This holiday I learned to play Majong on a free app!!! Majong Soul, is a free to use app I downloaded to my iPhone. It taught me how to play Japanese Riichi Mahjong although I cannot tell you how that differs from the original ancient Chinese game.

We love playing games in our family especially at the holidays. Risk, Monopoly, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuits, even Chess, backgammon, cards. A way to pass the time for people who don’t live together and don’t all always get along, extended family. A board game beautifully shifts the focus and brings kids and adults together.

This year my kids went away on holiday and Christmas for me took a different beautiful turn. No pressure, time for myself, no tree, no wrapping (everyone got money) no cooking and more fantastically no washing up. People found it weird, when I said we’re not doing Christmas this year, they looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Responses, reactions came in different ways, “what will you do?” “What do you mean you’re not doing it?” “God I wish I could do that!!”

I didn’t miss anything except the game playing. I didn’t over eat, didn’t overspend, didn’t drink too much and didn’t come out the other side of Christmas more exhausted and financially strapped than I went in. I didn’t even miss the presents. All that unwanted stuff that ends up in the regifting cupboard was avoided this year. Phew.

With a few empty days I decided to take on a new challenge. I’d seen an incredible film online of an automatic Mahjong table resorting and reshuffling the game tiles, I was absolutely fascinated by it and had decided I wanted to learn to play. I looked into purchasing a Mahjong set, I was shocked to discover the prices vary from about £30 up to several thousands for the type of automatic set I’d seen online. And a Mahjong set requires 4 players, so buying a set wasn’t the answer. I didn’t know how to play and didn’t have people to play with this year at least.

I am not that tech savvy and have never played a game online, definitely not a gamer, but Reddit discussions guided me to Mahjong Soul an app you can download for free and practise against other AI generated players, new quieter friends who don’t argue, cheat or smash up the board when they lose.

I had no idea what I was doing. Once the app was downloaded I watched a couple of films on You Tube, Play In Games Mahjong 101 Beginners Guide was great and got me started.

The principle of the game is to make sets like Bridge or Rummy for card players. You start with 14 tiles and begin the game by discarding one tile. The idea is you need 4 sets of 3 tiles, either runs, or three of a kind and like cards the tiles appear in suits, I am still not sure of the specific names for the all outside of BAMS, (these look like bamboo sticks) DOTs, self explanatory and CRACKs, the most difficult to learn as they are Chinese numbers depicted by characters difficult to distinguish at the beginning if you don’t have any experience in Chinese.

Play moves very fast on the app, each player receiving and discarding a tile, and if you don’t choose a tile to disguard in time the app chooses for you which isn’t always the correct tile, so you have to really keep your wits about you. There are mid game rules like Pons and Chis, where you can pick up a discarded tile from another player to make a set that is publically displayed, giving other players a chance to see where more tiles are but it was recommended for beginners to avoid this more tactical game play until you really get the hang of it. In the app you get prompts to help you but this is an easy switch off option in the menu on the left hand side of the screen in game play until you get better at the game.

Everyone starts with the same amount of points and points are won and lost depending on how well you do against your new AI friends. I have kept Mahjong Soul at the easiest level and after a few days spent trying to understand the game, I have gone from coming last every time to coming second and even winning one or two matches.

Kai’s mean you have collected 4 of a kind tiles I learnt the other day however I wasn’t quick enough to accept this advantage so not 100% sure how it affects the end result. You can opt to call Riichi when you are one tile away from finishing and then you just have to wait and hope you are dealt the final tile you need before some else calls Tsumo or Ron, I don’t really know what the difference is except Tsumo when you get one scores much higher than Ron.

I realise it’s a game of strategy and you are supposed to be watching what everyone else is laying down to work out if the tiles you need are coming or have already been discarded. I haven’t got to this stage yet. The game moves very fast so with 14 tiles as a beginner it’s quite tricky and challenging to know exactly what you have and what you need.

All this said it has been quite a learning curve, very fun and quite addictive. You have to make sure you have time to play a match, which is five or six games on Mahjong Soul because you cannot stop and start once you are going. It’s great for beginners because the app will play for you until you can pick up and play for yourself.

Learning to play Mahjong has reminded me of a deathly cruise I took years ago to Mexico where it was so grim, I spent 5 days playing Bridge making up a four of then 80 year olds and being constantly told off by my partner for not being a good enough player.

I’ve got some practising to do before I invest in a set of my own and invite some real humans to play with me but I would recommend Mahjong Soul to anyone who wants to have a go learning the ropes without embarrassment or simply being too slow.

I don’t know if this is common but I’ve had quite a lot of exhaustive draws, when no one can get out. I do wonder if that’s down to me not knowing what I am doing and my current erratic game play strategy.