Mahjong Tiles Games

Traditional Chinese Game

• The traditional Chinese mahjong game involves two setup steps called Building the Wall, which involves placing all the tiles face down, shoulder-to-shoulder on the playing area, and Breaking the Wall, where players roll dice and choose their tiles. The object of the game is to collect 14 tiles in particular matched sets.

American Mahjong

• American mahjong uses 136 tiles, and the play is similar to the card game of rummy. In this game, players must put together a complete "hand" that consists of combinations of three of a kind, four of a kind, five or a kind and pairs of tiles. Players start with 13 tiles instead of the traditional Chinese 14. The main difference between the Chinese game and American game is the "Charleston," which is a series of tile exchanges between the players at the start of the game.

Pussers Bones

• The Royal Australian Navy used mahjong tiles to develop a game called Pussers Bones. The game involves four players or three players and a "dummy" hand. It uses a set of 144 tiles, and the rules are similar to Chinese mahjong, with the exception that the types of sets needed to complete a hand varies slightly. Pussers Bones is also traditionally played for money.

Memory Game

• This is a fun game to play with small children and introduces them to the mahjong tiles. Turn all tiles face down on the table. Begin turning tiles over trying to match suits, characters, dots, flowers and dragons. When a player finds a match, he removes the tiles from the board. The player with the most tiles at the end of the game is the winner.