Mahjong Solitaire

Mahjong, played alone, is a calm matching game. A heap of picture tiles sits on the table in the shape of an animal or an object, and you take it apart two matching tiles at a time.

How to play

The goal is to clear every tile from the table. There is no timer pressure, so you can think as long as you like.

• Matching: tap two tiles that show the same picture. If both are free, they leave the table.
• Free tiles: a tile is free when nothing lies on top of it and its left side or its right side is open. A tile with other tiles on both sides, or with a tile sitting on it, is not free yet.
• Dimmed tiles: the Free tiles button switches on a soft dimming of the tiles you cannot take yet, so you can see at a glance what is available. Tap it again to turn the dimming off.
• Same picture only: the set has 36 different pictures. A picture usually appears on four tiles, and on the biggest boards on some pictures more, so you may have a choice of partners.

Every board is dealt by playing it backwards from an empty table, so each board has at least one way to clear it. A careless move can still lead to a dead end, though.

On a phone, tap one tile and then the other. A selected tile is marked. On a computer, click the same way. The tools below the table are Hint, which shows a free pair, Shuffle, which gives the remaining tiles new pictures, Undo, and New for a different board. On a tall phone screen the board is turned upright so the tiles stay big enough to tap.

When no free pair is left, the game tells you, and you can undo a few moves or shuffle. A shuffle keeps the same pictures in play and re-deals them so that the board can still be cleared. If the tiles left are stacked so that shuffling cannot help, the game says so.

The levels

The levels change the board shapes you play and how many helpers you get.

• Easy: smaller boards, such as the Pancake Stack with 62 tiles, the Kitty with 80 or the Butterfly with 148. Many pairs are open.
• Medium: bigger boards, like the Kitty, the Mushroom with 128 tiles and the Butterfly. Some wrong turns lead to a dead end.
• Hard: tall stacks on the Mushroom, the Goldfish with 144 tiles and the Big Tortoise with 142. Plan which pairs to take first.
• Expert: the same big boards, but you get only 3 hints and 1 shuffle.

The deals for each level were measured. A program played each deal 100 times by taking pairs at random. Easy deals are ones that such a player clears half the time or more, and Expert deals are ones it clears less than one time in ten. Easy, Medium and Hard have unlimited hints and shuffles.

Today's game

The daily game uses one of the Medium boards. Everyone who plays on the same calendar day gets the same board and the same arrangement of pictures.

Tips

1. Look at the tall stacks first. Clearing the top layers early frees the tiles beneath them.
2. Pay attention to long rows. A tile at the end of a row is free, and once it is gone the next one is free as well.
3. When four tiles share one picture, take the two that unlock the most. Leave the other two for later.
4. Before you match a pair, check where the other tiles of that picture are. Do not use up a partner that another tile needs.
5. Use Hint to learn patterns. It shows you pairs you may have missed.

A bit of history

Mahjong solitaire uses the beautiful tiles of the Chinese game of mahjong, but it is a different, one-player game. You match pictures instead of building sets of tiles.

Questions

Is every board winnable? Yes. Each one is built so that a full clear exists. You can still get stuck if you take the wrong pairs, which is why Undo is free.

Why will the tile not move when I tap it? It is probably not free. Look for a tile on top of it, or tiles on both its left and right sides.

What does Shuffle do? It gives the tiles that are left new pictures, in a way that still lets you clear the board. It does not move the tiles.