The "Exercise Room" is the place to stretch your Mah Jongg muscles. It's full of exercises, designed to improve a player's skills in all aspects of the game, and can be found on the Game Launchpad (under the Play menu), just below game selections.


Five exercises are currently available and suitable for all levels of experience:

  • Make a Hand
  • Charleston Practice
  • What Hand is That?
  • Mahjle (Wordle for Mah Jongg players!)
  • Heavenly Hands


Location: https://www.ilovemahj.com/play (scroll down below the Game Launchpad)





Each Exercise is outlined below.


Make a Hand


Designed to help you memorize the card (perfect for beginners, but also extremely useful for all, especially when a new card is published). You'll be challenged to create specific hands by clicking the appropriate tiles and arranging them in your rack. 


Choose to go through the hands in card order or randomly.


Here's how to run this exercise:

  1. From the Exercise Room, select Make a Hand and choose either sequential or random order
  2. Click 'Launch Exercise'
  3. Ensure the correct card is chosen (use the Change Card button at the top, if required)
  4. You can choose to play all sections of the card, or focus on a specific one
  5. Study the hand shown (in the example below, it's Line 3 in the 2021 section - NMJL 2021 card)
  6. Be sure to study the notes beside each hand on the card itself.
  7. Click/tap the tiles to send them to your rack to match the hand displayed. You may use jokers if you wish (as per NMJL rules)
  8. As you add tiles to your rack, the tile counter next to each tile will adjust and its color will change from green to orange to red (when all have been used)
  9. When you believe you've matched the specified hand on the card, click the 'Validate' button
  10. The system will indicate whether you're correct or not. If you're not, you'll get a chance to try again
  11. Once a hand has been completed, move on to the next 
  12. Your score for that session can be seen on the top right of the page
  13. When you've finished your exercise session, click the exit button (the 'x', top right)




Charleston Practice


Work through the Charleston, with optional hand suggestions. A great way to practice making hand decisions quickly (especially once you've memorized the card with the help of the Make a Hand exercise, outlined above). 


Here's how to run this exercise:

  1. From the Exercise Room, select Charleston Practice
  2. Click Launch Exercise
  3. Select the card you'd like to play with (use the Change Card button, if required)
  4. Click Start Exercise
  5. Pass tiles as you would normally in the Charleston (including deciding whether to stop after the first Charleston, and how many tiles to pass in the Courtesy)
  6. If you'd like suggestions on which hand to play, click "Reveal Hands" on the Give-Yourself-A-Hand widget. Click on hands in that widget to highlight the matching tiles in your rack
  7. This is a timed exercise, and the timer can be found in the right bottom corner of the screen
  8. At the end of the Charleston, the system will calculate how many tiles you have towards Mah Jongg and show the elapsed time. It will also show an example hand that could be made. However, as there will likely be more than one hand option for the specified number of tiles you have towards Mah Jongg, it might not show the exact one you were working towards
  9. The exercise can be repeated with exactly the same tiles or new tiles, so you can challenge yourself to make better passing choices and/or increase your decision-making speed (click the corresponding button)
  10. When you've finished your exercise session, click the exit button (the 'x', top right)




What Hand is That?


Study the exposures and determine all the possible hands your opponent could be working towards. Select these hands and click the ‘Validate’ button to check your results. A fantastic way to improve your defensive skills, while also helping you memorize the card.


Here's how to run this exercise:

  1. From the Exercise Room, select "What Hand is That?"
  2. Click Launch Exercise
  3. Choose the card you'd like to play with (using the Change Card button at the top)
  4. Click Start Exercise
  5. An exposure (or set of exposures) is shown in the rack at the bottom
  6. Select a section that you think has a hand matching the given exposure(s) (by clicking on the section name)
  7. All hands in that section will then be displayed on the screen
  8. Click the + button next to the hand, or click the hand itself, to add it to the 'Selected Hands' list (this is the list of all the hands you believe match the exposure(s) shown). See image below
  9. Repeat steps 6-8 until ALL hands matching the exposure are added to the Selected Hands list
  10. Review your list and then click the 'Validate' button
  11. The solution will be shown with green checkmarks for the hands you got correct and red Xs for the ones you omitted or added in error (see image below)
  12. Click the 'Next Hand' button to move to the next exposure exercise
  13. A score is kept on the top right of the screen
  14. When you've finished your exercise session, click the exit button (the 'x', top right)


Note:

  • Since you're matching exposures, concealed hands should not be selected (as these will never be exposed by an opponent)
  • The system might throw you a curve ball by showing exposures that do not match any (non-concealed) hands. If you think that is the case, just click Validate without adding any hands to the selected list





Mahjle


Mahjle is Wordle for Mah Jongg players! This exercise has been designed to aid in the recognition of Mah Jongg hands. Players will have the option of three levels of difficulty, which will correspond to how many tiles are visible before the guessing begins. This exercise is suitable for all levels of player.  


Here's how to run this exercise:

  1. From the Exercise Room, select Mahjle 
  2. Select the card and difficulty level you wish to use for this exercise
  3. The hand you are trying to guess will be shown at the bottom of the screen
  4. Starting from left to right, use the tile selector to choose appropriate tiles for each spot in the shown hand
  5. Or click on blank tiles to move the tile selector along to a particular tile within the hand
  6. If you want to change your choice for a tile, click that tile again in the rack and choose the new tile in the selector
  7. Once a guess has been made for all tiles in the given hand, click the 'validate' button (which will appear when all 14 tiles have been completed)
  8. If you guessed correctly, you will be congratulated and able to move to the next puzzle
  9. If your guess was incorrect, your selection will now be shown at the top of the screen, with highlighting indicating which tiles you guessed correctly and those that are incorrect
  10. Adjust the tiles that are shown to be incorrect and hit the 'validate' button once more
  11. You will be given four attempts before the computer shows you the correct hand





Heavenly Hands


What could be more exciting than being dealt a Heavenly Hand! The catch is that you’ll need to be able to recognize it... 


In this exercise, you'll be dealt a valid hand with the 14 tiles shown in a random order. Your task is to identify the hand and rearrange the tiles into the correct order. Once you’re done, click the VALIDATE button to check your work! It’s that simple.

Test your skills with 3 levels of difficulty (Easy, Medium and Difficult), which add between 1 and 3 Jokers to your dealt hand. The more Jokers you have the more challenging it will be to recognize your Heavenly Hand! 


This exercise will help you memorize the hands on the 2024 card at a subconscious level, and it’s a fantastic complement to our other exercises.


Here's how to run this exercise:

  1. From the Exercise Room, select Heavenly Hands
  2. Select the card and difficulty level you wish to use for this exercise
  3. The hand you need to re-order will be shown at the bottom of the screen
  4. Drag tiles around to place them in the correct order (as shown on the card)
  5. Click the 'validate' button
  6. If you guessed correctly, you will be congratulated and able to move to the next hand
  7. If your guess was incorrect, a message will indicate the error and you will have the option to try again or move on to the next hand