Mahjong Solitaire vs Real Mahjong: The Difference

Mahjong solitaire — the version most people have played in a browser tab — was invented in 1981 by an American programmer named Brodie Lockard, who based it on a children's pattern game called 'the turtle'. It is one player, one stack of tiles, one rule: match identical pairs. It is a beautiful puzzle. It is not mahjong.

What real mahjong is

Real mahjong — the game born in nineteenth-century China and adapted in twentieth-century America — is a four-player game played with the same 144 or 152 tiles. Players draw and discard, exchange tiles in the Charleston, build sets called pungs and kongs, and race to complete a hand of fourteen tiles. There is bluffing, defense, and a long arc of strategy across a four-round game.

Why the confusion exists

When Lockard's solitaire game was bundled with Microsoft Entertainment Pack 2 in 1990, millions of office computers came with a tile that read 'Mahjong'. For an entire generation, that became what the word meant. The four-player game continued in living rooms and clubs, but the digital memory of it shifted toward the puzzle.

Which to play

Both. Mahjong solitaire is a wonderful fifteen-minute decompression. Real mahjong is a four-hour evening with friends and a fresh pot of tea. They are different rooms of the same house.