Joker quiz
Joker rules quiz
Jokers are the wild tiles of American mahjong. They're powerful, but the rules for using and swapping them catch out a lot of new players. Sixteen situations, each explained.
The joker rules in brief
- Groups only. A joker can stand in for any tile in a group of three or more identical tiles: a pung (3), kong (4), quint (5) or sextet (6).
- Never in singles or pairs. That includes every hand in the Singles and Pairs section of the card.
- Joker exchange. On your turn, you can swap a real tile from your hand for a joker in any exposed group, yours or another player's, if your tile matches that group. You can make more than one swap in a turn.
- No swaps from concealed tiles. You can only take jokers from groups that are face up on a rack.
- A discarded joker is dead. No one can pick it up.
- No passing jokers in the Charleston.
- Jokerless bonus. A winning hand with no jokers is paid double. Singles and Pairs hands don't get this bonus because they can never use jokers.
Want the rules on one page? Print the cheat sheet.