach a valid mahjong. The player with the dead hand continues to discard but cannot win. They pay losers' settlement at the end of the hand.
What causes a dead hand
The most common causes:
- An exposure that doesn't match any hand on the card. If you call a pung that doesn't appear in any hand on the current card, your hand is dead the moment the call is challenged and confirmed wrong.
- Exposures that together cannot complete any single hand. If you've exposed a pung of Three Bams and a pung of Three Dots and no hand on the card uses both, your hand is dead.
- Showing your tiles to another player or asking what to do. Hands must be played individually and silently. Showing your rack to a partner or asking for help on what to play is grounds for a dead hand.
- Drawing extra tiles or playing out of turn. Per NMJL canon, picking before the previous player has discarded, picking from the wrong end of the wall, or picking extra tiles makes your hand dead. Another player can call it the moment they notice.
What happens
A dead hand keeps playing. You continue to pick and discard. You cannot declare mahjong or call exposures. Your discards still matter to the other players, but you cannot win.
One nuance: you can change an exposure (add to it or take a tile away) up until the moment you discard. Once you discard, the exposure is locked. If the locked exposure doesn't match any hand on the card and another player challenges it, the hand is dead and there is no take-back.
The wall game
If no player declares mahjong before the wall runs out, the hand ends in a wall game. Nobody wins. No payments are made between players. Everyone resets for the next hand.
After a wall game, the East designation passes to the player on East's right (same as after any non-East win). The only time East stays East is when East wins the hand.
Wall games are common at tables where every player is playing defensively. No shame in it. It's just the game ending the way it sometimes ends.
Settlement
When a player declares mahjong (and the table verifies the hand), settlement happens immediately. The point value comes from the number printed next to the hand on the NMJL card. Most hands are 25 points; some hands (rarer or harder) are 30, 35, 40, 50, or 75 points.
Who pays whom
The standard rule for a mahjong on a discard:
- The player who discarded the winning tile pays double the hand's value.
- The other two players pay the hand's value (single).
The standard rule for a mahjong on a self-pick (off the wall):
- All three other players pay double the hand's value.
Doubles
The base payment doubles in specific situations:
- Self-pick: winner picked the final tile off the wall, not from a discard. All three other players pay double.
- Jokerless: the winning hand contains no jokers. Every player pays double their base amount.
- Concealed: the winning hand has no exposures (everything stayed on your rack, including the final tile if the win was off the wall). Every player pays double.
- Mahjong from the wall: a specific term for a self-pick win. Same payment as self-pick (all three other players pay double).
Doubles stack multiplicatively. A 25-point hand that is self-picked, jokerless, and concealed becomes 25 × 2 (self-pick) × 2 (jokerless) × 2 (concealed) = 200 from each of the three other players. This is the maximum-multiplier win and the rarest. Most players go years without one. Note: Singles and Pairs hands already have the higher value built in (50, 75+) and are not doubled again for jokerless, but they are doubled for self-pick.
Settlement happens with chips or quarters or whatever the table uses. The amounts are small but they add up over an afternoon, and chips keep score in a way that's harder to argue with than a paper tally.
The rules summary you can put on a sticky note
- Four players, 152 tiles, four walls (every player builds their own).
- East deals 14 tiles to themselves, 13 to everyone else. East discards first.
- Charleston before the first turn. Three required passes, three optional, one Courtesy. No jokers in any of it.
- On your turn: pick from the wall, then discard. Name every tile out loud.
- Call exposures (pung, kong, quint, sextet) on discards when they complete a set you're building.
- Jokers are wild for any exposure, except pairs and the single tile in Singles and Pairs.
- Declare mahjong the moment your hand matches a card hand exactly. Name the hand.
- Dead hand if you make an exposure that doesn't match any hand on the card, or if you reveal your tiles to another player.
- Wall game if no one wins before the wall runs out. No payments.
- Settlement is on the card's printed value, doubled for self-pick, jokerless, and concealed wins.
The game rewards reading the table
Most beginners think American mahjong is about memorizing the card. The card is part of it. But the players who get better fastest aren't the ones who memorize the most hands. They're the ones who learn to read the table: what's been discarded, what's been exposed, what's flowing in the Charleston, what's left in the wall.
Your strategy shouldn't be "memorize and hope." It should be "read and decide." Every rule in this guide exists to make that reading easier. The Charleston tells you what your opponents don't want. The exposures tell you what they're building. The discards tell you what's safe. The wall count tells you how much time is left.
Bring this guide to your next game. Don't try to memorize it. Just keep it within reach. The rules feel automatic after a few hands. The reading takes longer, and that's the part worth practicing.
If you want the one-page version you can slide into your tile bag, grab the free cheat sheet. If you're brand new, start here. For any specific term, the mahjong glossary has every definition.
And if you've been nodding along to these guides but playing the card solo, the Confidence Club is where players go to actually practice this stuff together. Monthly challenges, Q&A sessions, group games. $19.99 a month. No pressure. Just real reps with real players.
See you at the table.
Lara
