Winning
You win when your 14 tiles exactly match a hand on the card, group for group, and you say 'mah jongg'. The fourteenth tile can come from the or from a you call.
Each hand on the card has a point value, and the three losers pay the winner. If the winning tile came from a , the player who discarded it pays double and the other two pay the listed value. Scoring can wait. For now the goal is simply to recognize a finished hand.
If you say mah jongg and then see that your hand does not match the card, you can take it back, as long as you have not laid your tiles out. Once you have laid out a hand that does not match, it is , so look twice before you call it.
That is the whole shape of the game: deal, , draw and , win. The drills on this site practice three skills beginners find hardest: knowing the tiles instantly, passing well in the Charleston, and reading the card.
How many tiles are in a winning hand?