How to Deal in Mahjong (American Mah Jongg)
Before the Deal, you will want to gather everything you need to play a game of mahjong: a set of mahjong tiles, 4 racks with pushers, a pair of dice (comes with your set of tiles), and 4 NMJL Cards.
Start by shuffling your tiles, then turn them face down, and build your walls in front of the racks/pushers. Walls are the communal draw pile in mahjong and are also where you will deal the tiles from.
Here is a step by step of how to deal mahjong:
- Before the first game, each player at the table rolls the dice. The player with the highest roll becomes the "East Seat" which is the first Dealer.
- The Dealer rolls the dice again to determine where to push out the wall to start the deal. This helps to add some randomization to the dealer to assure everyone playing that the Dealer hasn't stacked up a bunch of Jokers for herself. Count over from the right side of the pusher the number of tiles rolled on the dice and push the wall out there.
- The Dealer gives 2 stacks at a time (4 tiles at a time) to each player, starting with herself and then moving around the table to her right (counter clockwise), until every player at the table has 12 tiles total. As the wall in front of the Dealer is consumed, the next wall to the left of the Dealer gets pushed out (walls move out clockwise around the table).
- The Dealer takes the first a third top tile only for herself. ("one and three for me!")
- The Dealer gives a final tile to each player at the table.
- Each player has 13 tiles and the Dealer has 14. The reason the Dealer has an extra tile is because she will start the gameplay by discarding a tile without drawing first.
- After the deal, each player racks their tiles. Organize tiles by suit and then in number order and start to try to choose a section of the card that aligns with the tiles dealt.
Here is a video to walk you through the process of dealing in mahjong: