Mahjong solitaire

Mahjong is a Chinese game widely spread throughout the Far East. There are a lot of varieties and rules of Mahjong, which vary not only from country to country, but even within China: each province plays in its own way, and everywhere they claim that only they play according to the original rules.

Classic Mahjong is a complex, truly Chinese game, full of deep symbolism and somewhat similar to poker, dominoes and solitaire combined. From one to four people take part in it.

Rules of the game Mahjong Solitaire

In the West, Mahjong has gained popularity in a slightly modified and simplified form, known as “Mahjong solitaire”. Indeed, the rules of this kind of Mahjong are in many ways similar to the rules of solitaire. It is designed for one player, only plates similar to dominoes take part in solitaire; dice and cards are not involved in solitaire. Therefore, fans of classic Chinese Mahjong often refuse to recognize the kinship of solitaire with their favorite game, preferring to call the latter “Chinese solitaire”.

In Mahjong solitaire, before the start of the session, the plates are laid out on the playing field in several layers in such a way as to form a kind of pyramid. The goal is to completely clear the playing field from the plates. They are removed in pairs: you can remove any two identical plates, provided that both are not blocked – not covered with another plate on top and have one free edge – left or right, adjacent to only one plate, leaving one edge open.

There are various pyramids that differ in degree of complexity, but in any case, at the very beginning of the session, solitaire may seem too simple. This impression is deceptive: it will become continuously more complicated as the plates will be eliminated. If you are playing the board version of Mahjong Solitaire, you need to be patient.

Each session can last several days, and most of the pyramid layouts are almost impossible to disassemble the first time. The computer version of solitaire lacks this drawback: the program makes a pyramid every time so that the player has a chance to completely disassemble it.

Whichever option you choose, in any case Mahjong is originated from a game fanned by legends and traditional Chinese mysticism.