Mahjong Solitaire

My sister, Esther, plays Mahjong Solitaire. She was introduced to the game back in the '80s while learning the scope of what one could do on a computer, When ownership of a computer was a new adventure; games like Free Cell and Spider Solitaire were included in the software that came with the purchase. It didn't take long for gaming companies to realize they had found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and games of every description appeared on the Internet.

I had never played a Mahjong Solitaire game, believing it was like the table game of strategy, skill and chance, much like Chess, but after a conversation with Esther about her Mahjong Solitaire games, I Googled for one and discovered thousands of them available with versions to suit any player. My first game was a trial and error experiment, but I soon got the hang of it. Now I enjoy playing the various layouts and often surprise myself by winning a game.

One is dumbfounded when reading that Mahjong Solitaire, called, Turtle,was invented by Brodie Lockard in 1981 on PLATO, a group of mainframe computers at the University of Illinois. The American gaming company, Activision developed the game and called it Mahjong Solitaire,, also known as Shanghai, in 1986 and sold over 10 million copies world wide in all versions including Mac, Dos, Commodore etc.

Differing from the table game which is an ancient Chinese, 4 handed, competitive game, the computer randomly creates board layouts which differ in pattern, size and height. There are hundreds of different layouts, some with time implementation. The object of the game is to get rid all the tiles by removing pairs of matching tiles. A full game has 144 tiles, but the number may vary depending on the version.

The games come with hints and choices to reshuffle, and sometimes, when I can't see a pair to remove, I ask for a hint, only to discover the matching tiles are right in front of my eyes. There are games that play with over a thousand tiles but I have enough trouble with the number of tiles on the easy games I choose to play.

Thanks to my sister, Esther. I have found that playing Mahjong is a fun and relaxing entertainment.

Mahjong Solitaire Turtle Layout