How many tiles away is my hand?
Count the tiles in your rack that fit the hand, counting jokers only toward groups of three or more, and subtract that from 14: the result is how many tiles you still need. A 13-tile rack is at best 1 away (waiting for the tile that makes Mahjong), and singles and pairs always need natural tiles.
Updated · The Open Apps, Inc.
How to count
- Choose the suits that fit best. When a hand allows any suits, try each way of assigning them and keep the one where your tiles fit most.
- Count natural tiles group by group. For each group, count your matching tiles up to the group's size: three for a pung, four for a kong.
- Add jokers to big groups only. Each joker can fill one missing tile in a pung, kong, quint or sextet, never in a single or a pair.
- Subtract from 14. Tiles away = 14 minus the tiles that fit. Zero with 14 tiles is Mahjong.
- Repeat for each hand, and each number run. If a line allows any like or any consecutive numbers, every run that fits on 1-9 is a different target; take the closest.
A worked example
Jokerly's practice hand Even Steps is FF 222a 444a 666a 888a: a pair of flowers and four pungs of even numbers in one suit. Take this rack:
Bams fit best. The flowers make the pair (2 tiles). The 2s, 4s, 6s and 8s give 2 + 3 + 1 + 2 = 8 natural tiles, and the joker fills one more pung slot. That's 11 tiles that fit, so the rack is 14 − 11 = 3 tiles away. North and 3 Dot don't fit at all.
Dashed tiles are the ones still missing: 6 Bam ×2 and 8 Bam (jokers can stand in).
What counts toward a hand
The same tile can count for one hand and not another; these rules don't change.
| Tile | Counts toward |
|---|---|
| A natural tile the hand needs | Any group that needs it, up to the group's size |
| A joker | A pung, kong, quint or sextet only |
| A tile in a suit or number the hand doesn't use | Nothing (pass it or discard it) |
| Tiles already exposed | Only a hand with a matching group, same tile and same size |
Use it in ChatGPT
Jokerly American Mahjong is a ChatGPT plugin. With your rack in front of you, try:
- “Here's my rack [photo]. Which hand on my card am I closest to?”
- “What should I pass right in the first Charleston?”
- “Can I swap my 5 Dot for the joker in their 5 Dot pung?”
Questions
- Why can't a joker finish my pair?
- Jokers may only be used in groups of three or more identical tiles. Pairs and singles, including year hands and NEWS, need natural tiles.
- What does 1 away mean?
- Your rack is waiting: one more tile makes Mahjong. You can call a discard for that tile even if it completes a pair.
- Why does Jokerly say a hand is dead?
- When the natural tiles a pair or single still needs are all visible elsewhere (discards, other exposures), the hand can't be finished, however close it looks.
- Does it count exposures?
- Yes. An exposure must match one group of the hand exactly, and a concealed hand can't have any.