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Mah Jong Solitaire Rules

Mah Jong Solitaire is a solitaire matching game that uses a set of 144 tiles that are arranged in random order in four-layered specific layouts. Tile layouts can represent buildings, animals, seasons, spirits and other elements of the natural and spiritual worlds. Mah Jong Solitaire is a spin-off of the Chinese four-player game Mah Jong. The only major difference between the two games is that the original Mah Jong allows a player to reshuffle the board if no legal moves remain. Variations of the game are found all over Asia.

The Goal and Challenge of the Game
- Mah Jong tiles
  
  The goal of the game is to clear the 144 tiles by matching and removing the 72 pairs of tiles from the arrangement. However, not all of the tiles are exposed to the player at a time, and a player can only match up pairs in which both tiles within the pair are free.
Tiles
- Mah Jong tiles are divided into suits.
  
  There are a total of 72 pairs in a game of Mah Jong Solitaire. The tiles have suits just like cards do. These suits are: Bamboo, Characters, Circles, Dragons, Flowers, Seasons and Winds. A tile is considered free as long as it has no other tile covering it at all and either the left or right side of the tile is exposed, not directly touching another tile. Flower and Season tiles do not require an exact match, because each tile has no identical companion.
The End of the Game
- Collect matched tiles.
  
  The game is over when the entire arrangement is cleared, with all tiles matched, or if there are no legal moves left.

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