American Mahjong vs. Mahjong Solitaire: What's the Difference?

If you've been matching pairs of tiles to clear a pyramid on your phone, you've been playing Mahjong solitaire — and it has almost nothing to do with the game your friends play on Tuesday nights. The two share tiles and a name, and that's about it.

Mahjong solitaire: a matching puzzle

Mahjong solitaire is a single-player computer game. The tiles are dealt into a layered layout, and you clear it by tapping matching pairs of free tiles until the board is empty (or you run out of moves). There are no opponents, no turns, no hands to build — it's a spatial puzzle that borrows Mahjong tiles for their looks. It's a computer game from the 1980s, and it's what most apps mean when they say "mahjong."

American Mahjong: the real table game

American Mahjong is a four-player game played with a full 152-tile set and the National Mah Jongg League's annual card. The goal is to be the first to collect 14 tiles matching a hand printed on the card. Along the way there's a tile-passing ritual called the Charleston, Jokers that fill in for missing tiles, calling other players' discards, and a scoring system where the discarder pays double. It's social, strategic, and played at real tables (and online) across the country.

How to tell which one you're looking at

• Solitaire: one player, tiles stacked in a layout, you match identical pairs to clear the board
• American Mahjong: four players, racks and walls, a card of hands, passing and calling and winning
• If there's no Charleston and nobody yells "Mahjong!", it's solitaire

If you came here for the real game

Good news: the tile faces you already recognize from solitaire — Bams, Craks, Dots, Winds, Dragons — are the same ones used at the table, so you're not starting from zero. Our free lessons take you from naming the tiles to playing a full hand.