How to Play Mahjong: A Beginner's Step-by-Step Guide

The goal in one sentence

Your goal is to build four melds and a pair (14 tiles total) before anyone else does. A meld is a sequence of three (1-2-3) or a triplet of three identical tiles.

You draw a tile each turn, then discard one, trading toward your 14-tile hand. Opponents' discards can help you — that is what chi, pon and kan are for.

Your first game, move by move

Sit anywhere: seats are East, South, West and North, and the dealer (East) starts. On your turn, draw, look for a call, then discard. When your hand is one tile from winning, you are tenpai — and if you draw or take the winning tile, you win the round.

Keep it simple at first

Play a few hands aiming for all simples (tanyao) or a triplet of dragons — the easiest yaku. This site's beginner tutorial walks you through each step with an illustrated hand, and the AI difficulty setting "Easy" lets you learn without pressure.

Seats, dealer and the round

Four players sit at East, South, West and North. The East player is the dealer (庄家) and starts each round; they also pay and receive double points. A game usually runs several rounds, rotating the dealer when someone wins or the wall runs out.

The round wind matters for scoring — a triplet of the round wind or your seat wind is a 1-fan yaku in most rulesets.

A complete turn, step by step

On your turn: (1) draw a tile from the wall, (2) check whether you can win immediately, (3) call chi/pon/kan if the tile helps and you want an open hand, (4) discard one tile, (5) wait for calls from other players on your discard. Then the next player draws.

After every discard, each other player briefly has the right to call it — that is why strong players watch the discard pile as much as their own hand.

Calls: chi, pon and kan in detail

Chi (吃) takes a discard to complete a sequence of three — you can only chi from the player to your left. Pon (碰) takes a discard for a triplet from anyone. Kan (杠) declares four of a kind, which draws a replacement tile from the dead wall.

Every call exposes your melds and usually lowers your yaku ceiling (open hands cannot use riichi or pinfu), so call only when the trade is worth it.

What "winning" actually looks like

A winning hand is four melds plus a pair — 14 tiles. You win by tsumo (your own draw) or ron (a discard you call). Before winning you will be in tenpai: one tile short. The game highlights tenpai for you so you always know how close you are.

If nobody wins, the round ends in a draw (流局) and the next round starts with the dealer seat rotating.

Scoring without the headache

Most beginners only need two facts: your hand needs at least one yaku to win, and fan (番) decides how big the score is. 1-2 fan is a small hand, 3-4 is solid, and 5+ jumps to mangan — the flat maximum.

The game shows your fan, fu and points after every win, so you learn the scoring by playing rather than by memorizing tables.