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Who goes first in American Mahjong, and how is East chosen?

East goes first. Away from home, each player rolls two dice and the highest total takes the East seat; at home the host customarily sits East for the first hand. East is dealt fourteen tiles, everyone else thirteen, and after the Charleston East opens the game by discarding without drawing.

Answered by Prim. Last reviewed 2026-10-05.

Choosing East

At a table of strangers, or at any table that wants it settled fairly, each player rolls two dice. The highest total takes the East seat. Players who tie roll again between themselves, which is the custom everywhere, though the rulebook does not spell it out.

At home the dice usually stay in the box. The host sits East for the first hand by custom, and nobody minds, because the seat does not stay put for long.

East rolls again to break the wall

Once East is chosen, East rolls the two dice a second time. That number tells East how many stacks to count along East's own wall, from the right end. Those stacks are pushed back against East's rack and become the last tiles drawn in the hand. The deal begins with the first stack to the left of the count.

So the dice do two jobs at the start: one picks East, the other tells East where the hand begins. After that they travel with the East seat, and the next East rolls for the next break.

Why East holds fourteen

The deal goes four tiles at a time around the table, three rounds of it, and then a single tile each, with East taking one extra. East ends the deal with fourteen and everyone else with thirteen. After the Charleston, East still holds fourteen, and that fourteenth tile is the reason East opens the game without drawing: East simply discards, naming the tile, and play moves to the right.

If another player throws first by mistake, they take the tile back and East throws. If another player has drawn from the wall and discarded before East, the hand is thrown in and dealt again.

Does East get anything for it

Only the first move. East pays and collects exactly like every other seat, with no bonus for winning and no extra charge for losing. The single privilege that belongs to East alone is the rare Heavenly Hand: if East is dealt a complete hand, the Charleston is waived and East wins on the spot, paid as a self pick.

When the hand ends, whether somebody won or the wall ran dry, the East seat and the dice pass to the right. Four hands later every player has opened the game once, and that is a round.

New to the words? East · Wall · Heavenly Hand