We begin lesson 1 learning about the tiles in American Mahjong.
Suits & Dragons
There are 3 suits in Mahjong,
The tiles for each suit are numbered 1-9. There are 4 sets of each number, so a total of 36 tiles per suit. and they all have a matching Dragon.
- Characters, or "Craks" for short
- Bamboo, or "Bams" for short
- Dots
Craks:
The matching Dragon is Red:
Bams:
Notice that the #1 tile for Bamboo resembles a bird. It's easy to confuse the "Bird Bam" tiles with the Flower tiles.
The matching Dragon is Green:
Dots:
Dots are self-explanatory!
The matching Dragon is White:
These Dragons look a lot different than the others, don't they? It can also be called "Soap" or "Soap Dragon" because it looks like a bar of soap. It's the only tile than can represent a zero in a year sequence like 2026.
Here's how I remember which dragon goes with which suit:
- Craks have red on them, they go with the Red Dragon
- Bamboo is green, so Bams go with the Green Dragon
- If you have Dots on your face, you need more Soap!
There are 4 tiles of each joker.
Winds
Also known as NEWS, as in North, East, West, South.
There are 4 tiles each of N, E, W and S tiles.
Flowers
Flower tiles may have flowers, seasons or may have an image that is difficult to decipher on them!
The numbers on these don’t mean anything – ignore them!
Jokers
Jokers are unique to American Mahjong.
There are some rules around when jokers can be used that I'll share with you shortly.
Melds
Melds are the grouping of tiles that make up the hand.
- 1 tile = Single
- 2 tiles = Pair
Simple right?
- 3 tiles = Pung
- 4 tiles = Kong
Do I need to remember this? YES. It will make more sense when we disc36uss the "card" in the next lesson.
- 5 tiles = Quint
- 6 tiles = Sextet
Joker Rules
Now back to those Joker rules...
- Jokers can be used to complete a Pung (3 of a kind), Kong (4 of a kind), Quint or Sextet.
- Jokers cannot be used to complete sequences, singles or pairs
- Once discarded, Jokers cannot be called by another player, ever. Not even for Mahjong.
- We'll discuss Joker exchanges in Lesson 4: Playing Basics
Tile Variety
The more you play with others, the more you'll be exposed to different kinds of tiles. When playing with a set you're not familiar with, be sure you take a look at the Bird Bam (Tile #1 in the Bamboo suit), the flower tiles, and the dragons.
American Mahjong uses 152 tiles
When you buy a set, it often comes with extra tiles. You'll want to be sure you're playing with 152 tiles::
- 36 Craks + 4 Red Dragons
- 36 Bamboo + 4 Green Dragons
- 36 Dots + 4 White Dragons
- 16 Winds (4 each of North, East, West, South)
- 8 Flower tiles
- 8 Jokers
If you have an old set or a set for Chinese Mahjong, if there are blank tiles included, you can get Joker stickers to put on the blank tiles to play American Mahjong.
For the next lesson, click here: Lesson 2 - Reading the Card – Mahjong for Makindu
