AMERICAN MAH JONGG · DAY 4

Choosing tiles to pass

You'll learn

Keep useful tiles and jokers, and try a blind pass.

Time

6 minutes

Builds on

The deal and the Charleston

Up next

Practise the full opening

Why it helps

Each pass is a chance to improve your hand while keeping a few possibilities open.

Practise this lesson

The passing order is only half the Charleston. Now you get to decide which tiles you'd like to keep and which to send along.

Keep tiles that help your possible hands

Give yourself a few possibilities during the Charleston. Try keeping tiles that help any of your promising rows and passing the others. You can settle on a hand later.

In this rack, you're considering 2468 hands. The pair of 6 Dots and the flower help those hands. The odd Craks and 5 Dot do not.

KeepFlower6 Dot6 DotKeep every jokerJokerPass three9 Crak1 Crak5 Dot

Jokers must stay with you. You cannot pass them during either Charleston or the courtesy pass.

Use a blind pass when you want to keep more tiles

On the third pass of each Charleston, you may pass along incoming tiles without looking at them. This is a blind pass. You can only use tiles arriving on that same pass.

For example, select two unwanted tiles of your own, then pass one incoming tile unseen to make three. That way, you can keep one more useful tile from your rack.

You may do this on the first left or final right pass. Blind passing is optional.

Decide whether to keep passing

After the first Charleston, look again at your rack. If you have few tiles you want to give away, stopping the second round may help you keep a strong start. Any player may stop that round confirm.

Remember

Keep useful tiles. Never pass jokers. Blind passes are only on first left and final right.

Teaches on the Learner card · reviewed 2026-09-14