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Which way does play go in American Mahjong?

Play in American Mahjong moves to the right, which seen from above is counterclockwise: East, then South, then West, then North. Turns, the deal and the East seat itself all travel that way. The walls are the one thing that go the other way: when a wall runs out, the player to the left pushes out the next one.

Answered by Prim. Last reviewed 2026-09-20.

Turns, the deal and East all go right

Picture the table from the ceiling. South sits to East's right, West sits across, and North sits to East's left. After East discards, the player to East's right draws next, then the player across, then the player to East's left, and back to East. That is counterclockwise, and every turn of the hand follows it.

The seat of East moves the same way. When a hand ends, whether somebody won it or the wall ran dry, East and the dice pass to the right. Over four hands every player has been East once, and that is a round.

A small trap for the tidy mind: the letters N, E, W and S are written in that order as a memory aid, and nothing more. The order you sit in, and the order you play in, is East, South, West, North.

The walls travel the other way

The tiles are drawn from the walls in the opposite direction, clockwise. East breaks the wall by rolling the dice and counting that many stacks from the right end of East's own wall. The deal and the draws begin to the left of that break, and when a wall is used up, the player to the left pushes out the next one. So East's wall is followed by North's, then West's, then South's.

The deal itself still goes right. East takes four tiles, then the player to East's right, then across, then to East's left, three rounds of four, and then one more each, with East taking a second extra tile to hold fourteen.

A call can skip seats

Direction tells you who plays next when nobody calls. A call changes that. When a player calls a discard and exposes, that player takes the turn, discards, and play carries on to the caller's right. Anyone sitting between the discarder and the caller simply loses that turn. It is not a penalty, and there is nothing to make up later.

The Charleston keeps its own directions

The passing before the game has its own order and should not be confused with the turn order. The first Charleston goes right, across, then left. The second, if the table plays it, goes left, across, then right. The courtesy pass, which ends the Charleston, is always across. Once the passing is done and East discards, the ordinary rightward turn takes over for the rest of the hand.

New to the words? East · Wall · Charleston · Pusher