About Mahjong |
Two matching tiles are removed on each move with the overall goal being to remove every tile without blocking yourself off. Mahjong is a traditional Chinese matching game, the single player version is also known as Shanghai or Mahjong Solitaire. The game begins with a stack of 144 Mahjong tiles:There are 4 pieces of each of the following tiles:
the 4 winds (N, S, E, W) and the 3 dragons (C, P, F)
Solitaire Mahjong is a game of strategy, luck, and memory: The game ends once you have managed to remove all tiles or if there aren't any pairs of matching and playable tiles left. |
History of Mahjong |
Mahjong translates roughly as "chattering sparrow". There are many myths surrounding its origins, one claims it was named because Confucius liked birds and used the game as a teaching tool that he took with him across China in his travels. However, a rather large number of games in China claim to have been invented by Confucius. In fact, the oldest identifiable reference to a Mahjong tile dates to the 1880s. In 1981, the computer game was first created by Brodie Lockard using the PLATO system and it was named Mah-Jongg. He based it on a centuries-old Chinese game called "the Turtle". Although the name mahjong solitaire is most commonly used, other names in use are The Turtle as well as Shanghai Solitaire and Taipei. |