Inside the Mahjong Cabinet
TL;DR: Clear the whole tile mountain by matching free pairs before you run out of moves. Expect pattern-matching with consequences at a pace that's meditative, then suddenly tight.
Mahjong solitaire stacks ninety-six tiles into a four-story mountain and asks you to take it apart the only way it allows: two identical free tiles at a time. A tile is free when nothing rests on top of it and at least one of its left or right sides is open, which means the mountain hides most of its choices under its own weight.
Every pair you clear opens new faces and closes others, and that is the whole elegant trap: the obvious match is frequently the wrong one, and a careless clear can lock the last two copies of a tile under each other forever.
Quick consecutive matches chain into combo bonuses for players who can read the mountain at speed, a win pays a big finish plus time bonus, and running out of matches ends the run with whatever you salvaged.
Every deal here is generated backwards from a solved mountain, so a winning line always exists, and the daily seed serves the whole world the same mountain to race.
Cabinet Specs
| Mission | Clear the whole tile mountain by matching free pairs before you run out of moves. |
|---|---|
| Row | Puzzle Arcade |
| Skill curve | Pattern-matching with consequences |
| Tempo | Meditative, then suddenly tight |
| Lineage | 1981 (tile-matching solitaire) |
| Original | Mahjong Solitaire - Brodie Lockard, 1981 (full history) |
| Daily run | Seeded challenge, resets midnight UTC |
| Scoreboard | Global top 50, score-ranked |
Learn Mahjong in Five Moves
Find free tiles
Free tiles are drawn bright with colored faces; blocked ones are dimmed. Free means nothing on top and an open left or right side.
Match identical pairs
Tap one free tile to select it, then tap its identical twin to clear both. Tapping a mismatched tile moves your selection there instead.
Read the tile kinds
Blue numbers with dots, green numbers with sticks, and letter honor tiles (N, E, S, W plus the red and green dragons). Only exact twins match.
Chain for combos
Clears within a few seconds of each other build a combo multiplier that fattens every pair. Hesitate and the chain resets.
Clear the mountain
Remove all ninety-six tiles to win a finish bonus plus time bonus. If no matches remain, the run banks what you cleared.
Score Higher at Mahjong
Work the top and the long edges first: every clear up high un-caps multiple tiles, while valley clears often open nothing.
- When three copies of a kind are visible, pick your pair to free the most tiles; when all four show, clear both pairs and bank the certainty.
- Never clear a pair blind when one copy sits on the tall stack and its twin might be underneath: check the fourth copy's likely hiding places first.
- Long horizontal rows unlock from the ends inward, so tiles trapped mid-row are the mountain's real hostages. Free their flanks early.
- The combo clock rewards planned sequences: spot two or three future pairs while clearing the current one, then rattle them off in rhythm.
- A stuck board is usually lost minutes before it happens, at a hasty pair that buried a twin. When two matches are available, take the one touching more blocked tiles.
- For daily runs, speed beats caution only after the top two layers are gone; early greed collapses more mountains than early patience.
House Rules & Spin-Offs
Classic mountain
The stacked-layout pair-matching game on this page, direct heir of the 1981 original.
Layout packs
The same rules across different silhouettes: turtles, dragons, fortresses and towers, each with its own choke points.
Timed sprints
Score-attack rules where the clock is the enemy and combos are the weapon; the spirit of our daily seeded race.
Shanghai-style variants
Rule twists that add shuffles, hints or wildcard tiles, trading purity for forgiveness.
Mahjong Questions, Answered
Is every deal actually solvable?
Why can't I select a bright-looking tile?
What are the letter tiles?
How does the combo work?
Is this the same game as four-player mahjong?
When Mahjong finally lets you go, the puzzle arcade row has its siblings, the arcade glossary has the vocabulary, and the player FAQ has the house rules. Guide last tuned 2026-07-06.
