Section by section
The shape of this year's card
Eighty-four hands in nine sections, and where the points are.
The card · lesson 1 of 10
The 2026 card has 84 hands across nine sections. Most of them pay 25. The 30s are scattered through the sections and nearly all of them ask for something awkward: a pair of winds, six flowers, a hand you may not expose. The 35s, the 40s and the 50s live at the two hard ends of the card, Quints and Singles and Pairs.
That is the first thing to know about choosing a hand. A 25 you finish beats a 50 you do not, and on this card the 25s are where the jokers work. Everything above 30 either forbids jokers outright or needs so many of them that you are waiting on the wall to be kind.
How to read the lessons that follow
Each section gets one lesson. It names the hands that are easiest to finish and why, points out the hand people misread, and says where a joker may stand. Then the practice deals you racks and asks you to read that section, and only that section, until it is quick.
Tip
A joker may stand in for any tile in a pung, kong, quint or bigger. Never in a pair, never in a single. So a hand written mostly in pairs and singles is a hand you build from the wall alone, and that one rule sorts the whole card.
Free to read. Its 3 quick drills are part of Mahjee Pro in the app.
