How to Play 2-Player Mahjong (Siamese Mahjong for Beginners)

A great Valentine’s Day date is to play 2-Person Mahjong, also called playing Siamese Mahjong.

In two-player, or Siamese mahjong, each player has two racks at a time and plays two hands at a time.

The setup for Siamese is super simple:

1. Set two racks in front of each player, one in front of the other.
2. Shuffle and turn mahjong tiles all face down in the center of the table.
3. Each player self-draws their own tiles from middle for the deal. One player is the "dealer" and draws 28 tiles and the other player draws 27.
4. The "dealer" starts the gameplay by discarding the first tile.

You can move tiles back and forth between the two racks as you build your two hands. This gives a lot of flexibility throughout the game, as you can move Jokers around and more easily pivot as the game goes on. I often find that I am very confident on one hand and then a bit more conceptual on the second hand--this allows me to get close to mahj on a single rack and then work toward that second rack.

In Siamese mahjong, a player wins when they can mahj BOTH hands/racks.

While not required, there are two strategic reasons you may want to mahj a single hand before you officially win with both hands mahjed:

1. If you have exposed Jokers and want to prevent your opponent from stealing your Jokers, you can mahj that single line. This locks in the line as it's shown, so your opponent cannot exchange for your Jokers.
2. If you need a final tile that is a single or a pair. As we all know, you cannot call a tile for a single or a pair in mahjong, UNLESS it is your final tile to mahj. In two-player mahjong, you can call to mahj a single line to be able to get that last tile for a single or pair.

Siamese mahjong is a wonderful way to get husbands (and all men) to stick with learning to play mahjong. When I teach men, I find they get checked out during the Charleston when they find out that they haven't even started the game yet. I find it very easy to get men engaged with playing mahjong when we eliminate the need to build walls, deal, and Charleston. Playing Siamese is very quick setup and you get straight into the gameplay, I find husbands more receptive to learning this first. Then, when he's played a lot of siamese, you can introduce the full four-player set up.

Playing Siamese is also a great way to get extra practice in. Because the game setup is so fast, and because you are playing two hands at a time, you get twice as many games in with twice a many hands built at a time! This is a great thing to remember when the new 2025 NMJL Card is released in April! Let me know if you have more questions in the comments. Happy mahj-ing!