Mahjong Solitaire › All layouts › Crab Mahjong

Crab Mahjong

Crab Mahjong has a domed shell in the middle that rises to four tiles high, and two claws reaching out from each side.

The claws are your friends. They are short and stand apart from the shell, so their tiles come free early and give you partners for tiles in the shell.

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 Crab layout is built

The shell is widest across its middle three rows. The claws are short columns at the four corners, with a little more of each claw joined to the shell.

Tips for Crab Mahjong

• Take the highest part of the shell first. It is four high and covers the most tiles.
• Use claw tiles as partners for shell tiles rather than matching claws with claws.
• The rows joining the claws to the shell are the longest on the board. Work them from both ends.

Crab layout at a glance

Difficulty

Medium

Tiles

144 (72 pairs)

Layers

4

Board size

14 tiles wide, 8 rows deep

Free at the start

34 tiles

Cleared in our tests

About 50%

The Crab layout stacks its 144 tiles in four layers: 64 on the table, 56 on layer 2, 20 on layer 3, 4 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 Crab it cleared the board without a shuffle in about 50% of games. That is about the same as the classic Turtle. 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 medium 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. Pyramid MahjongMedium Four tiers stacked into a solid block. Peel it from the edges. Bridge MahjongMedium A long double-deck span between four towers. Castle MahjongMedium Outer walls, corner towers and a keep in the middle. Fish MahjongMedium A rounded body with a raised middle and a split tail. Heart MahjongMedium Two raised lobes narrowing to a single point.

See all 24 layouts, sorted by difficulty

Questions people ask

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