American Mahjong

How to Read the NMJL Card

The card is not a list to memorize. It is a small written language, and once you can read it, a new card every April stops being a problem and starts being the fun part.

Every American Mahjong game is played against a card issued each year by the National Mah Jongg League. The card lists every hand you are allowed to win with. Your tiles have to match one line on it, exactly.

New players usually try to memorize the card. That is the hard way, and it stops working the moment a new card arrives. The card is written in a compact notation, the same notation every year. Learn to read it and you can pick up any card, in any year, and know what it is asking for.

What this guide will not show you. The hands on the card are the League's work, and we do not reproduce them, not in text, not in pictures. What we teach is the notation: how a line is written, so you can read your own card. Every example below is invented and labeled as such. Buy the current card from the National Mah Jongg League or an authorized seller.

What a line is

The card is a grid of lines. Each line is one complete legal hand: fourteen tiles, written as a short string of numbers and letters, with two more pieces of information at the right-hand end.

So every line tells you four things:

1. Which tiles to collect, written as groups.
2. Which suits those groups have to be in, shown by color.
3. Whether you may expose the hand as you build it, shown by an X or a C.
4. What it is worth, the point value.

Read those four things and you have read the line. The rest of this guide is what each one looks like.

Color means suit, and nothing else

This is the single most common misreading, so it goes first.

There are three numbered suits in American Mahjong: Bams, Cracks, and Dots. The card prints its numbers in different colors, and those colors are about which suits must match, not which suit to use.

• Numbers in the same color must all be in the same suit.
• Numbers in different colors must be in different suits.

The card never tells you which suit to pick. If a line shows two color groups, you can build it in Bams and Cracks, or Cracks and Dots, or any other pair, as long as the two groups are in different suits.

The trap. The card's colors are not dragon colors. A number printed in red does not mean "use Cracks" and it does not mean "red dragon." It means "this group and every other group in red share one suit." Beginners lose whole hands to this.

Flowers and Winds have no suit at all. They are printed in their own color and stand outside the matching rule entirely.

The groups

The card is written in groups of identical tiles. There are five sizes, and the names matter because the card assumes you know them:

Written as	Name	What it is
Two of a kind	Pair	Two identical tiles
Three of a kind	Pung	Three identical tiles
Four of a kind	Kong	Four identical tiles
Five of a kind	Quint	Five identical tiles
Six of a kind	Sextet	Six identical tiles

You read the size straight off the page by counting the repeated characters. Three of the same digit in a row is a pung of that number. Four is a kong. The card does not label them; the repetition is the label.

Some lines also call for single tiles in sequence rather than a group, a run of consecutive numbers, or the four Winds one after another. Those are singles, not groups, and that distinction decides where a joker may go. More on that below.

The letters

Alongside the numbers, a handful of letters do specific work:

• F is a Flower.
• D is a Dragon.
• N, E, W, S are the Winds: North, East, West, South.
• 0 is a zero, and it is played with the White Dragon, the tile most players call the Soap because it looks like a blank bar of it. Year hands use this: the digits of the year are collected as tiles, and the Soap stands in for the zero.

Dragons follow the suits. When a line pairs a Dragon with a numbered group, the Dragon has to match that group’s suit:

• Red Dragon with Cracks
• Green Dragon with Bams
• White Dragon with Dots

The one exception is the Soap acting as a zero. Used that way it is a digit, not a Dot Dragon, and it can sit beside any suit.

X and C: whether you may expose

At the right of every line is a single letter, and it changes how you play the hand more than anything else on the card.

• X means exposed. You may call a discarded tile and lay the completed group face-up on your rack.
• C means concealed. You may not call, and you may not expose anything. The hand stays hidden in your rack until the moment you win.

A concealed hand is harder, because you have to draw everything yourself, and the card generally pays more for one.

This letter is a commitment, not a preference. If a line says C and you expose a group, you are no longer playing that line.

The point value

Next to the X or C is a number: what the hand pays if you win with it.

Values are set on the card and they move from year to year. A pattern worth 25 on one card can be worth 30 on the next. This is one reason reading beats memorizing, the shape of a hand may survive the April refresh while its value does not.

