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Mahjong Solitaire
Mahjong Solitaire is a single-player tile-matching game played with the 144 tiles of a Chinese mahjong set. It began as a computer game — Brodie Lockard's "Mah-Jong" on the PLATO system in 1981, later popularised by Activision's Shanghai in 1986 — and has nothing to do with the four-player mahjong played at a table. Tiles are stacked into a layered layout, most famously the five-layer Turtle, and you clear the board by removing matching pairs that aren't blocked.
Mahjong Solitaire Rules
Tiles are stacked in layers. A tile is free — and can be picked — only when no tile sits on top of it and its left or right side is open. Tiles squeezed between neighbours on both sides, or covered by a higher tile, are blocked (they are shaded on this board).
Tap two identical free tiles to remove them as a pair. Suited tiles (Dots, Bamboo and Characters, 1 to 9), the four Winds and the three Dragons each have four identical copies. The four Flower tiles all match one another, and so do the four Season tiles.
You win by clearing every tile. If no free tiles match, use Shuffle to rearrange the remaining tiles, Undo to back up, or start a new deal. Every deal here is generated from a known solution, so the board can always be cleared with the right choices.
Mahjong Solitaire Strategy & Tips
Free the tiles that free the most
When you have several matches, pick the one that opens up the board: tiles on top of tall stacks, and tiles at the ends of long rows. Removing a tile that releases nothing just spends a match you might need later.
Think when three of a kind are free
With three identical free tiles you can only take two. Leave the one whose removal would unlock the least. If all four copies are free at once, clear both pairs immediately — they can't help you any other way.
Watch for buried twins
If a tile sits directly on top of its own twin, the two can never be matched with each other. Keep at least one other copy of that tile on the board until you can use it to lift the top one.
Work the long rows from both ends
The bottom layer of the Turtle has rows of twelve tiles where only the end tiles are free. Chipping at one end only gives you one free tile per row; opening both ends doubles your options.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is every Mahjong Solitaire game winnable?
Every deal on this page is built by removing pairs from the full layout, so a complete solution exists from the start. You can still get stuck by matching the wrong copies; when that happens, Shuffle rearranges the remaining tiles into another clearable position whenever the stacking allows it.
Which tiles match in Mahjong Solitaire?
Identical tiles match: the 5 of Bamboo with the 5 of Bamboo, the Red Dragon with the Red Dragon, and so on. The exceptions are the Flowers and Seasons: any Flower matches any other Flower, and any Season matches any other Season, even though the pictures differ.
What is the difference between Mahjong and Mahjong Solitaire?
Mahjong is a four-player game from China, played a bit like rummy: players draw and discard tiles to build winning hands. Mahjong Solitaire borrows the tiles but is a one-player matching puzzle. When people search for "mahjong online", they usually mean the solitaire version.
What is the Turtle layout?
The Turtle (sometimes called the Dragon) is the classic 144-tile arrangement: a wide base of 87 tiles, then layers of 36, 16 and 4, with a single tile on top. The single tiles sticking out at the left and right ends look like a turtle's head and tail. This page also offers Pyramid, Fortress and Cross, which use fewer, larger tiles — handy on a phone.