Home / Answers

What does the note in brackets beside a line on the NMJL card mean?

The note in brackets beside a line is part of the hand, not decoration. It either grants a permission, such as letting you choose the suits or the numbers, or sets a limit, such as these numbers only, and your hand is legal only if your tiles obey it. Read it before you read the tiles, and when it seems to disagree with the colors, the note wins.

Answered by Prim. Last reviewed 2026-10-22.

Every note is a permission or a limit

Each line on the card shows its groups of tiles, its value, and an X for exposed or a C for concealed. Beside many lines sits a short note in parentheses. Every one of those notes does one of two jobs.

A permission widens the line: any suit, any two suits, any dragon, any consecutive numbers. A limit narrows it: these numbers only, or groups that must share a suit. You cannot tell which kind you are looking at until you read it, and the size of the print tells you nothing about how much it matters. The smallest words on the line are often the ones that decide it.

Read it second, before the tiles

At our table every line is read in the same order. First the colors, to count how many suits the line takes. Second the note, to learn what it allows and what it forbids. Third the X or C and the value. Only then the groups themselves, left to right.

Players who start with the numbers fall in love with a hand before they know whether it is permitted. The note is where hands go wrong, so it is read before the romance begins.

The two mistakes it prevents

The first mistake is obeying a rule that is not there. A player decides a run must live in one suit, or that a dragon must match the numbers, and throws away a winning tile because the hand felt wrong. If the note allows two suits and you hold two, you are not one away. You are finished. Declare.

The second mistake is ignoring a limit that is there. A run marked these numbers only cannot be slid along to the numbers you happen to hold, however tidy they look on your rack. Both mistakes surface only when the hand is laid out and checked against the card, which is the most expensive moment at the table to learn anything.

When the words and the colors disagree

Colors count suits. Words say exactly what they say. When the two seem to pull in different directions, the words win. Any dragon means any dragon, matching the suit or not, and any suit means the choice is yours.

The same holds for a game on a screen. If software refuses a hand the card allows, the card is the authority, not the program. Note what happened, report it, and play from the card in your hand.

The habit outlasts the card

The League publishes a new card every year, and the notes change with the hands. The lines on the 2026 card will be retired next spring. The habit of reading the brackets will not. Each time you choose a hand, say its note to yourself before you build a single group, and the card will stop surprising you.

New to the words? The Card · NMJL · Suit · Consecutive Run