Thursday, August 6, 2026 · daily challenge
Mahjong Solitairedaily — August 6, 2026
- Time
- 0:00
- Tiles
- 144
- Moves
- 23
Tap a bright tile, then tap its match. Dimmed tiles are covered or blocked on both sides. Turtle deal #687012.
About Mahjong Solitaire
Mahjong solitaire is a matching game played with the 144 tiles of a mahjong set, stacked into a shape. Take any two identical tiles that are free and they leave the board. Clear all 144 and you win. That is the whole game — and the reason it has been quietly eating people's lunch breaks since the 1980s is that the shape, not the matching, is the puzzle. Which pair you take changes which tiles become free, and a pair taken carelessly early can strand its twins under a slab you can no longer reach.
A tile is free when nothing is resting on top of it and at least one of its long sides — the whole side, not part of it — is clear. Tiles in the middle of a row are locked in place until one end of the row is eaten away, and a tile under the corner of another tile is locked no matter how much space it has on either side. Free tiles here are drawn at full strength and everything else is dimmed, so you can read the state of the board without probing it tile by tile.
Every deal on this page is solvable. That is not a claim about luck, it is how the deals are built: the generator starts with the layout empty, repeatedly picks a pair of positions that would be free at that moment, and only then decides what faces to put on them. The order it picked them in is a working solution, so at least one exists before you ever see the board. If you get stuck, you played into it — and undo, hint and shuffle are all there.
Five layouts are included. The Turtle is the classic pyramid that most people picture when they hear "mahjong solitaire"; Dragon and Butterfly are wide and open; Fortress hides its middle behind a solid slab; Cat is the friendliest of the lot. Each is its own deal number, so you can share a layout and a number and hand somebody the exact board you just cleared.
How to play Mahjong Solitaire
- 1The board starts with 144 tiles stacked into the layout you picked. Tiles that are currently free are drawn brightly; blocked tiles are dimmed.
- 2A tile is free when no tile lies on top of it and either its whole left side or its whole right side is clear.
- 3Tap a free tile to select it, then tap its match to remove both from the board. Tap the selected tile again to deselect it.
- 4Tiles match when they show the same picture. The exception is the bonus tiles: any flower matches any other flower, and any season matches any other season.
- 5Removing a pair usually frees up new tiles — that is the whole engine of the game, so look at what a pair unlocks before you take it.
- 6Use Hint if you cannot spot anything, and Undo to take a pair back. Neither ends the game.
- 7If nothing is left to match, the board says so. Shuffle re-deals the tiles still on the table into a fresh, solvable arrangement — it counts as a penalty and is shown on the result panel.
- 8Clear all 144 tiles to win. The clock runs while you play and pauses when you leave the tab.
Mahjong Solitaire strategy
- Clear the top and the long rows first. Tiles on the upper levels block four tiles each, and the ends of the long bottom rows are the only way into the middle of the board. Both are worth more than an easy pair sitting on an edge.
- Before you take a pair, check whether it is the only pair of its kind on the board. If three or four tiles of a kind are visible, matching two of them is nearly free. If only two are showing and the other two are buried, ask what taking them unlocks before you commit — those two may be needed to release something else later.
- When all four tiles of a kind are free at once, take them. It is the single safest move in mahjong: whichever two you match, the remaining two are still a matched pair, so nothing can go wrong.
- Work from the outside in on symmetrical layouts, and keep both flanks moving at a similar rate. Eating one side of the Butterfly or the Turtle all the way down leaves the other wing locked with nothing to pair against.
- Do not clear the free tiles just because they are free. Every tile you remove from the outer edge that unlocks nothing is a move you could have spent freeing a slab tile instead.
- Flowers and seasons are your flexible currency — any flower takes any other flower. Because they match so loosely they are almost never the pair that gets you stuck, so save them for when you have nothing else.
- If you have to shuffle, do it early. A shuffle on a board with a hundred tiles still standing gives the generator plenty of room; a shuffle with eight tiles left is much more likely to leave you in the same trap.
Mahjong Solitaire variants
Each plays differently enough to be worth its own run.
Turtle
The classic pyramid everyone means by mahjong solitaire.
Dragon
A long, staggered serpent with a ridge down its spine.
Fortress
A walled courtyard. Only three levels, but the middle is stubborn.
Butterfly
Two open wings around a raised body. Peels from the edges in.
Cat
Ears, paws and a tail. A softer shape with an easy opening.
Mahjong Solitaire daily challenge
One shared deal a day, the same for everyone. Win it and your streak goes up.
Mahjong Solitaire — common questions
Is every mahjong deal solvable?
Every deal on this page is, yes. Deals are built by reverse construction: the generator starts with the empty layout and repeatedly picks a pair of positions that would be free at that point, then assigns matching faces to them afterwards. The sequence it picked is itself a complete solution, so a way to clear the board provably exists. Most mahjong sites shuffle faces onto the layout at random, and a large share of those boards genuinely cannot be won — which is why so many people assume mahjong is unfair.
What exactly makes a tile free?
Two conditions, both required. Nothing may rest on top of it, not even the corner of a tile that is offset by half a position. And at least one of its long sides must be completely clear, so a tile in the middle of a row stays locked until one end of the row is gone. A tile can have a huge gap above it and still be blocked if it is wedged between two neighbours.
Why can I not match these two tiles that look the same?
Almost always because one of them is not free — check whether it is dimmed. The other possibility is the bonus tiles: the four flowers are four different pictures and the four seasons are four different pictures, and they match within their group but never across it. A plum flower matches an orchid flower; a plum flower never matches a spring season.
What happens when I run out of moves?
The board tells you straight away rather than letting you hunt for a match that is not there. You can undo back to the decision that caused it, shuffle the remaining tiles into a fresh solvable arrangement, or start a new deal. Undo is the cheapest of the three — a dead end is usually four or five moves downstream of the mistake.
Does the shuffle button count against me?
It is counted and shown on the result panel, so a clean win reads as a clean win. It is not a penalty in any other sense: the game does not end, the clock does not jump, and the reshuffled board is generated the same solvable way the original deal was.
How many tiles are there and what are they?
A full set of 144. Three numbered suits of nine tiles — characters, bamboo and circles — with four copies of each, which is 108. Then four copies each of the four winds and the three dragons, which is 28. Finally eight bonus tiles: four flowers and four seasons, one copy of each. That works out as 36 groups of four tiles, which is why the board always divides evenly into pairs.
Which layout should I start with?
The Turtle if you want the classic, or Cat if you want an easier ride — its tail is free from the first move and its body opens quickly. Fortress is the hardest of the five because the twelve-wide slab at the bottom only opens from its two ends, so a careless start can leave you eating one row at a time.