What's That Tile?

The American Mahjong tiles

An American Mahjong set has 152 tiles. Learning to recognize them by sight is the first skill every new player builds — and it's faster than it looks. Here's the whole set:

• Suits (108 tiles) — three suits: Bams (bamboo), Craks (Chinese characters), and Dots (circles), each numbered 1 through 9, with four copies of every tile.
• Winds (16) — North, East, South, and West, four of each.
• Dragons (12) — Red, Green, and White; the White Dragon is nicknamed Soap. Four of each.
• Flowers (8) — eight tiles that are all interchangeable in play.
• Jokers (8) — the wild tiles. A Joker can stand in for any tile in a group of three or more identical tiles, but never for a pair or a single.

The trickiest tile for beginners is the 1 Bam, which usually shows a bird rather than a single bamboo — so it's easy to mistake for a Flower. Once you can name every tile on sight, the rest of the game gets much easier.