What hands can the generator create?

It creates completed 14-tile examples for a standard 4-groups-and-a-pair hand, Seven Pairs, and Thirteen Orphans.

Are all generated hands legal in every mahjong variant?

No. The standard shape is widely shared, but Seven Pairs and Thirteen Orphans are ruleset-specific. A complete shape may also need yaku or minimum value.

Why does the generator shuffle completed hands?

The shuffled rack makes you recognize groups instead of reading a pre-sorted answer. Choose Sort Tiles after making your own attempt.

Does the generator use real Chinese-character tiles?

No. Dots use circles, Bamboo uses slim marks, Characters use numbers plus the English label CRAK, and honors use Latin abbreviations. Accessible names identify every tile.

Mahjong Hand Generator – Practice 3 Shapes

The mahjong hand generator creates complete 14-tile examples for recognition practice. Choose a hand type, find its groups while the rack is shuffled, then select Sort Tiles to check the structure. Generate a fresh example without reloading the page.

The graphic tiles suit an English-language guide: Dots use circles, Bamboo uses slim marks, Characters use a number and “CRAK,” and honors use Latin abbreviations. Screen-reader labels provide the full tile name.

The 3 generated shapes

Standard hand

The standard generator builds 4 groups and 1 pair. A group can be a suited sequence or an identical triplet. The generator rejects any result that would require more than the 4 physical copies of a tile.

This shape is a broad learning core, but completion does not automatically mean a legal win. Riichi needs at least 1 yaku, and regional variants may impose minimum value.

Seven Pairs

Seven Pairs contains 7 distinct pairs in the rulesets represented by this tool. It does not split the tiles into 4 groups and 1 pair. Scoring and duplicate-pair treatment vary outside the supported learning assumption, so check the table rules.

Thirteen Orphans

Thirteen Orphans uses 1 and 9 from each numbered suit, all 7 honors, and 1 duplicate from those 13 types. It is a special hand in riichi and several related forms, not a universal pattern.

A 3-step recognition drill

Generate a shuffled hand and name every tile.
Point out the groups or special structure without moving the rack.
Select Sort Tiles and explain the answer aloud.

Do not generate again immediately after a mistake. State what you missed: an overlapping sequence, a concealed triplet, the duplicate orphan, or 2 similar pairs. The correction is the useful repetition.

Use the generator for teaching

Ask a beginner to find only the pair in a standard hand. In the next example, ask for every completed sequence. Later, hide the hand-type label and compare the 3 structures.

For scoring practice, take a standard result and add conditions: closed or open, seat wind, round wind, win by ron or tsumo. The tiles alone do not determine the final riichi score, but they provide a stable starting shape.

What the tool does not generate

It does not yet create incomplete hands, calculate shanten, select waits, add red fives, place dora indicators, or reproduce American card lines. American combinations depend on the current card and joker rules; generating them without that licensed reference would be misleading.

It also does not prove that a standard result has yaku. Use Mahjong Hands to understand complete structures and the Mahjong Score Calculator after assigning valid riichi han and fu.

Privacy and randomness

Generation happens entirely in the browser. No rack, click, or selection is sent to a server. The examples are random learning prompts, not predictions or recommended discards.

For a full practice session, pair this tool with Mahjong Practice: identify the complete shape here, then deal a 13-tile physical rack and compare candidate discards. Recognition comes first; decision quality comes next.

Mahjong Hand Generator – Practice 3 Shapes