Have a mahjong set, but none of your friends want to play? Are you stuck in quarantine, or just need some you time all to yourself? This is based on a fun mahjong solitaire app, but adapted for play with physical mahjong tiles. The app depicts mahjong cards, which stack differently from tiles. I found that transposing the set up so that the tiles stack in a horizontal direction works better. This is a fun game that rewards patience and planning ahead. As far as I can tell, every game seems to be solvable at the outset, but it’s easy to paint yourself into a corner if you’re not careful.

Setup

This game requires 39 tiles as follows

• One set of balls 1-9
• One set of sticks 1-9
• One set of characters 1-9
• 4 red dragons (dagger)
• 4 green dragons (berde)
• 4 white dragons (mirror)

Shuffle the tiles, and arrange them face up in one row of four tiles and seven rows of five tiles. This grid should be on the right half of the table.

I also like to use eight wind tiles to act as a center divider as shown. Technically they can be any tiles since they’re gonna be facedown the whole time, but I use winds so that I don’t get confused in case they accidentally turn over. You could also use blank tiles or joker tiles.

Now you’re ready to play! The goal is to transfer all of the tiles across the center divider to the left half of the table, subject to the following rules:

Right Side

For the grid on the right side, only the last right-most tile of each row can be moved. Let’s call these the “exposed” tiles. An exposed tile can be moved to another row on the right if it is placed next to a tile that is one higher and a different suit, similar to classic solitaire (e.g. 4 balls can only be placed next to 5 sticks or 5 character). If multiple tiles are in descending order and in alternating suits, they can move as a group, also similar to classic solitaire. Dragon tiles cannot form groups. If a row on the right side is completely empty, any exposed tile or group of tiles can be placed there.

Left Side

On the left side, the top three rows are dedicated to balls, sticks, and characters, respectively. These tiles must be placed in order from 1 to 9, starting from the center divider and moving to the left.

The middle two rows are not used.

The bottom three rows on the left are open cells that can temporarily hold one tile of any type. Tiles placed in these open cells are exposed and can be moved anytime. The only exception is if all four dragons of one type are exposed. Then they can all be placed in one of the three rows, and will occupy that row permanently.

The game is complete when all suit tiles are in the upper left corner and all dragon tiles are in the lower left corner. 

Halimbawa

Now for an example game. Consider this setup, and review the exposed tiles. Notice that the 7 sticks can be moved next to the 8 balls.

Now 6 character is exposed, and can be moved next to the 7 sticks.

Now the 8-7-6 row can be moved as a group next to the 9 character.

Now we’re close to exposing the 1 stick, but first we have to move the green tile out of the way by placing it in one of the open cells. Then the 1 stick can be moved to the stick area.

Now let’s move 4 balls to another open cell and move the 9-8-7-6 row to the open space.

Notice that the green tiles are now close to being all exposed. Let’s move the window/white dragon tile out of the way to the last free cell.

Now there is only one green tile that is still not exposed, blocked in by a 2 sticks tile. But we already ran out of open cells! Fear not, solo mahjongero, there is a 1 stick in the sticks area, and you can put it there.

Now that all four green tiles are exposed, they can all be placed together in one of the open cells.

Fast forward a bunch of moves and you’ll end up with something like this.

At this point, the puzzle is pretty much solved, with everything on the right side in well formed rows in descending order. It’s just a simple matter of disposing of the tiles in the suit tiles area in the upper left corner.

Wasn’t that satisfying? I think you’re ready to shuffle and play another game.

Mag-mahjong na tayo! Well, actually, mag-solitaire ka na lang, enjoy your alone time 😉 #selfcare