The History of Mahjong

Modern versions of Mahjong have been popular with puzzle players for years, but the game has a much longer and more colorful history.

History

The game of Mahjong was originally called Pinyin, which means sparrow in Chinese, and has been around since approximately 500 BC. The creation of the game is actually attributed to famous Chinese philosopher Confucius. The game is made up of 150 tiles which are carved with a variety of Chinese numbers, characters and symbols.

How to Play

Most players are familiar with the solitaire version of Mahjong, where the player makes pairs of tiles until all of the tiles are cleared from the board.

The original version of the game was multiplayer, where each player was given 13 tiles and play continued until a legal hand was completed. The game has lost some of its gambling element as there are laws against gambling in the current Chinese regime.

Where to Play

There are a number of versions of Mahjong available to play for free online. Both the solitaire and multiplayer versions are easy to find, and most casual players find it easier to play on a computer than to lay out all the tiles. There are not many versions of the game where it is possible to play for money as it is not as popular as typical casino games.

This ancient game is growing in popularity every day as people are looking for things to challenge their minds as well as entertain them. Mahjong solitaire has been a popular computer game for many years; versions of the game stretch all the way back to the early 90s because it was one of the easiest games to program.