How to Play Mahjong Solitaire
Full rules, examples, and strategy for the single-player tile-matching puzzle.
The goal
Remove all 144 tiles from the board. You do this by finding pairs of matching free tiles and clicking them to remove the pair. The game is won when the board is empty.
What makes a tile free
A tile is free — and therefore playable — when both conditions are true:
- Nothing is on top of it. Any tile with another tile stacked directly above it is blocked until that upper tile is removed.
- At least one of its sides (left or right) is open. If tiles are touching it on both the left and right, it's blocked horizontally and can't be selected.
A tile only needs one open side — left or right — not both. A tile in the middle of a row is free as long as the tile immediately to its left or the tile immediately to its right has been removed (or was never there).
How to match tiles
Click a free tile to select it (it will highlight). Then click another free tile of the same type to remove the pair. If you select the wrong tile first, click it again to deselect it, or simply click a different tile to switch your selection.
Most tiles must match exactly — same suit, same number. The two exceptions:
- Seasons match any Season. Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter can all match each other. You don't need two of the same season.
- Flowers match any Flower. Plum, Orchid, Chrysanthemum, and Bamboo can all match each other. Same rule as Seasons.
Everything else — Characters, Bamboo, Circles, Winds, and Dragons — must be an exact match. A 5 of Bamboo only matches another 5 of Bamboo. East Wind only matches East Wind.
Winning and getting stuck
You win by removing all 144 tiles. You lose — or rather, get stuck — when no free matching pairs remain but tiles are still on the board. This can happen even if you played well: some random arrangements are unwinnable regardless of order. When you're stuck, you can undo moves to backtrack, shuffle the remaining tiles, or start a new game.
Not every board is guaranteed solvable. We bias the generator toward winnable layouts, but a small percentage will be dead ends no matter how you play. If you consistently get stuck at the same point, try the Hint button to see if there's a move you missed.
Controls
- Click or tap a free tile to select it; click a matching free tile to remove the pair.
- Undo — reverses your last match. No limit, but undoing clears the hint.
- Hint — highlights a valid matching pair. Limited to 3 per game.
- Shuffle — redistributes the remaining tile values into new positions. Adds a time penalty. Useful when stuck.
- New — starts a fresh game with a new random board.
- U key — undo.
- H key — hint.
- Arrow keys — navigate between free tiles without lifting your hands from the keyboard.
Strategy
Clear top layers first
Tiles in higher layers block everything beneath them. A single tile on the fifth layer can be holding down four or more tiles below it. Always scan the top of the stack and try to clear it before committing to a ground-floor match that doesn't free anything above.
Don't burn both copies of a tile carelessly
Each regular tile has exactly four copies in the set. If three of a kind are visible and free, and you match two of them, the fourth might be buried and unreachable — leaving one tile permanently stranded. Before matching, check whether all remaining copies of that tile are accessible.
Prefer matches that open new tiles
If you have two valid matches available, prefer the one that frees previously blocked tiles. Matching a pair that wasn't blocking anything is technically progress, but it doesn't expand your options. Freeing a tile that was stuck under another tile usually does.
Watch the edges
Tiles at the leftmost and rightmost ends of each row are always free on at least one side. They're your most flexible pieces early in the game — they can be matched at any time. Don't ignore them, but don't match them just because you can.
Use undo freely
There's no undo limit. If you make a match and immediately regret it, undo it. Mahjong Solitaire rewards lookahead, and undoing a few moves to explore a better sequence is a legitimate part of the game — not a cheat.
About the tiles
The standard Mahjong set has 144 tiles across three numbered suits (Characters, Bamboo, Circles), four Winds, three Dragons, four Seasons, and four Flowers. If you're curious what the symbols mean and why the tiles look the way they do, the tiles guide has the full breakdown.