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What's the difference between mahjong and mahjong solitaire?

They are two completely different games. Real mahjong is a four-player tile game of skill; "mahjong solitaire" is a single-player tile-matching puzzle that only borrows the tile artwork.

The word "mahjong" gets attached to two unrelated things:

• Mahjong (the real game). Four players, drawing and discarding tiles to build a winning hand of sets and a pair, scored competitively. It is a social game of skill, memory, and reading opponents — the game this whole site is about.
• Mahjong solitaire. A single-player computer puzzle where you clear a pyramid of tiles by matching free pairs. It uses mahjong tiles as artwork but shares none of the rules, scoring, or play of the actual game. It was invented for computers in the 1980s.

If you are looking to keep score for a real four-player mahjong night, that is the game Mahjiku is built for.

Last reviewed 2026-08-23.

© 2026 Steven Eka Halim · Mahjiku records game points only.