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Can you play American Mahjong with cards instead of tiles?

Yes. The League describes a card version of the game called Kards, spelled with a K: a deck carrying the same 152 faces as a set of tiles, played from the same card of hands. The cards are dealt four at a time and then one, East taking fourteen, the Charleston is played as usual when four play, and the score is kept as running points from 1,000.

Answered by Prim. Last reviewed 2026-10-27.

Kards with a K, cards with a C

The spelling is there for a reason. At the Mahjong table, the card means one thing only: the printed list of hands you play from each year. So the League calls the deck of playing cards Kards, with a K, and the two never get confused.

A deck of Kards carries every face in a full set: three suits of Dots, Bams and Craks numbered 1 to 9, four of each, the Winds, the Dragons, eight Flowers and eight Jokers. That is 152 cards for 152 tiles. You still need the card of hands beside you. The deck replaces the tiles, never the card.

How the deal changes

There is no wall to build and no dice to roll for the break. The cards are shuffled and dealt the way cards are dealt, four at a time around the table and then one more each, with East taking a fourteenth. East begins, exactly as with tiles.

The rest of the deck stands in for the wall. Draws come from it in turn, discards go face up in the center and are named aloud, and calling, exposing and Joker exchanges follow the rules you already know.

The Charleston, and fewer than four

With four players, the Charleston is played as usual: the first Charleston is compulsory, the second may be stopped, and the courtesy pass follows. Jokers are never passed, in a deck or in a set.

With two or three players, the Charleston is left out, which is the same rule the League gives for tiles when the table is short. The deal and the hands are otherwise unchanged.

Keeping score on paper

A tile game usually settles each hand in coins or chips at the card's values. Kards are scored by running points instead: each player starts at 1,000, and every hand's payments are added to the winner and taken from the others on a score sheet. The values themselves come from the card, line by line, exactly as with tiles.

Agree before the first deal who keeps the sheet, and check the arithmetic together after every hand. A running total forgives nothing at the end of the evening.

When a deck is the better choice

Kards travel. They fit in a handbag, they play on a tray table or a hotel desk, and they make no noise at all, which a set of tiles cannot promise. They are also a fine way to practice reading hands when the set is at someone else's house.

What you give up is the feel of the tiles and the rhythm of the wall. Most players keep the deck for the road and the set for the table. Either way, it is the same game, and the same card decides it.

New to the words? The Card · Tile · Charleston · East