If your hand has been called dead and you're not sure why, here are the most common reasons. Please look at your hand and consider each of the following possibilities.


Wrong Card


The I LOVE MAHJ game supports the National Mah Jongg League's cards, as well as our own card. When starting a game, you will need to select the card you wish to use (i.e., you need to tell the computer which card you're holding in front of you). A common mistake occurs when a player uses card A but has card B selected within the game.


You can change the card used in the game by clicking "Change Card" on the front page of the game (above the Start Game button - see image below). The card selected is also shown throughout the game, towards the bottom right of the screen (just above your rack). 




Concealed Hand

You may be playing a concealed hand (as indicated by the "C" next to the points value on the card). This means you cannot call discards to make exposures. If you had any exposures when you called Mah Jongg, your hand will be marked as invalid.



Using a Joker for a Pair or Single Tile


You can only use Jokers to complete a set of 3 or more identical tiles (not for pairs or single tiles). Keep in mind that "NEWS", "2023" (or any year) and other groupings of non-identical tiles are all considered sets of single tiles, so Jokers cannot be used.



Wrong Suit


Colors on the card indicate how many suits must be used for the hand. So, if a hand is all in one color, the same suit should be used for all tiles. If a hand is shown in 3 colors, all 3 suits should be used. If 2 different groupings are shown in the same color, the same suit should be used for these 2 groupings. This also applies to matching/opposite dragons (green dragons go with bams, red dragons with craks and white dragons with dots). So, if your hand is dead, carefully look at the colors on the card and make sure the suits used for your hand are correct.



If you would like to learn more about any of these rules (and many others), please check out this tutorial.


If you've read through the above and are still having difficulty figuring out why your hand is dead, please contact us at info@ilovemahj.com.



Keywords: I had Mahjong, I thought I won, called me dead, called my hand dead