How To Get Super High Mahjong Solitaire Scores.

Mahjong Solitaire has a free version from Microsoft called Mahjong Titans that comes with the Windows 7, and that is what I focus on in this tutorial.

Here you see the Mahjong Titans version of Mahjong Solitaire with the very beginning of the “Crab” layout. (There are 6 different layouts) I have personally found that the Crab layout is the easiest one for me to get high scores on.

THE BASICS

If you don’t yet know the basic rules to Mahjong Solitaire, specifically the Mahjong Titans version, you will find this to be the easiest description available anywhere as we’ll be able to enjoy the numerous screen shots to actually see from top to bottom of this instruction set.

At the very center of this layout are two tiles (Green Box) that are at the very top of the stacks. They obviously must be removed before you can remove the tiles they cover up. These two tiles are the only two on the 4^th level up from the bottom. Tiles are removed in pairs and must be exact matches.

(the # of bamboo chunks on the tile match the tile #), “Balls” (the # of circles on the tile match the tile #) and Characters, I’m going to call the character tiles sticks (the # of sticks on the tile match the tile #). Each class of tiles have #’s from 1 to 9, and there are 4 tiles of each.

There are also Specialty Tiles. The “Four Season” & “Four Flower” tiles add 8 more tiles to the mix, and their basic values are higher than the primary tiles. But, the 16 most important tiles in the grand total of 144 are the “Four Winds”.

Appropriately named N, S, E, & W (North, South, East & West) for the main directions of the compass, each of them has 4 tiles. We’ll get into great detail on how these tiles make or break your score, but understand this – these 16 tiles, when played right, will give you much more than half of your total score!

The above bar is at the bottom of the game board & shows you how many tile pairs are currently free to remove, tiles remaining, your score & the # of seconds that have transpired throughout the game. The time has absolutely NO affect on your score.

WARNING: There are times when you will want to match tiles that are on two different levels in the layout. This can be dangerous when it creates a blocked tile that is imposible to get to. YOU LOSE! Most of the time you will have matching tiles on the same level with each other, but not always.

Notice: There are two situations that come up that you always should be aware of, and that’s double tiles in the same row. Notice the #3 balls & #4 bamboo. If they were the last two of their kind left you would have to clear both sides of them to remove them and that can create a problem for you on occasion.

Right now, we have all four of each kind on the board so we can use the other two to separate the doubled up pair. Ocasionally they will deal three packed side by side. In that case you will always have to clear both sides.

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, the basic fact of the game is that one side of a tile must be clear for it to be removed. It also cannot have a tile sitting on any part of the face of it. The top or bottom edges of the tile don’t matter, just the right or left side must be clear.

Now, before we go score 1,000 +, there are some basic scoring facts you should know. At the very start of a layout every tile on the outer edges of every layer that can be removed first are worth one point. Then as you move into the interior of the layout each tile becomes worth an additional point.

As you move into the interior pieces they increase in value. That’s because it takes work to “uncover them”, and so you are rewarded for that. How that plays out is up to you & the deal.

When playing the row in the green box above from left to right or vice versa, the further from the outside piece you get the more the tiles are worth. Knowing that will help you to play these tiles to take advantage of it.

It works on a + 1 point for each tile position away from the outer edge (The 1^st tile is one, the second two, etc.), and so working left to right #8 sticks (above) is worth 7 points. But guess what! If #5 bamboo has already been removed then #8 sticks is worth 8 points. See how that works? 7 from the left + 1 from the right.

Now lets look at offset pieces. In the “Turtle” layout below take a look at the left and right center sections. The way that the pieces are offset affects what part of the interior piece is covered, and that affects the value of the covered piece.

The two tiles below that are in green are considered covered while the tiles in red are not! If the top of the tile is exposed it is considered an outside tile even though the botom of it is covered. The tile in green on the left is 2 points and the one on the right is worth 3.

When you work the tiles in the yellow box from right to left vs the tiles in the blue box, the last tile (#7 balls) is worth 14 points and the #2 sticks above it is worth 12. I know, pretty weird right? Tiles in the middle of the pile on the bottom will become high scoring ties at the end of the game.

 IT WON’T BE ADEQUATE INSTRUCTIONS IF WE DON’T SCORE 1,000 +

Here are the first 13 moves so that you can see what is happening, and once we’ve finished you’ll truly understand how this game scores.

