Mahjong Solitaire › All layouts › Temple Mahjong

Temple Mahjong

Temple Mahjong is a temple seen from the front. A wide hall built in steps sits on a long base, and two tall pillars rise from the top.

The pillars are easy, they stand on their own. The hall is hard. Its rows are up to fourteen tiles long and stacked up to four high, so the middle stays locked for a long time.

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 Temple layout is built

The pillars are two tiles wide and four high. The hall gets wider and lower step by step from its roof to its base.

Tips for Temple Mahjong

• Clear the pillars whenever you need a partner. They stand apart and never block the hall.
• Take the roof of the hall early. Its rows are shorter, so they open faster and uncover the rows beneath.
• The base row is the longest on the board. Work it from both ends, late in the game.

Temple layout at a glance

Difficulty

Hard

Tiles

144 (72 pairs)

Layers

4

Board size

14 tiles wide, 6 rows deep

Free at the start

24 tiles

Cleared in our tests

About 30%

The Temple layout stacks its 144 tiles in four layers: 58 on the table, 54 on layer 2, 22 on layer 3, 10 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 Temple it cleared the board without a shuffle in about 30% of games. That is harder 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 hard 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. Dragon MahjongHard Long and low with a tall ridge down the middle. Fortress MahjongHard Five walls, one inside the next. The hardest board here. Arrow MahjongHard A long shaft and a raised head pointing right. Cat MahjongHard A cat face with pointed ears, raised eyes and a nose. Cloud MahjongHard A soft-looking puff with a deceptively stubborn middle.

See all 24 layouts, sorted by difficulty

Questions people ask

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