Mahjong Solitaire › All layouts › Arena Mahjong

Arena Mahjong

Arena Mahjong lays the 144 tiles out as an oval ring with an empty floor in the middle, like seating around a sports ground. The ring is three tiles high in places, but it never gets very wide.

The empty middle is what makes it friendly. A row of tiles can only be as long as the ring is thick, so tiles free up quickly and you rarely run out of moves.

How to play

The rules are the same on every layout. Click two free tiles with the same face to remove them. A tile is free when nothing sits on top of it and its left or right side is open. Any flower matches any flower, and any season matches any season. Clear all 72 pairs to win. The how to play guide has pictures.

How the Arena layout is built

The ring is stacked three high along the middle of its top and bottom sides and at its four rounded corners. A single low row of tiles runs in front of the top and the bottom.

Tips for Arena Mahjong

• Start with the three-high stacks. They are the highest tiles and nothing is blocking them.
• The single front rows at the top and bottom are the only long rows on the board. Keep their end tiles as spare moves.
• Work around the ring evenly. If you clear one side completely, the matching tiles you need may all be sitting on the other side.

Arena layout at a glance

Difficulty

Easy

Tiles

144 (72 pairs)

Layers

3

Board size

14 tiles wide, 8 rows deep

Free at the start

40 tiles

Cleared in our tests

About 65%

The Arena layout stacks its 144 tiles in three layers: 68 on the table, 52 on layer 2, 24 on top.

How we rate difficulty. We had the computer play 200 games on each layout, picking moves the same way our Hint button does. On Arena it cleared the board without a shuffle in about 65% of games. That is easier than the classic Turtle, which comes in at about 50%. People who plan ahead do better than that, but the order of the layouts stays much the same. The full list is on the all layouts page.

More easy layouts and favourites

Every layout uses the same 144 tiles and the same rules. The shape is what changes, and the shape decides how hard the game is.

Turtle MahjongClassic The classic 144-tile board. Five layers, a long tail at each end. Butterfly MahjongEasy Two open wings and a slim body. The gentlest board to learn on. Garden MahjongEasy Four small courtyards that never block each other. Quick and calm. Spider MahjongEasy A tall body with eight thin legs spread wide. Tower MahjongEasy Narrow and tall, five tiles high at the top. Pyramid MahjongMedium Four tiers stacked into a solid block. Peel it from the edges.

See all 24 layouts, sorted by difficulty

Questions people ask

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