4/bam/1p…………………………..#4 Bamboo/remove 1 pair (Those are the top two pieces)

5/stx/2p……………………………..#5 Sticks /remove 2 pair

GnDrgn/2p…………………………Green Dragons/remove 2 pair

3/stx/2p (20)………………………#3 Sticks/remove 2 pair (current score)

9/stx/1p……………………………..#9 Sticks/remove 1 pair

8/stx/1p

7/bal/2p (32)………………………#7 Balls/remove 2 pair

RdDrgn/1p…………………………Red Dragon/remove 1 pair

1/bam/2p………….NOTE: ……the #1 Bamboo has the bird on it.

6/stx/1p……………………………. OKAY – ENOUGH OF THAT BORING STUFF!

2/stx/1p (44).That’s the beginning set up & the first 13 moves and the next

6/bal/2p………two screen shots are how the board looks before & after.

8/bal/1p (65)………………………………………. LETS TAKE A LOOK.

As you can see we are now ready to remove the 4 seasons. 4/Seasons/2p [1^st pr 5pts (254)1top/1bottom – 2^nd pr 32pts [both are bottom insiders] (286). Total 37 points for just 4 tiles.

Take note that one of the first tiles had a normal value of 1 point since it was an original outside piece, but both the pieces in the last pair were inside bottom pieces & that adds value.

EXTRA BONUS PLAYS:

Here Is What Everyone Has Been Wanting To Know About:

The highest scoring pieces are the winds, followed by the seasons and flowers, but it’s all about how you play them (along with a bit of luck on the way the layout is delt). YOUR GOAL EVERY GAME is To Play All Sixteen Winds, in sequence back to back.

That means all 4 North, then all 4 South, then all 4 East etc., in other words, all 4 colors in sequence but the directions can be in any order. You will NEVER score over 1,000 points per game if you don’t do this, but you also need to do this next one as well.

You want to remove all 4 seasons followed directly by all 4 flowers (whenever you can) to max out their values (or 4 flowers then 4 seasons). Now, imagine how high your score would be if you were to get the luck of the draw and be able to run the winds, seasons and flowers, ALL BACK TO BACK! I can only imagine, because I haven’t been that lucky yet.

It wasn’t until I figured out how these items worked together that I received my first score over 1,000 on Mahjong Solitaire – Mahjong Titans. My top 5 scores so far:

Now we’re ready for the final examples.

A quick recap.

With 51 points I removed the 4 flowers together and only got 24 points (total = 75). Worked on down to the wind, & in this set up it looks like we will get them all. Theres still one tile hidden, a Green East Wind. I always work the double stacked first, as it will most likely uncover the lone missing piece.

Also, be certain that you have cleared at least one side of every double stacked piece (if you can) so you can use the bottom piece once it’s uncovered. We’ll run different scienarios to show the way different moves/combinations affect the score . The first time I alternated the colors. I removed 1 pair per color and then reverse the color sequence. Score was at 243.

Remember, I ran one pair then switched to a pair of a different color just to see if it makes a difference. The line below means one pair of South gave us 2 points/ next pair from West gave us 36 points for some reason and the next pair from N only gave us 16 points.

Then the next East pair gave us 80 & I turned around and retraced the pairs back to the last south pair. You’l notice that pair # 6 in this run was the North pair that consisted of the two top cards in the screen shot below. Both those cards were baried when the game began, as you can see by scrolling up above.

However, the simple fact that they were bottom level interior cards doesn’t acount for the explosion of 160 points for just two cards DOES IT? Is that primarilly based on the combinations? Drop down for the next look.

S 2 (245); W 36 (281); N 16 (297); E 80 (377); E 64 (441); N 160 (601); W 112 (713); S 112 (825)

WoW! We managed to score 585 points on those 16 tiles! Our score is 825 with 28 tiles to go.

We started out with 243 points and ended up with 825, just like that! Now just before we go to the crowning event, lets take a quick look at what happens when you DON’T get all 16 tiles to work with.

Examples of how winds score on Mahjong Titans (when you don’t have all 16). We’re going to do 4/W winds (the 4 means Tiles), 2/S winds, 2/E winds & 2/N winds. Our score is at (72) points when this begins. A total of 10 tiles.

4 W = 10 points (82), 2 S = 16 points (98), 2 E = 80 points (178), & 2 N = 80 points (258) 10 of 16 tiles in random pairs were only worth 186 points.

Another example: (173 current score). 4W= 10 (183), 4E= 64 (199, 247), 2S= 32 (279), 2N= 112 (391)12 of the 16 possible tiles were run in the best sequence we had & only nets 218 points. That was a hefty jump from pair #5 (32) – pair #6 (112)

Another example: (81 current score). 2N= 2 (83), 2W= 8 (91), 2S= 16 (107), 2E= 112 (219), 2N= 112 (331), 2W= 32 (363), 12 of the 16 tiles only net us 282 points, total of 6 pairs no same color pairs together, colors all mixed up.

