Hand Strategy

Picking a hand, staying flexible, and the all-important "what would you discard?"

Goal: Stay flexible early, commit later, manage jokers wisely, and make sharper discard decisions every turn

Estimated time: 8–11 minutes

Prerequisite: Lesson 9

Unlocks: Lesson 11

Why it matters: This is where Mahjong stops being mechanical and becomes a real game. Strategy is the skill that separates someone who knows the rules from someone who actually plays.

Step 1 of 8

📈 From Scanning to Playing

Once you've picked 2–3 candidate hands, every turn becomes a decision:

What to keep
What to discard
Where to use your jokers

When to commit

As the game progresses, your candidates narrow until you commit to one hand. When that happens depends on what you're building:

Flexible (commit later): number-pattern hands like 2468
Specific (commit early): year hands like 2-0-2-6