There are three official House Rules in Card Free American Mah Jongg:

1. Always skip the second round of the Charleston
2. Use only 4 Jokers and 4 Flowers.
3. Winning hands need to score at least one bonus or special point-increasing circumstance

These house rules are designed for experienced players looking to increase the challenge of the game in specific ways to elevate the decision making required for a successful hand. I wanted to share a few thoughts on what each house rule is trying to accomplish so you can decide if your group wants to implement the rules or not.

Rule 1: Always skip the second round of the Charleston

The two-round Charleston makes a lot of sense in the standard NMJL game because the number of possible hands is very limited. You need to be able to exchange a lot of tiles in order to steer your hand toward a potential winning hand on the card. Without the Charleston, I believe there would be significantly more wall games and the winner would be based almost entirely on the luck of the initial draw. So I fully support the two-round Charleston if you are using the card.

However, the Card Free system is significantly more flexible than the NMJL card, so there is not as much need to modify your hand at the start. In fact, once you gain enough experience, you may find the game too easy with both rounds of the Charleston. If you and your group find that you consistently end the Charleston with only 2 to 4 tiles needed every time, then it makes sense to always skip the second round of the Charleston. This single Charleston round gives you the opportunity to adjust the hand you drew, while not allowing you to get so close to a winning hand, that the round is too short.

Rule 2: Use only 4 Jokers and 4 Flowers

The reason behind using only 4 Jokers is similar to rule 1. Because the Card Free system is so much more flexible than the NMJL card, you don’t need as many jokers to help you achieve a limited specific hand. You may find that the game is too easy when using all 8 Jokers, so limiting the number can increase the challenge.

Limiting the number of Flowers to only 4 makes sense due to the ability for flowers to be used in any hand with pairs. The rules of Card Free already limits flowers to pairs only, but with 8 flowers in the game, it is not that hard to end up with a pair of flowers eventually. Limiting the flowers to 4 will make it harder to get that pair of flowers.

Combining these two rules together is important for building the walls. Taking out 8 tiles from the game (4 Jokers and 4 Flowers) allows players to build walls with 18 stacks of 2 tiles each instead of the standard 19 stacks. If you only took out 4 tiles, then you would have 18 stacks plus one extra tile in the wall, which would be awkward.

Rule 3: Winning hands need to score at least one bonus or special point-increasing circumstance

This rules was designed to eliminate hands that can be built easily. Inexperienced players need as much flexibility as possible so they can learn and enjoy the game. However, once you gain experience, it may be frustrating if you want to try to build a more interesting higher scoring hand, but you never have time because someone will always wins quickly with a simple hand. This is not just an issue with the Card Free system, there are plenty of hands on the NMJL card every year that are considered too easy, and some groups may even agree to ban those hands.

My inspiration for this rule comes from Asian styles of Mahjong, where they set minimum point thresholds for a winning hand. For example, in Hong Kong Style, you can play with or without a points threshold depending on the style and challenge you want to play with. Card Free house rule #3 follows this philosophy. Forcing the player to score at least one bonus or special point-increasing circumstance eliminates the easiest hands, but still gives you flexibility. For example, this hand would normally not score a bonus, however if you play the hand concealed, then you can still play the hand, but it will be harder to achieve:

If implementing this rule, it is suggested that you make the base value of winning hands 20 instead of 25. That way, when you are playing with money, if you make simple hands with a single 5 point bonus, it scores 25 cents so you can use a quarter, instead of using dimes or nickels for a 20 point hand.

Using House Rules in Your Game:

Make sure your whole group agrees on the house rules at the start of the game. You can choose to use only one rule, two rules, or all three. I am interested to hear from you if you’ve found a certain combination of rules that works great for your group!

House rules icons created by Freepik – Flaticon