Mahjong Solitaire

Single-player tile-matching game — remove pairs of exposed mahjong tiles from a pyramid until the board is empty.

🌤indoor
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What is Mahjong Solitaire?

Mahjong Solitaire is a single-player tile-matching computer game invented by Brodie Lockard on the PLATO computer system in 1981. Despite the name, it shares nothing with actual Chinese Mahjong except the tile set. 144 tiles are stacked into a pyramid arrangement; players find and remove pairs of matching exposed tiles. Popularised worldwide by the 1986 Activision release 'Shanghai' and later by the Microsoft Windows Entertainment Pack.

Quick facts

Category

Tile Games

Type

Individual

Players

1–1

Where played

indoor

Country of origin

🇺🇸 United States

Estimated origin

1981, Brodie Lockard (PLATO computer system 'Mah-Jongg')

Olympic

No

Popularity

global

Sources & provenance

Last verified 2026-08-24.verified