The Game of Mah Jong, Illustrated

This is an excellent guide to new players of the game. The directions and illustrations make this an easy way to learn. I take the book with me still when I play. Read it ahead of time to get a handle on things and you will not feel so uneducated when taking the first plunge. Some rules change with different groups so make sure you understand their method of play before trying to use some of the hands shown. I recommend this book to all our new Mah Jong members.

This was a great beginner book to learn how to play Mah Jong. The illustrations helped alot.

Beginners of the REAL mahjong will find this appealing because everything is explained carefully with plenty of pictures. The first section introduces the mahjong tiles, set up, and basic gameplay. The next section talks about the basic Chinese rules, and then a method to teach real mahjong to children. But many Westerners will find this book particularly good because it talks about the Vanilla Western style (I think) in the second half with just about every possible special winning hand + an example of each and its score value. At the back of the book is also a scoring chart for easy reference. I would recommend this book to people who have never played actual mahjong in their life, or those who want to learn the Western rules.

This is my favorite book to use when teaching mah jong to friends. I use it as my primary resource for the version of mah jong that I learned. The writing is straight forward and easy for the novice to understand. It has suggestions for simplifying the game to teach to children. The pictures of the vaious hands are a great help. Thompson & Maloney's other two books are also wonderful to have. Beware, mah jong can be become an "addiction", or as I prefer, passion!

After learning Mah Jong playing computer versions and on-line, I wanted to play with freinds. Most Mah Jong sets you buy do not come with a good instruction manual. This book will let you learn how to set the tiles, play the hand and keep score. It tells you how to keep the game to a simple level or make it very complex. It explains the various styles of play and shows special hands. The novice will enjoy the how-to and the illustrations. The intermediate player will like the explaination of different styles and scoring. The professional will most likely find the book light and not very useful. If you are starting out playing Mah Jong, this book is a great way to learn the game quickly. I would probably add more background on the special hands and strategy. Otherwise, I really enjoyed the book and highly recommend it.