A Beginners Guide to Mahjong Tile Set Up

A successful game of mahjong begins with a properly set up board; we suggest starting with beautiful tiles! This beginners guide to Mahjong tile set up is for standard American Mahjong, there are other variations you can learn, but we suggest starting here.

Begin by shuffling all the tiles face down on the table to mix them thoroughly, ensuring a fair start for all players. Next, all 4 players create their “wall” by stacking the tiles into two layers in front of their section of the table, with each player having 18 stacks tiles on their side (for a total of 36 tiles). This rectangle of tiles will represent the ‘wall’ from which players will draw their tiles.

Once the walls are prepared, it’s time to draw the tiles. To determine the dealer, the players can agree on a method (often the highest role of dice). The dealer rolls the dice, then counts from right to left the number shown on the dice. The dealer breaks the wall by pushing out the remaining tiles drawing the first stack of tiles, and players take turns in a clockwise direction, drawing a total of 12 tiles each. If the dealers wall runs out of tiles the player to the left pushes out their wall and this is the new place to draw from. After the 12th tile is drawn the dealer takes the top tile from the first and third remaining stacks so they have a total of 14 tiles. Each other player takes one tile for a total of 13 tiles. Each player then organizes their tiles and the Charleston begins - a subject for another post!