Coming February 2027
MahjPhD Lab
The NMJL card, measured.
What are your real odds of getting that Mah Jongg? MahjPhD Lab is simulating millions of games of American Mah Jongg to find out — hand by hand, line by line, every year.
The question
The card tells you what a hand is worth. It doesn’t tell you how often it comes together.
Two hands can be worth the same points and be wildly different in difficulty. Some lines need a stack of jokers; others share tiles with half the card, so you can keep your options open longer.
Experienced players develop a feel for this over years at the table. MahjPhD Lab measures it directly — then turns the numbers into plain-language guidance you can use the next time you pick up your tiles.
Let’s look at the numbers.
What’s inside
An annual guide to every line on the card.
Each edition covers the current NMJL card, section by section and line by line.
How often it happens
An estimated completion rate for every line on the card.
Joker dependence
Which hands lean hardest on jokers — and which barely need them.
How long it takes
Typical number of turns to reach Mah Jongg with each hand.
Points vs. difficulty
Where the point value and the real difficulty don’t line up.
Hands that overlap
Which lines share tiles, so you can pivot without starting over.
What to pass
Data-informed Charleston guidance for each family of hands.
How the card changed
What’s new, what got harder, and what that means for your play.
Ready to teach
Slide-ready charts and a suggested teaching order for your students.
The method
Monte Carlo simulation, explained in plain English.
When a question is too complicated to solve with a formula, you can answer it by experiment: play the game over and over, very quickly, and count what happens. That’s Monte Carlo simulation — the same idea used to forecast weather and price insurance.
Teach the computer the card
Each hand is written as a precise pattern: suits, numbers, pungs and kongs, winds and dragons, and where jokers are (and aren’t) allowed.
Play millions of games
A simulator deals from a full 152-tile set and plays complete games — Charleston, draws, discards, calls, exposures, and joker swaps — following NMJL rules.
Count what happens
Across all those games we track which hands get made, how fast, and with how many jokers. With enough games, the estimates settle into stable, reliable numbers.
Translate it for the table
The raw numbers become clear charts and short notes on each hand — what the data show, and what that means for your decisions.
What the numbers mean — and don’t
These are estimates from simulated play using a consistent strategy, checked against records of real games. They describe how hands behave over many games; they can’t predict your next one. Where the data are clear, we’ll say so. Where they aren’t, we’ll say that too.
Launch timeline
The card changes every year. So will the analysis.
The first edition covers the 2026 card, so it can be tested and refined before the 2027 card arrives. After that, each new edition is planned to follow the card’s release by days, not months.
- Fall 2026 Now Building and testing the simulator Free previews on the math of Mah Jongg start appearing on social media.
- January 2027 Free preview The 2026 card’s top lines, measured.
- February 2027 MahjPhD Lab launches The full 2026 card edition goes live.
- Spring 2027 The 2027 card edition Released shortly after the new NMJL card arrives in April.
Be the first to see the numbers.
Send a quick note and you’ll hear about the free preview and the launch as soon as they’re ready.
[email protected]MahjPhD Lab is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the National Mah Jongg League. Analyses refer to hands by section and line number; the NMJL card itself is not reproduced. Please purchase your card directly from the NMJL.