The goal
A mahjong solitaire board is 144 tiles stacked into a shape — here, the classic turtle. Remove them two at a time by matching identical pairs until nothing is left. There is no opponent and no time limit unless you set one yourself.
It uses the tiles from the four-player game mahjong, but it is a completely different activity. There are no hands, no discards and no scoring — just matching.
The free tile rule
This is the whole game. A tile can only be selected if it is free, which means two conditions are both met:
- No tile rests on top of it, even partially.
- At least one of its long sides — left or right — is not touching another tile.
A tile with neighbours on both sides is blocked even if nothing sits on it. A tile with a tile on top is blocked even if both sides are clear. Tiles that are blocked appear dimmed on this board, and clicking one does nothing.
What matches what
Two tiles match when they show the same face. There is one exception, and it is the only special case in the game: the eight bonus tiles.
- Suit tiles — bamboo, characters and circles, numbered 1 to 9. A 5 of circles matches only another 5 of circles.
- Winds — east, south, west, north. Four of each; each matches only its own wind.
- Dragons — red, green and white. Four of each.
- Flowers and seasons — eight tiles, all different. Any flower matches any other flower. This is the exception.
The tile set
| Group | Distinct tiles | Copies | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bamboo 1–9 | 9 | 4 | 36 |
| Characters 1–9 | 9 | 4 | 36 |
| Circles 1–9 | 9 | 4 | 36 |
| Winds | 4 | 4 | 16 |
| Dragons | 3 | 4 | 12 |
| Flowers and seasons | 8 | 1 | 8 |
That totals 144 tiles, or 72 pairs. Because most tiles come in fours, you usually have a choice of which pair to remove — and that choice is the entire strategy.
Every board here can be cleared
The deal is built backwards: the generator repeatedly picks two currently free positions and lays a matching pair into them, working from an empty board to a full one. Because the pairs were placed in a legal removal order, at least one full solution always exists.
That does not mean you cannot get stuck. It means that if you do, it was a choice you made, not the deal.
The controls
- Click a free tile to select it, then click its match to remove both.
- Hint highlights one playable pair and tells you how many exist right now.
- Undo puts the last pair back, as many times as you like.
- Shuffle redeals the remaining tiles into a fresh solvable arrangement. You get three per game.
- The timer starts when you touch your first tile, not when the board appears.
Watch the pairs counter
The readout above the board shows how many playable pairs currently exist. When that number starts falling toward two or three, slow down — you are approaching a dead end.
Three rules of thumb to start with
- Clear the top layers first. Tiles underneath cannot be reached until what is above them is gone.
- When four identical tiles are all free, take all four. Leaving two stranded in different places is how boards die.
- Prefer the pair that frees the most other tiles, not the pair you noticed first.