Guides · Mahjong · 7 min read · 2 October 2026

Mahjong Solitaire: how a deal that can always be cleared is built

In Mahjong Solitaire you clear a stacked layout of tiles by taking off free tiles in matching pairs. Deal those tiles at random and some games are lost before you make a single move. Here is why, and how the deals in Lynxy Mahjong avoid it.

The rule that causes the trouble

A tile is free when nothing lies on top of it and at least one of its long sides - left or right - is open. Only free tiles can be taken. That rule creates dependencies: a tile in the middle of a row waits for its neighbours, a tile in a lower layer waits for everything above it.

Now picture a face that appears twice, and a random shuffle that puts one copy directly on top of the other. The lower tile can only be freed by taking the upper one, and the upper one can only be taken together with the lower one. The deal is lost before it starts, and no amount of skill helps. With four copies the same happens when all four land in one stack, and subtler versions of the trap - chains of tiles that block each other's partners - turn up in many random deals.

Building the deal backwards

Lynxy deals the other way round. The generator starts from the empty layout - just the positions where tiles will go - and takes it apart: at each step it picks two positions that would be free if the board were already built, and removes them. Those two positions get the same face. It repeats until the layout is empty.

Reverse that removal order and you have a sequence of legal moves that clears the whole board. The deal is solvable by construction, without any search. Shuffle uses exactly the same method on the tiles still on the board, so a shuffle can rescue a stuck position but never create an impossible one.

This guarantees that a way through exists, not that every move is safe. You can still take a pair that blocks the solution - which is why undo is unlimited.

Three levels, three kinds of difficulty

The levels differ in more than the number of tiles:

On easy, every face appears exactly twice, so any free pair you can see is a correct move. On medium and hard, a face appears four times, and choosing which two to take first is where games are won or lost. On hard the two pairs of each face are deliberately placed far apart in the solution, so the obvious match is often the wrong one.

Strategy for medium and hard

• When three of a face are free, choose carefully. The one you leave behind will have to pair with the fourth copy, which may be buried. Leave the tile that blocks the least, and take the two that free the most. If all four are free, take both pairs.
• Work on long rows from the ends. A tile in the middle of a row only frees up once one side is clear, so long rows are the slowest part of most layouts.
• Prefer moves that free tiles. Between two pairs, take the one that uncovers or opens up more tiles. A pair at the edge that frees nothing can wait.
• Watch the stacks. High stacks in the centre hold the most tiles hostage. Clearing them early keeps your options open late in the game.
• Use the counter. The number of available matches tells you whether a move made things better or worse. If it drops to one or two, look harder before taking the obvious pair.

A note on the tiles

The set has 42 faces: dots, bamboo and characters from 1 to 9, the four winds, three dragons, four flowers and four seasons. On Lynxy a tile matches only its exact twin, flowers and seasons included - many versions let any flower match any flower, which makes those tiles much easier. Characters and winds carry a small Latin index in the corner, so you do not need to read Chinese numerals to play.