How to play Mahjong solitaire
The board is a stack of tiles arranged in layers. Your job is to remove them all by matching identical pairs. But you can only take a tile that is free — meaning nothing is stacked on top of it, and either its left or its right edge is open. Click one free tile, then click a matching free tile, and both disappear. Keep clearing pairs until the whole board is gone. If you get stuck with no matches available, hit Shuffle to rearrange the remaining tiles, or start a fresh board.
Tips & strategy
- Free the stacks first. Prioritize tiles that are trapping many others underneath.
- Look before you match. If four of a kind are showing, choose the two that unblock the most tiles.
- Keep pairs in reserve. Don't remove a matching pair if you might need one of them to reach something later.
- Work the edges. Tiles on the outside are almost always free — clear inward from there.
About the game
Mahjong solitaire is a single-player tile-matching game inspired by the imagery of the traditional Chinese game of Mahjong, though it plays quite differently. It became hugely popular on personal computers and remains a soothing, meditative favorite — no timer, no opponent, just the quiet satisfaction of clearing tile after tile.