Learn American Mahjong
The tile game built around a yearly card. We teach you to read the card, run the Charleston, and actually play well, not just push tiles.
American Mahjong is a four-player tile game built around a card issued each year by the National Mah Jongg League, which lists the hands you can win with. It looks intimidating from the outside, 152 tiles, jokers, a card full of numbers and colors,but it comes apart into a handful of ideas you can learn in order.
That is what Stoa Games does: teach it as a path, from the tiles up.
Start here
- How to Play American Mahjong: A Beginner’s Guide: the whole game, start to finish.
- How to Read the NMJL Card: the notation, colors, X and C, point values, and where jokers can go.
Learn the card and the game
The rest of the guides are on the way. Each teaches one piece well:
- The Charleston, step by step
- The tiles: Bams, Cracks, Dots, Winds, Dragons, Flowers, and Jokers
- Where beginners go wrong (and how to fix it)
- How to practice so it sticks
We teach the game and how to read the card. We never reproduce the League’s hands,> you use your own current card, and our companion helps you enter it.
Learn American Mahjong the right way
Stoa Games gives you structured lessons, spaced-repetition drills, and clear explanations of every move, not just a table to play at. The app is still in development. Every guide on this site is free to read while we build it.