How to Read an American Mahjong Card

In American mahjong you can only win with a hand that appears on the card: a list of the year's winning hands, grouped into families and printed in a compact code. To a new player the card looks like a page of random numbers in three colors. Once you know five or six conventions, every line reads like a recipe. This guide teaches those conventions using the Mahjong Station practice card, which is written by us in the same style. We never reproduce the official card, so bring your own when you play with friends.

What the card is

The card is a printed list of winning hands. Each line shows:

1. The tiles you need, in groups.
2. Whether the hand may be exposed or must stay concealed (X or C).
3. A point value, which is what the other players pay you when you win with it.

Lines are grouped into families (also called sections) such as even numbers, odd numbers, 369, like numbers, consecutive runs, winds and dragons, quints and singles and pairs. Every line adds up to exactly 14 tiles, which is the size of a winning hand.

The most widely used card is published every year by the National Mah Jongg League, and it changes each season. That is why American players say they are "learning the new card" every spring. The conventions below stay the same from year to year.

Groups: how many of each tile

Each cluster of characters on a line is a group. The length of the group tells you how many tiles you need:

• Single: 1 tile, for example 2.
• Pair: 2 identical tiles, 22.
• Pung: 3 identical tiles, 222.
• Kong: 4 identical tiles, 2222.
• Quint: 5 identical tiles, 22222. You can only make a quint with jokers, because a set has four of each tile.

Remember that jokers can fill any position in a pung, kong or quint, but never a single or a pair. So a line full of pairs and singles is hard, and a line full of kongs and quints is joker-friendly.

Colors mean suits

On a printed card the groups are printed in up to three colors. The rule is simple:

• Groups in the same color come from the same suit.
• Groups in different colors come from different suits.
• The color does not tell you which suit. Unless the line says otherwise, you decide which suit each color will be.

On the Mahjong Station practice card we write the suits as letters instead of colors: A, B and C mean three different suits, and you choose which is which. For example, our hand Even Stairs is:

FF 222A 444A 666A 888A (25 points, exposed)

Read it as: two flowers, then pungs of 2, 4, 6 and 8 all in one suit. If you have lots of dots, A is dots; if you have lots of bams, A is bams.

Our Three-Suit Evens works the other way:

222A 4444B 666C 8888A (25 points, exposed)

Here the 2s and 8s share a suit, while the 4s and 6s come from the two other suits.

Letters and symbols

A few letters appear on almost every card:

Matching dragons: cracks go with the red dragon, bams with the green dragon and dots with the white dragon. So in our hand Evens and a Dragon, 22A 444A 66B 888B DDDDC, the kong of dragons must be the dragon that matches suit C. If C is cracks, you need four red dragons (or jokers).

The zero: year hands use the white dragon as a zero. A line for the year 2026 would need 2s, soaps as zeros and 6s.

Like numbers and runs

Some lines do not fix the number. Instead they say any like numbers or any consecutive run:

• Like numbers means the same number in different suits. Our Mirror Numbers is FFFF aaaaA aaaB aaaC: four flowers, then the same number as a kong in one suit and pungs in the other two. Pick 5 and you need four 5-dots, three 5-bams and three 5-cracks, for example.
• Consecutive runs use numbers in a row, such as 3-4-5 or 6-7-8, and the card notes whether any run is allowed or only specific ones. On our card, lowercase letters a, b, c, d and e stand for a run of numbers starting anywhere.

These flexible lines are often the best targets early in a hand because they fit many different deals.

Exposed or concealed: X and C

At the end of each line you will see X or C.

• X (exposed): you may call discards to complete pungs, kongs and quints, laying them face up on your rack. Exposing helps you finish faster but tells everyone which hand you are making.
• C (concealed): you may not call any discard except the very last tile that completes your mahjong. Everything else must come from the wall.

Concealed hands are usually worth more. Our Quiet Evens, FF 2A 4A 6A 8A 22B 44B 66B 88B, is concealed and worth 50 points; it is also full of singles and pairs, so jokers cannot help.

Point values

The number at the end of a line is the hand's value, usually between 25 and 50 on most cards, with higher values for the hardest hands. When you win:

• If you won on someone's discard, that player pays double and the other two pay the value.
• If you drew the winning tile yourself, everyone pays double.
• If your hand has no jokers at all, the value doubles (singles and pairs hands are jokerless by nature, so they do not double again).

Our guide to American mahjong scoring walks through full examples.

Using the card during a hand

1. After the deal, scan the families. Count your pairs, flowers, jokers and the suit you hold most of. Look for two or three lines that already use several of your tiles.
2. Let the Charleston decide. Pass tiles that fit none of your candidate lines. After the Charleston, narrow it down to one or two hands.
3. Commit by the middle of the hand. Switching late usually means discarding tiles you need.
4. Read other players' exposures. Their exposed groups, read against the card, often reveal their hand. Do not discard the tiles they still need.

Practise reading the card

The Mahjong Coach includes the full Mahjong Station practice card at /coach/card: 44 hands in eight families, drawn as real tiles rather than code. During every American practice hand, the coach panel shows the three hands closest to your tiles, how many tiles away each one is and how many of your jokers it can use, so you learn to read the card while you play. If you own the official card, enter its hands privately in My card and practise with exactly the lines your group plays.