A little ritual.
A very good hand.

Everyone gets one specific target hand with fixed suits and the same starting wall. Play solo against three bots; only the target hand wins. A free tracker shows matched tiles, missing tiles, and eligible jokers as you play. Each day’s challenge releases at 11:59 p.m. UTC the previous day. Your first result counts toward your local record, and you can replay for practice. Results and streaks are saved in this browser, so clearing browser storage clears them.

Yes. Playing is free and always will be — no account, no payment, no cap on games. OpenMahj+ is optional and costs $2/month or $20/year. It adds three tile designs, live hand-card progress tracking, and tile hints. It changes nothing about the game: members and non-members sit at the same tables under the same rules.

Open openmahj.com/play, type a display name, and start a table. You get a four-character room code. Send that code — or the table link — to your friends by text, email or group chat; they open it in any browser and take a seat. Nobody needs an account or a download, and any seat that is not filled is played by a bot until a person arrives.

No. Type a display name, then create or join a table with a four-character room code. That is the entire sign-in flow. An account only exists for the optional membership.

No. The National Mah Jongg League card is copyrighted and sold annually, so it is not reproduced here and OpenMahj is not affiliated with the NMJL. OpenMahj includes original house cards from 2022 through 2026. Choose a card when you create your table; the Daily Table selects one exact target from the 2026 house card.

After the deal, each player picks three unwanted tiles and passes them: first to the right, then across, then to the left. The table can then agree to a second Charleston in the reverse order. Jokers can never be passed. The server checks each pass and only the receiving player sees the tiles, exactly as at a physical table.

A joker stands in for any tile in a pung, kong or quint — a group of three or more — but never in a pair, a single, or a run. Jokers cannot be passed in the Charleston. If another player has exposed a group containing a joker and you hold the natural tile it is standing in for, you can exchange your tile for that joker on your turn.

Yes. Choose a two-player table when you create it. Siamese mode gives each person two hands to play at once; the standard two-player option plays one hand each. Four-player tables fill any empty seat with a bot, so two or three friends can also play a full four-seat game.

Yes. OpenMahj runs in Safari, Chrome and other modern browsers on iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac and Windows — there is nothing to install from an app store. The table reflows to fit the screen it is on, including a phone held sideways, and you can add it to your home screen for a full-screen table.

A bot takes any seat nobody has claimed and plays by the same rules as everyone else: it passes in the Charleston, draws, discards, and calls. If a person drops off, a bot covers their seat so the table never stalls, and when that person (or a late arrival) rejoins, the bot hands the seat back mid-hand. You can also start a table alone and play against three bots.

OpenMahj+ costs $2 per month or $20 per year and includes Ink Wash, Jade & Lacquer, and Midnight Neon tile designs, live progress on the hand card, and hints about which tiles fit your hand. It changes nothing at the table. Payments are handled by Stripe and can be canceled any time before renewal.

No. Mahjong solitaire is a single-player matching puzzle. OpenMahj is American Mahjong — closer to rummy. Players hold concealed hands, draw and discard in turn, and race to build patterns from the hand card.

The table keeps going and a bot plays your seat so nobody is left waiting on you. Reopen the same room link and you get your own seat back with the current state of your hand, including any moves autoplay made while you were away.

Yes, if the table is created with spectator seats. Spectators see the discards, the exposures and the score, but never a concealed hand — the server only ever sends each person the tiles they are entitled to see.