How this site checks itself
JokerTile teaches the rules of American mahjong. Every rule here was checked against published sources before it went up, and this page says which ones, and what happens on the points where they disagree.
There are 52 guides, four printable cheat sheets and forty drills on this site, all free. There is also one thing that costs money, and it is named as such wherever it appears.
Where the rules come from
Every rule was checked against the American Mah-Jongg Association's published rulebook and Tom Sloper's rules FAQ, which cites the National Mah Jongg League's own rulebook by page. Both were then cross-checked against Elaine Sandberg's Play American Mah Jongg! and two unconnected teaching sources.
That is four independent lines of evidence for most of what is here. It is not four for all of it, which is the next section.
What happens when the sources disagree
On a handful of points they genuinely do — and on a few, every source is simply silent. Picking a side and writing it as settled would be the easy thing, and nobody reading would ever know. So instead each claim carries how well supported it actually is:
Confirmed — two or more independent sources agree. Single — one credible source only; usable, not settled. Silent — the sources do not address it at all, and that absence is itself the finding.
Where teachers disagree with each other, we name who says what rather than averaging them into a composite nobody actually holds. The disputes have their own page.
Where the rules stop
The rules are checkable. What to pass in the Charleston, which hand to commit to, which discard is safest — those are judgement, and no rulebook decides them. Pages about judgement say so at the top, and attribute their opinions rather than presenting them as procedure. A site that blurred the line would be selling confidence instead of knowledge.
What is deliberately not here
No hands, no values, and no arrangement from the National Mah Jongg League's card are reproduced anywhere on this site, in the free material or the paid. That is the League's copyright and it is how they fund the game. You need your own current card to play, and we would rather explain how to read one than substitute for it.
JokerTile is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the National Mah Jongg League.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, we would rather know. Rules pages get corrected in place and the correction date shows on the page — a quiet edit that pretends the error never happened would undo the point of the tiers above.
Write to support@jokertile.com. Replying to any email from us, or to your receipt if you bought the workbook, reaches the same place. A correction that turns out to be right gets made and credited if you want it to be.
No cookies, no advertising pixels, nothing that follows you elsewhere. The privacy pagelists exactly what the few exceptions are and who sees them.
Start with the guides
52 guides in the order the game actually introduces things, three stages, each one ending somewhere useful.
Learn it in order