Mahjong Solitaire: Play Mahjong Solitaire Online Free

Mahjong Solitaire is the quiet tile matching game you have probably seen a hundred times, usually built out of a mound of 144 tiles shaped like a turtle. Your job is to take the whole pile apart, two matching tiles at a time, until the table is empty.

It is not the four player gambling game that shares the name. There are no opponents here and no betting. It is one person, one board, and a puzzle that rewards looking a few moves ahead instead of grabbing the first pair you spot. Every board on this site is generated so that a full solution exists, so if you get stuck, the fault is in the order you picked, not in the deal.

How to play

Click a tile, then click its twin. If the two faces match and both tiles are free, they vanish and whatever they were covering opens up.

When is a tile free?

A tile can be taken when nothing is sitting on top of it and either its left side or its right side is open. A tile with neighbors pressed against both sides is locked, even if you can see its face perfectly well. Tiles you cannot take yet are drawn faded, so you can tell at a glance what is actually in play.

What counts as a match?

Almost always, two tiles match when they show the same face. The one exception is the bonus tiles. Any flower matches any other flower, and any season matches any other season, even though the four pictures in each set are all different.

Tips that actually help

• Work on the tall stacks first. Tiles buried under the peak are the ones most likely to strand you later.
• When all four copies of a face are showing, clearing all four is usually safe. When only two are showing, think about what the other two are holding down.
• The long rows at the far left and far right unlock slowly, one tile at a time, so chip away at them early rather than saving them.
• Being able to see a pair is not the same as being able to take it. Check that both tiles are free before you commit.

The buttons

• New Game deals a fresh board and gives it a new puzzle ID.
• Undo puts back the pair you just took. You can keep going back all the way to the opening board.
• Hint pulses one pair you are allowed to take right now.
• Shuffle rearranges the faces of the tiles still on the table, keeping them in the same positions, and guarantees at least one legal move afterward.

Questions people ask

Is every board solvable?

Yes. Boards are built by running a solve in reverse, laying pairs into slots that were free at that moment, so a winning order always exists. You can still paint yourself into a corner by taking the wrong pairs, which is the actual game.

What is the code in the address bar?

Every board gets a five character puzzle ID, and it sits in the URL. Copy the link and anyone who opens it gets the exact same deal you are looking at, right down to the last tile.

Why do my tiles look greyed out?

Those tiles are blocked. Something is resting on them, or they are hemmed in on both sides. Clear whatever is pinning them and they brighten up.

I ran out of moves. Did I lose?

Not unless you want to call it that. Hit Shuffle to redeal the remaining faces and keep playing, or use Undo to walk back to the move where things went sideways and try a different pair.

How many tiles are there?

144. That is a full mahjong set: 136 standard tiles, four copies each of 34 faces, plus four flowers and four seasons.

Does it work on a phone?

Yes. The board scales to whatever width your screen has, and tapping works the same as clicking. Nothing to install and no account to make.

About

This is a small, fast version of a game that usually arrives buried under ads, popups, and a loading screen. No signup, no timer pressuring you, no score chasing you around the page. Open it, clear a board, close the tab.

The tile faces are drawn in the style you would find on a real set, and the rules follow the classic turtle layout that has been around since the game showed up on office computers in the 1980s.