American mahjong

American mahjong utilizes racks to hold each player's tiles, jokers, and "Hands and Rules" score cards.

The goal of the game is to be the first, by picking and discarding, to match one's tiles to a specific hand from the annually distributed scorecard published by the National Mah Jongg League (NMJL) and American Mah-Jongg Association (AMJA).

Joseph Park Babcock, a representative of the Standard Oil Company in Shanghai, was importing mahjong sets to the United States in great numbers by 1923.

To increase interest in the game in the United States, he wrote and published new rules that became the American standard.

Now there are American mah jongg tournaments conducted throughout the United States, and consist of players from America and Canada.

[4] In 2011, Mah Jongg Master Points (MJMP) were established to post an individual's tournament scores.

The MJMP website formulates the scores (awarding bonus points to the top 10 winners of an event), and ranking the individual players.

For the convenience of American players, Arabic numbers are usually written on the tiles, stating how many bamboos it is.

For the convenience of American players, letters "E" (for East), "S" (for South), "W" (for West) and "N" (for North) are usually written on the tiles.

or For the convenience of American players, English words "Red", "Green" and "White" are usually written on the tiles, stating which dragon it is.

In the demonstration of NMJL, the two groups of flowers are "Spring (春), Summer (夏), Autumn (秋), Winter (冬)" and "Fortunate (福), Luxurious (祿), Longevity (壽), Noble (貴)".

However, the two groups of normal flowers commonly found in mahjong tiles, i.e. "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter" and "Plum blossom (梅), Orchid (蘭), Chrysanthemum (菊), Bamboo (竹)" can also be used.

The NMJL publishes an official instruction book every few years called Mah Jongg Made Easy.

The book, a Visual Companion Guide for American Mah Jongg (VCG) by Dara Collins and Donna Kassman contains graphics and explanations to learn to play, improve strategy, and incorporate Best Practices.