Let’s say the gracious thing first, because it’s true: without the League, there is no American mahjong. Someone had to standardize the hands, settle the arguments, and mail the card every spring — and for nearly ninety years, they did. That is stewardship. Decades of order, of care, of a game kept alive and kept in tune. We thank the League for ninety years of it, and we mean every word.
Here is where we part ways, and it’s smaller than it sounds. When the annual card was born, printing one and mailing it to every player in America was real work, and a small fee was a fair way to pay for it. That arrangement belonged to its era — the era of the typewriter and the postage stamp. Ours isn’t it. A rulebook to a ninety-year-old game should cost what rulebooks to old games cost: nothing.
Because the game was never the card’s. The game belongs to the players — to the standing Tuesday, the snack table, the same seats, the woman teaching the new girl the Charleston. The renewal has done its job. The game can carry itself from here.
So here is what we’re doing about it.
Free cards, forever.
Built from the deepest analysis of the game we could find any record of, with every hand’s difficulty measured by simulation before it earns a line. Print them at home. Play them online. A new card every season, at the same price every year: nothing.
One set, every variant.
American, Chinese classical, Hong Kong, Riichi — one beautifully made set that plays them all. Bought once, finished paying for itself the day it arrives.
Tools, not gatekeepers.
We show our work, publish how the cards are made, and hand you everything you need to play. No memberships. No renewals. No permission slips.
Play the card you love — nobody at this table scolds anybody. Just know that from now on, there is always a free seat, and the card that comes with it costs the same this year, next year, and every year after that.
Free the game.