Play Mahjong Solitaire Online, Solo or Against Friends

About Mahjong Solitaire

Mahjong solitaire borrows the tiles of Chinese mahjong but plays nothing like the four-player table game. It is a matching puzzle: tiles are stacked in layers, and you remove them two at a time by pairing identical faces that are currently open. It became widely known through computer versions in the 1980s and is sometimes listed as Shanghai solitaire or simply mahjong matching.

The board here is a four-layer stepped tower. The bottom layer is eight tiles by six, with smaller layers of 24, 8 and 4 tiles centred on top, for 84 tiles in total. There are 21 different faces, each appearing four times. A tile is open when nothing on a higher layer overlaps it and it has a clear space on its left or right. Every starting deal is built so that a complete clear is always possible.

In a multiplayer round each person works on a private copy of the same deal, so nobody can take your pairs, and a progress count shows how the others are doing. A round lasts two and a half minutes. A free Shuffle button rearranges your remaining tiles into a new solvable order if you get stuck. It is a good choice for players who like a calm puzzle with a competitive edge.

How to play Mahjong Solitaire

1. Clear every tile from your tower before the other players clear theirs, or before the 2 minute 30 second timer ends.
2. Only open tiles can be picked. A tile is open when no tile from a higher layer covers any part of it and at least one of its left or right sides is empty.
3. Tap one open tile to select it, then tap a second open tile with the same face. Both are removed and you score 10 points.
4. If the second tile does not match, nothing is lost. The new tile simply becomes your selection.
5. Tap Shuffle to rearrange the faces on your remaining tiles into a fresh solvable layout. It can be used again after a four-second wait.
6. Every player starts from the same arrangement but plays on a separate board, so your moves never change anyone else's tiles.
7. The first player to remove all 84 tiles wins at once. If time runs out first, the player who has cleared the most tiles wins, and equal counts are a draw.

Rules checked against the game on 2026-09-01.

Mahjong Solitaire tips and strategy

• Work the top of the tower first. The four tiles on the highest layer and the eight beneath them cover the middle of the board, and removing them opens more tiles than any edge pair does.
• When three open tiles share a face, choose the pair that frees the most new tiles and leave the third for its partner still buried below.
• Open up long rows from both ends. A row of eight only ever offers its two outer tiles, so the bottom layer is the slowest part to clear.
• Shuffle the moment you see no pair instead of searching for ten seconds. In a 150-second race the four-second cooldown costs far less than a long stall.
• Scan for one face at a time rather than reading every tile. Picking a symbol and finding its twin is quicker than comparing the whole board.