2A tile is free when nothing lies on it and its left or right side is open.
3Clear every tile from the layout to win.
4Look ahead: removing the wrong pair can bury the tiles you need.
Questions
Remove all 144 tiles from the board by matching pairs of identical tiles. Win by successfully removing all 144 tiles. A clean board is a perfect victory. Getting stuck with unplayable tiles means defeat.
144 Mahjong tiles (four copies each of 36 different tiles) are stacked in various patterns. The classic layout is the 'Turtle' - a multi-layered arrangement. Tiles are placed randomly.
Prioritize tiles with the most duplicates in play - removing one frees options. Don't just take the first match - consider what tiles your move exposes. Avoid uncovering tiles you can't immediately match - they block the board.
Mahjong Solitaire was created for early personal computers, first appearing in 1981, when Brodie Lockard wrote it for a university computer system. It introduced Mahjong tiles to Western audiences as a single-player puzzle.