Broadly, the more a hand demands, the more it pays. When you are choosing between two hands you are close to, the value is a tiebreaker rather than the target: an easier hand you can finish beats a richer one you cannot.

The sections

The card is divided into sections, each holding several lines that share a theme. On the 2026 card those sections are:

• Year, built from the digits of the current year, using the Soap as the zero
• 2468, even numbers
• Any Like Numbers
• Addition Hands
• Quints
• Consecutive Run
• 13579, odd numbers
• Winds and Dragons
• 369
• Singles and Pairs

Sections are a scanning tool. When you pick up your thirteen tiles and see mostly even numbers, you go to 2468 first. Mostly odd, you go to 13579. Three of one number and three of another, you look at Like Numbers. You are not reading the card top to bottom; you are jumping to the neighborhood your tiles already live in.

Section names do change between cards. Addition Hands are not a permanent fixture. Read the headings on the card in front of you.

Where jokers can go

Reading the card also tells you where a joker is legal, and this catches people out constantly.

A joker can stand in for a tile inside a group of three or more: a pung, a kong, a quint, a sextet. A joker can never be used for a pair or for a single tile.

So the same number written two different ways on the card has completely different joker rules. Three of a number is a pung, and a joker can fill it. Two of a number is a pair, and no joker will do; you need the real tile.

This is why the Singles and Pairs section is the hardest on any card. Almost nothing in it can take a joker, so every tile has to be drawn or claimed for real.

The notes in parentheses

Some lines carry a short parenthetical note. These are not decoration. They restrict the line, telling you that groups must be in a particular relationship, that certain tiles must differ, or that a run has to be consecutive rather than any three numbers.

A line read without its note is a line read wrong. When a hand of yours is rejected at the table and you cannot see why, the note is usually the reason.

Reading a line, start to finish

Here is a made-up line. It is not from any card, and it could not be: a real line always totals fourteen tiles and this one has eleven, on purpose. Every piece of notation in it is real.

Invented example, not a real hand: FF 111 2222 DD    X    25

Read it left to right:

• FF, a pair of Flowers. No suit, and no joker allowed, it is a pair.
• 111, a pung of ones. Whatever color this is printed in sets its suit.
• 2222, a kong of twos. If it is printed in the same color as the 111, it is the same suit. A different color means a different suit.
• DD, a pair of Dragons, matching the suit of the group they sit beside. A pair, so again, no joker.
• X, so you may call tiles and expose groups as you build.
• 25, what it pays.

Four groups, two of which could take a joker and two of which could not, across suits you choose yourself. That is a whole line, read.

What changes each April

A new card is issued every year in April, and the old one stops being playable the moment your table switches. What changes is the hands and their values. What does not change is everything on this page: colors mean suits, repetition means group size, X and C mean exposed and concealed, jokers need groups of three or more.

That is the argument for learning the notation instead of the card. The notation is permanent. The card is an annual exam you can now sit without studying.

Getting fluent

Knowing what the symbols mean and reading a card fast are different skills. Fluency is being able to look at thirteen tiles, scan the card, and see the three hands you are closest to before the next discard.

That is reps, not reading. It is what the Stoa Games app is built for: drills that put a card in front of you and ask which hands your tiles support, and explanations of why one answer beat the others. The companion works with your own current card, so what you practice is the card you actually play.

## Frequently asked questions ### Do the colors on the card tell me which suit to use? No. They tell you which groups must **share** a suit and which must **differ**. You pick the actual suits yourself. ### What does the X or C at the end of a line mean? X means you may expose the hand as you build it by calling discards. C means the hand must stay concealed in your rack until you win. ### Can I use a joker anywhere on the card? No. Only inside a group of three or more identical tiles, a pung, kong, quint or sextet. Never for a pair and never for a single tile. ### What is the Soap? The White Dragon. It is called Soap because the tile looks like a blank bar of it. On year hands it is played as the digit zero. ### Do I need this year's card, or will an old one do? You need the current card. The hands change every April, and a table plays the card the League issued for that year. ### Why does the card change every year? The League issues a new one each April; it has run the game this way for decades. The practical effect is that no one stays ahead on memory alone, and every table re-learns together each spring.