New to Mahjong and unsure what the tiles are? This guide will help you identify the tiles, and teach you how to use them in a Flex Mahjong game. Though this game is a variant of American Mah Jongg, you can play with tiles that don’t have English letters or numbers printed on them with the help of this guide. Flex Mahjong gives you the flexibility to play with any Mahjong set you can find!
The Number Tiles
The Number Tiles are the core tiles used in every Flex Mahjong game. There are three suits of number tiles: Dots, Cracks (Characters) and Bams (Bamboo). Each suit has tiles numbered 1 to 9 and a “dragon” tile that is the number 0 or 10 depending on how it is used. There are 4 identical copies of each number tile. Number tiles are the only required tiles in a Flex Mahjong game.
Dots Suit (1 – 9 & White Dragon)
Cracks Suit (1 – 9 & Red Dragon)
Bams Suit (1-9 & Green Dragon)
The 1 Bam usually has a bird image, so check your tiles carefully.
Optional Suit Tiles
There are two special types of tiles that are usually included in Mahjong sets that you can use in a Flex Mahjong game: Wind Suit Tiles and Flower Suit Tiles. Both have special rules for use in a winning Mahjong hand. You can add one or both of these suits of tiles to the game, or play without them.
Wind Suit
There are 4 types of winds tiles in the winds suit:
North, South, East, and West
There are 4 identical copies of each wind tile.
If using wind tiles, use all 16 tiles in the game.
Flower Suit
Unlike the other suits with different numbers, all of the flower suit tiles are identical.
The images on flower tiles in Mahjong sets can vary greatly, and may have numbers or seasons printed on them, or other designs that may not look like flowers.
The standard number of flowers to use is 6, but you can add as many or as few as you want, or none.
Optional Action Tiles
There are two special types of tiles that are usually included in Mahjong sets that allow you to take special actions in the game: Joker Tiles and Blank Tiles. These tiles are not part of a suit, instead they are used to replace or exchange for other tiles to help you complete a winning Mahjong hand. You can add one or both of these types of tiles to the game, or you can play without them. The more joker and blank tiles you add, the easier it is for players to make a winning hand, so adjust the amount used according to the skill and experience of the players, or the style of game you want to play.
Jokers
Jokers are “wilds” that can take the place of a number tile or wind tile.
They can also be exchanged for tiles that have been exposed during play.
The standard number of jokers to use is 6, but you can add as many or as few as you want.
Blanks
Blanks can be exchanged with already discarded tiles.
Blanks make the game a lot easier so typically players leave them out, but if you want to use them, add up to 4.
Tiles Without Letters & Numbers
There are many beautiful Mahjong sets produced for Asian variants of the game that do not have English letters or numbers printed on them. Do not fear, you can learn how to use these tiles too! Below are some tips and tricks for connecting the symbols and characters to numbers and tile types.
Dots Suit
For the numbers 1 through 9, simply count the dots on each tile
The White Dragon is usually an image of a dark colored frame which is supposed to be a fancy frame around a white dragon which you can’t see because the tile is white.
This tile is also called “Soap” in American Mah Jongg because the frame image can look like a bar of soap.
In some sets, this tile is completely blank, so it can’t be used with other blank tiles.
To remember that this is part of the dots suit, the frame will usually be in the same dark color that is used in many of the Dot tiles.
Bams Suit
1 Bam is usually a bird image which is unique in each set. Be careful not to confuse the bird tile with a flower tile, especially if your flower tiles have numbers on them.
Samples of 1 Bams from different sets
For numbers 2 through 9, just count the bamboo sticks.
Traditionally the 8 Bam looks like a W over an M, making it easy to distinguish.
The Green Dragon tile goes with the Bam suit because the predominant color of Bams is green. The Green Dragon will look like complex Chinese character. It could be confused with a Wind tile, but it should be a different color than the wind tiles so distinguishable.
Cracks Suit
The Cracks or Characters suit can be challenging for Western players because they use Chinese number characters. However here are some tips to help easily identify the numbers that correspond to the characters.
Numbers 1, 2, and 3 are easy because you can just count the horizontal lines to get the number.
Number 4 is easy if you count the 4 vertical lines in the character:
Number 5 is tricky, but you can visualize a 5 inside the character:
Number 6 looks like a stick figure person. You may be able to remember a 6-Man by thinking of the “6 Million Dollar Man” TV show or the “6th Man” in a Basketball game.
Number 7 can look like an X. To remember this, think of the 7 Pairs scoring hand, which calculates as 7X2 =14 tiles.
Number 8 looks like a mountain. To remember this you can think, “I’m almost at the top of the mountain!” since 8 is almost the highest number tile.
Number 9 somewhat looks like a lowercase “n”, so remember that “nine” starts with “n”.
The Red Dragon tile goes with the Crack suit because the larger character on the suit tile is usually printed in red. The tile looks like a dagger, which you can remember as the “Blood Red Dagger”.
Winds Suit
Because of how they are used in American Flex Mahjong, you don’t technically need to know which wind tile is which, unless you use the Flextra Special Opposite Winds Sequence. You just need to make sure you are matching identical tiles and using all 4 winds. But if you are using winds it is still good to know which is which.
EAST: Look for an “E” in the middle part of the character, or an “E” pointing down at the bottom of the character.
WEST: Look for a “W” at the bottom of the character. West and South can look very similar, so keep an eye out for the flat line on top of the West tile which other winds don’t have.
NORTH: Look for a lower case “n” for North in the character.
SOUTH: Look for the bulk of the character on the bottom of the tile with multiple lines of the character pointing down, thinking about maps where south is usually at the bottom.
Flowers Suit
Flower tiles can vary greatly in different sets. They may be numbered, have seasons printed on them, or other characters. In fact, many “flower” tiles don’t look like flowers at all, they can be almost anything. In Flex Mahjong, all flowers are identical to each other no matter what is printed on them or what the image looks like.
All tile images on this page come from wiki commons:
American Flex Mahjong is all about flexibility. It is designed to let you play with whatever Mahjong tile set you can get your hands on. Pick whatever tiles you want to play with and make your game your own!
Flex Mahjong 