What Makes a Mahjong Solitaire Deal "Solvable"?

A solvable Mahjong Solitaire deal is a board that can be fully cleared from its starting layout — every tile can eventually be matched and removed. In Friends at Mahjong Solitaire, every deal is checked for solvability before it reaches you, so you're not handed a board that was already broken before you made a single move.

What does "solvable" actually mean in Mahjong Solitaire?

Mahjong Solitaire — also spelled Mahjongg Solitaire — is played with the 144 tiles of a real Mahjong set: Bams, Craks, Dots one through nine, four Winds, three Dragons, and eight Flowers. You clear the board by matching pairs of free tiles — tiles with nothing stacked on top of them and at least one open side (left or right).

A tile becomes free when nothing covers it and its left or right side is open. A board is solvable if there's at least one sequence of matches that clears every tile.

How Friends at Mahjong Solitaire handles this

Every deal in Friends at Mahjong Solitaire is checked before it's shown to you, so the Daily board and every Journey level you play start from a layout that can be cleared. That applies whether you're playing today's Daily board (generated from the date, so everyone gets the same deal) or working through the Journey's levels.

If you get stuck, that's a position you reached through play, not a board that was unsolvable from the start — and a hint highlights an available pair without playing the move for you.

Try it

Play a checked deal for free, right in your browser, at mahjonggsolitaire.app — no download or sign-up required to start. The first ten levels of the Journey and the full Daily board rotation are free; the rest of the Journey opens with a one-time purchase (see the current price on the site). A companion iPhone app, Friends at Mahjong Solitaire, carries the same purchase across devices on one account.