Mahjong Solitaire is a single-player puzzle in which you clear a layered board of 144 tiles by removing matching pairs, two tiles at a time. It borrows the beautiful tile set of Chinese Mahjong (bamboos, characters, circles, winds, dragons, flowers and seasons) but replaces the four-player table game with a calm, focused exercise in observation and planning. You can play Mahjong Solitaire free online right here on this page: no download, no registration, and it works on your computer, tablet or phone.
The rules take one minute to learn, yet a single game can go from relaxing to genuinely demanding once the board thins out and every match starts to matter. This guide explains how to play, what the free tile rule really means, how the classic layouts are built, which strategies win the most games, and how scoring works on Solitaires.gg.
Everything in Mahjong Solitaire revolves around a single rule. A tile is free (playable) only if both of the following conditions are true at the same time:
Tiles above or below (in the vertical direction of the board) do not matter. This is why the tiles at the two ends of every row are usually the first ones you can play, while tiles in the middle of a long row stay locked for a long time.
The four flower tiles (plum, orchid, chrysanthemum, bamboo) are all different, and so are the four season tiles (spring, summer, autumn, winter). Because each design exists only once, they follow a special rule: any flower can be matched with any other flower, and any season with any other season. All other tiles, including winds and dragons, must be matched with an exact duplicate.
The most famous Mahjong Solitaire layout is the Turtle, sometimes called the Pyramid or Shanghai layout. It uses all 144 tiles arranged in five layers: a wide base of 87 tiles, then 36, 16 and 4 tiles in narrowing rectangles, and a single tile on top. Two “legs” of one tile each on the left and three on the right give the layout its animal silhouette. On Solitaires.gg the board is a stepped pyramid of 144 tiles in four layers (72, 40, 24 and 8 tiles) that keeps the same feel while fitting neatly on a phone screen.
Because each tile appears four times, the board holds exactly 72 pairs. Removing them all in the right order is the whole challenge. Note that a random deal is not always solvable: if the two remaining copies of a tile are stacked directly on top of each other, or lock each other in the same row, no sequence of moves can ever free them. Solitaires.gg builds each board by placing pairs in reverse, which guarantees that at least one winning sequence exists, but a careless order of matches can still leave you stuck.
Each matched pair earns a base of 10 points multiplied by a layer bonus. Tiles on the bottom layer score 10 points, tiles one layer up 15, then 20 and 25 for the highest layer, so digging into the stack pays off. If you make your next match within 4 seconds of the previous one you start a combo: the second consecutive match doubles the points, the third triples them, and so on for as long as the chain continues.
Clearing the board awards a 500-point victory bonus. You gain an extra 200 points if you used fewer than 5 hints and another 300 points if you finished in under 5 minutes. Your best scores and fastest times are tracked so you can compete against yourself over time.
Despite the shared name and tiles, the two games have little in common. Traditional Mahjong is a four-player Chinese game dating from the 19th century: players draw and discard tiles to build a complete hand of sets and pairs, much like rummy, with a rich scoring system and many regional variants.
Mahjong Solitaire is far younger. It was created in 1981 by Brodie Lockard on the PLATO computer system, and became a worldwide hit when Activision published it as Shanghai in 1986. Microsoft later included a version, Mahjong Titans, with Windows Vista, which introduced the puzzle to millions more players. Today it is one of the most played casual games in the world, alongside classic card solitaire.
Yes. Mahjong Solitaire is completely free, with no download, no installation and no account required. The game runs directly in your browser on desktop, tablet and phone.
A tile is free when no other tile rests on top of it and at least one of its long sides, left or right, is not touching another tile on the same layer. Only free tiles can be selected and matched.
Not with a purely random deal. Some shuffles bury both copies of a pair under each other, which makes the game impossible to finish. Solitaires.gg generates its boards so that a winning sequence always exists, but you can still get stuck if you match pairs in the wrong order.
A standard set has 144 tiles: 36 tiles in each of the three suits (bamboos, characters and circles), 16 wind tiles, 12 dragon tiles, 4 flower tiles and 4 season tiles. Each regular tile appears four times, so the board holds 72 pairs.
No. Traditional Mahjong is a four-player game with drawing, discarding and hand building, similar in spirit to rummy. Mahjong Solitaire is a single-player puzzle that uses the same tiles but only asks you to match identical pairs and clear the board.
Looking for a card game instead? Play Klondike Solitaire free online on Solitaires.gg, or read our guide to the many solitaire variations to find your next favourite game.