The last example above took a pair of each color starting with north and moving counter clockwise around the compass a pair at a time. The sequence was 2, 8, 16, 112, 112, & 32 points. Why it stayed the same 112 on the fifth pair and then dropped to 32 on the 6^th pair is beyond me.

In the previous example we ran two pair of the same color folowed by two more pair of another matching color then single pairs of different colors. The first example netted 218 points. The second example netted 282 points. That’s strange since both examples used 6 pairs. But, they are all different games with different placements of the tiles at the time they were removed.

A final example: Score is 273. This time we’ll go all East, all South, all West & the one pair of North that is clear. The scoring sequence after each pair is, E 2 (275) E 8 (283) S 64 (339) S 80 (419) W 32 (451) W 64 (515) N 32 (547) 14 of 16 tiles only gave us 274 points.

You recall, the First example where we got these figures below, we had all 16 tiles in the works. Its almost as if “THE GAME KNOWS” if you don’t have all 16 and it penalizes you from the beginning of the “run of winds”. LoL

S 2 (245) W 36 (281) N 16 (297) E 80 (377) E 64 (441) N 160 (601) W 112 (713) S 112 (825)

WoW! We managed to score 585 points on those 16 tiles! Our score is 825 with 28 tiles to go.

Before you’ve finished a game that you’d like to play again, X out of it so that it will automatically save and then you can go back and replay it. (click “game” to check your options settings.) The screen shot below is just before I remove all the Wind pcs.

If you compare this screen shot with the board above, you’ll see that I’ve removed more pieces on this board prior to taking off the “Wind”, and my score here is 322 vs the 243 I had before, 79 extra points!

The last time around we went 1 pair of each color & so this time we’ll go all four tiles of one color at a time and see if that makes a difference. If we X out the game right now, before we do this, then we can open it right back up to this spot and try other endings.

Lets go South, West, North then East since East still has a buried piece. Current score = 322

1^st pair = 2 pts. (324) South (both 2^nd level “outside tiles”) The first pair is always 2 points.

2^nd pair = 20 pts. (344) South (would have been 16 points, but 2 insiders ^W/ 1 on top = +4)

3^rd pair = 72 pts. (416) West (could have been 64, but 1tile/2 lvls dwn + 1tile’s an outsider)

4^th pair = 160 pts. (576) West (1 tile 4 lvls down & 3 rows in + 1 tile 2 lvls down) NICE!

5^th pair = 32 pts. (608) North (2 outside tiles)

6^th pair = 192 pts. (800) North (2 tiles 2 lvls down/interior’s with all but 1 side uncovered)

7^th pair = 80 pts. (880) East (both tiles 2 levels down)

8^th pair = 64 pts. (944) East Total points from 16 tiles = 622 pts vs 585

Our final score the last time was 941. We now have 944 with 16 tiles remaining! I’ll bet ya we will break a thousand in just a moment here. The totals of the Wind above compared with the first time we did it…………….

622 pts vs 585 = 37 extra points. Now if we manually remove the remaining pcs, we can take advantage of what we know about the value of the positions they are in, and there by maximize what we have left.

We know that the top #4 Ball is a bottom interior piece so lets see what that pair gives us. #4 Ball 14 pts (944 – 958), #9 Ball 2pts (960), #8 Bamboo 8 pts (968), #2 Ball 9 pts (977). Now what do you think the #7 Bamboo pair will give us… 8 points? 10?

But, Here’s Something You Don’t Know!

Included Below Are Additional Comparisons For Improved Scoring!

Looking at the two boards side by side…

On the starting set up the “Wind” tiles considered “Outsiders” (1 pointers) are in green boxes. These are the lowest value Wind tiles of them all.

Always use the lowest value pair of each color set (matching set of 4) first.

Of course that means you need to know what the values are, right? Now lets compare the sequence we used the first time with several variables.

In addition, the bottom pieces that were buried the deepest will be worth the most, which makes (in the above layout) the center two West pieces the most valuable pair.

The 2^nd most valuable pair is actually the two North pieces at the very top of the board, but the hidden Green East Wind is sitting under the Center N Wind piece. 

If we remove all the top level pairs first then we obviously won’t be removing them in sets of fours. Does that matter? Let’s remove the pairs based soley upon their RAW Original VALUE.

This is the last test, so it had better prove the theory that running the Wind Pairs based soley upon their positional value is always the best way to go, regardless of what color they are. (You always want to start with the lowest value tiles and end with the highest value tiles.)

This will also mean that if I have assessed the value of the tiles correctly, the increases should go steadily upward.