Why you should start playing Mahjong

31 May, 2025

I've gotten into Riichi Mahjong recently, and you should too (probably).

A very basic explanation before i talk about the fun stuff

In case you didn't know, Riichi Mahjong is a game played by four players. Each player takes turns drawing Mahjong tiles and then discarding one tile from their hand. The end goal is to end up with a hand made up of one pair and four triplets or straights. There's various kinds of hands you're allowed to win with - these are called yakus. For example, having a hand consisting of only number tiles from 2-8. You can also steal tiles other players discard, but I won't get into the specifics here. Just know that it's a thing you can do. Alright, explanation over, i can start gushing about mahjong now.

The fun stuff

Now, first of all: Mahjong is a really unfair game. It is entirely possible (If extremely unlikely) to draw so well that you win instantly before anyone even gets the opportunity to play. You might think this is stupid, but it's actually part of why i love the game - I'll get there in a minute. Anyways, despite the big component luck plays, there's an incredible level of skill involved in high level mahjong play - Looking at your opponent's discards to figure out what tiles they're trying to draw to avoid playing into them by discarding the wrong tile, knowing when to take risks and when to play it safe, and knowing what tiles to discard in the first place to get to a winning hand as quickly as possible.

I think the fun part about mahjong is that combination of incredibly strategic decisionmaking and plain luck. Because, even if you suck (which you will, trust me) it's still fun. Because there's still that possibility of just getting really lucky and drawing an insane, flashy hand that completely turns the game around. It never feels like you're losing in mahjong, even if you're really far behind points-wise. Because if you just get lucky enough, maybe you can still turn things around. It's a lot different to, say, chess, where getting completely demolished by someone better than you makes you feel like winning against them is just straight up impossible. It's also a lot less overwhelming. There's tons of skill involved, but each round you only have to make one decision - what tile do i get rid of? This decision seems fairly simple when starting out, but gets more complex and interesting the more you learn about how to play well. Complete beginners aren't going to get overwhelmed by the concept of tile efficiency or hand acceptance, because these are things you learn about as you get better, you don't need any knowledge of them to play a game of mahjong. In chess, instantly being in control of like twenty pieces that all move in unique ways is a lot more overwhelming than just "pick a tile to discard". In mahjong, once you pick up the basics (which, to be fair, are more convoluted than chess), you feel like you can start making meaningful strategic decisions instantly, even if they don't actually end up being anywhere near optimal most of the time. The element of luck also ensures that every round feels fresh, and being able to go for those ridiculously flashy, unlikely hands is just plain fun. I can't think of many other tabletop games¹ that let you pull of the kind of stupid over the top stuff that mahjong lets you do. Having that opportunity to pull of thirteen orphans, big three dragons, nine gates or make some other bullshit over the top hand is what makes mahjong a great time regardless of skill level. Because even if you don't win, you can still potentially pull off something stupid awesome if you get lucky enough - and if you are good at the game, strategizing and trying not to play into your opponent's hands is really damn fun. Even when you get hit by a bullshit thirteen orphans that came out of completely nowhere, it's still fun - You see those sorts of hands rarely enough that it's cool seeing them out in the wild. And the fact that the game is quite luck-based also softens the blow of losing in my opinion - you can just blame it on bad luck xd. Anyways, go ahead and try mahjong! Do it! If you wanna learn the basics, I'd go play mahjong soul, it has a decent tutorial.