Dragon Mahjong

Dragon Mahjong lays the 144 tiles out long and low, sixteen tiles across, with a tall ridge running down the middle. It looks easy at first. It isn’t, because the tiles you need are usually under that ridge.

This is the layout to try once you can clear the Turtle fairly often. Only about 24 tiles are free when you start, the fewest of any board on the site.

How the layout is built

• The body: 96 tiles in seven rows. The middle three rows are the full sixteen tiles wide.
• The slab: 36 tiles, twelve by three, over the middle of the body.
• The ridge: 8 tiles in one row along the centre.
• The top: 4 tiles, the first you can take.

How to play it well

The width is the trap. The long rows make the end tiles look like free moves forever, and it is tempting to keep matching them. Do that and you use up your pairs on tiles that weren’t blocking anything, and the ridge never moves.

• Clear the ridge early. The top four and the ridge row should be gone within your first dozen moves.
• Count before you take an end tile. If two copies of a tile are under the slab, don’t match the two you can see with each other.
• Eat into the slab from both ends. Its left and right edges are free, and working both sides opens the body faster.
• Keep a shuffle for late. Dragon games tend to jam near the end, and a shuffle does much more with 20 tiles left than with 100.

Dragon or Turtle?

The Turtle is taller but compact, so taking a top tile frees several below it. The Dragon is lower but wider, so each pair frees less and the board opens slowly. Most people find the Dragon harder. For the toughest board here, try Fortress.