Online Mahjong Solitaire Game

Seeing two identical tiles does not always give you a move. Mahjong solitaire is a solo matching puzzle in which tiles form a stacked layout and disappear in pairs. The aim is to clear the entire board. A tile's face tells you what it matches, while its position determines whether you can remove it.

Both tiles must be available before a pair can leave the board. Availability depends on two conditions.

• Nothing overlaps the tile from a higher stack level.
• Its left edge or its right edge is open at the same level. One open edge is enough.

A tile in the next row does not block a move merely by being above or below it in the flat arrangement. A tile resting on top does, even when enough of the lower face remains visible to recognize it. Finding matching pictures is therefore only part of the puzzle.

Removing a pair can uncover lower tiles and open the ends of rows. When several matches are available, the useful comparison is what each removal would expose. A pair that reveals a needed face or opens a long row can offer more possibilities than one whose removal exposes nothing.

Repeated faces also create traps. If the last two tiles of one face lie directly on top of each other, they cannot be paired because the lower one is still covered. Using another available copy to remove the upper tile before that happens can avoid the dead end.

A solvable starting deal promises at least one complete removal sequence, not success from every legal move. The distinction matters whenever several copies of a face can be paired in different ways. A legal match is a move you can make now, not a promise that all the remaining tiles can still be cleared.

How to Use This Tool:

Choose a board size and a tile appearance before starting. The default setup is Courtyard with Symbols & names and the deal seed garden-1.

1. Choose Layout from Courtyard with 36 tiles, Bridge with 64 tiles, or Tower with 100 tiles. Set Tile faces to Symbols & names or Numbers according to which you find easier to distinguish.
2. Keep the supplied Deal seed or enter your own, then select Start game. The seed must contain 1 to 64 characters after surrounding spaces are removed. If Start game is disabled, replace a blank or spaces-only seed with non-sensitive text.
3. Tap or click an available tile, then another with the same face. A matching pair disappears. For keyboard play, Tab to a tile and press Enter or Space. Screen-reader labels identify its face, position, and availability. Darker tiles are blocked; clicking one explains what must be cleared first.
   The H shortcut requests a hint and P pauses, but only while the game area itself has keyboard focus. They do not apply while a tile or another control has focus.
4. Use Hint when you need help finding a legal pair. If no matching pair remains, use Undo to revisit a previous board or Rescue shuffle to rebuild the remaining tiles. The numbers on Hint and Rescue shuffle show uses remaining. The run does not end automatically when it has no matches.
5. Select Pause for a break and Resume to continue, or End run to finish without clearing the board. Switching away from the browser window or hiding the tab also pauses play. Restart begins the same deal again; after a finished run, choose Replay same deal, New seed, or Change setup.

Interpreting Results:

Tiles left measures progress toward an empty board. Board cleared confirms that every tile has been removed, while Run ended records a run you stopped. The final summary reports pairs cleared and selections, followed by counts of hints, rescue shuffles, and undos used.

Open pairs counts currently legal pair choices, including choices that share a tile. It is not the number of separate pairs you can necessarily remove, and a positive count does not prove the board can still be completed. Before selecting a pair, check which tiles its removal would uncover.

Local best rewards fewer selections on a complete clear with no hints, rescue shuffles, or undos. An assisted clear still completes the puzzle but cannot update that record. Records are separate for each layout and tile-face choice, not for each seed, so use the same seed when comparing different attempts at one deal. There is no timer or time-based score.

Technical Details:

Tile availability is determined by overlap and horizontal neighbors. Matching is checked only after both tiles qualify for removal, so a visible face or an open edge cannot override a tile covering it from above.

Matching and tile availability

Two distinct available tiles are removed together only when their faces match exactly. The nine custom faces can appear as named symbols or as numbers from 1 to 9. These are matching labels, not values to add together. There are no wildcard or bonus-group matches; Flower matches Flower, not another plant-related face.

Selecting a different face leaves both tiles on the board and makes the newer tile the current selection. Selecting the same tile again clears that selection. Both actions increase Selections by one, just like any other selection of an available tile. Clicking a blocked tile does not increase it.

Layouts and solvable deals

The original compact layouts use centered rectangular stacks. Their sizes determine how many pairs must be removed and how much of the board can be covered.

A complete solution is built into every starting deal in three stages.

1. Take the two end tiles of a row at the highest remaining level, checking that both are available.
2. Repeat until the layout is empty, recording each pair of positions. Higher levels are cleared before lower ones.
3. Use the seed to assign one matching face to each recorded pair. Following the recorded order can therefore clear the whole board.

The same layout and seed reproduce the same deal under the same rules; changing the tile-face display does not change its matching relationships.

Each face occurs an even number of times, but there are not always four copies. Courtyard has four of each face, while the larger layouts repeat faces more often. Matching copies from different original pairs is legal, but the remaining position may no longer have a complete solution.

Hints, rescue, and undo

Up to 12 hints and 3 rescue shuffles are available per run. A hint outlines a currently legal pair without removing it or proving that the rest of the board can be cleared. Requesting another hint can consume another allowance even if the highlighted pair is unchanged. No hint is consumed when no legal pair exists.

A rescue preserves the number of remaining tiles and the count of every face, then places them into a new solvable stack within the chosen layout. Tile positions can change. This is not a face-only shuffle that preserves all the currently occupied positions, and it can be used before the board becomes stuck.

Undo restores the board before the most recent pair removal or rescue shuffle. It does not undo a lone selection or a hint. Selection and assistance counts are retained, and a successful undo adds to Undos. Undoing a rescue therefore does not return its allowance or restore eligibility for an unassisted record.

Progress and available pairs

The number of pairs cleared is half the number of tiles removed. Here, P is pairs cleared, T is the starting tile count, and R is Tiles left.

For a 36-tile board with 14 tiles left, 22 tiles have been removed, so 11 of its 18 pairs are cleared. Restoring a pair with Undo reduces this progress even though the selection count stays unchanged.

Open pairs adds up every distinct two-tile choice within each available face. Let O be that count and n_i be the number of available tiles of face i across the nine faces.

Four available tiles with one identical face contribute six open pair choices, although those four tiles can supply only two pair removals. This count describes present choices, not future progress. All pair and selection counts are whole numbers without rounding.

Every tile needs at least one selection to be removed. The minimum possible selection count for a complete clear is therefore the starting tile count, with S_min representing that minimum.

The minimum is 36 selections for Courtyard, 64 for Bridge, and 100 for Tower. Mismatches, deselections, and selecting restored tiles add to that total. Hints, rescues, and undos have their own counters rather than adding tile selections.

Privacy Notes:

Matching and scoring run in your browser. The local best is kept in that browser rather than submitted to a shared leaderboard. Results are recreational and have no monetary value.

• An unfinished board is not saved for restoration after a reload. Pause preserves it only while the current page remains open.
• The layout, tile-face choice, and seed can appear in the page address. Reopening that address recreates the starting deal, not your moves. Use non-sensitive text for a seed.
• Clearing browser site data can remove local records. If browser storage is unavailable, play can continue, but the local best may be unavailable or a completed clear may not be saved.

References:

• Mahjong Rules and How to Play Mahjong, Kristanix Games.