Mahjong CompendiumSiamese Mah Jongg

Proto-mahjong › Chinese classical › Babcock rules › Regional US house rules › NMJL card › American mah jongg › Siamese Mah Jongg

Siamese Mah Jongg

two-handed, 2015

Sources

Sources

The documents this entry rests on, as published. Each can be opened and checked; nothing in this part is anybody’s reading of them.

  1. Guide Sloper, Tom. "FAQ 2b: Identifying a Mah-Jongg Variant." Sloperama. cross-check checked 2026-09-18

    https://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq02b.html

    chart’s note Tile counts, hand sizes, flower handling and scoring for roughly 50 named variants. Primary source for most leaf nodes in this chart.

    for this variant Gives the label, Grad and 2015, and is the only source read that mentions two-tiered racks. Sloper's update log dates the entry to November 2018, so it is a later summary, not a 2015 witness

    Also cited on: Chinese archaic, Late Qing style, Chinese pre-classical, Chinese classical, Shanghai / Hong Kong new style, Hong Kong old style and 45 more · bibliography #1

  2. Guide Sloper, Tom. "FAQ 13A. How to play American mah-jongg with fewer than 4 (or more than 4) players." Sloperama, 2001-2023. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq13a.html

    AI summary Sloper's answer on American mah-jongg with two, three and five players, with the NMJL's official deals for each and reader letters. It includes a letter of 8 October 2016 describing Gladys Grad's Siamese rules and Sloper's reply of 9 October 2016.

    for this variant The earliest dated description of the rules read in this pass (8 October 2016), set beside the NMJL's own two-player rules that it departs from. Same author as FAQ 2b and so not independent of it, although the description is a player's letter

    Only cited here · bibliography #421

  3. Commercial The Mahjong Line. "Can you play Mahjong with two players?" Mahjong Tales blog, 10 June 2021. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://themahjongline.com/blogs/mahjong-tales/can-you-play-mahjong-with-two-players

    AI summary A tile retailer's short how-to on two-player American mahjong. It describes the two-rack, two-Mahjong game without naming Siamese or Grad: the deal, the absence of the Charleston, declaring one rack early, and payment.

    for this variant A retailer's account of the same two-rack game, independent of Grad and Sloperama, by 2021 presented simply as the way two people play American mahjong. Its 27-tile deal is the only deal figure read, and Grad's own rules were not reached to check it

    Only cited here · bibliography #427

  4. Commercial I Love Mahj. "How do I play Siamese Mah Jongg® on I LOVE MAHJ?" Knowledge Base. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://ilovemahj.com/kb/67000733531

    AI summary The help page of an online American mah jongg platform for its Siamese game: who created it, a link to the rules on mahjongg.org, the two-rack interface, calling and declaring per rack, and the cards supported (NMJL 2019-2026 and Siamese 2024-2026).

    for this variant Independent of Sloperama and of the chart. It confirms Grad as creator and shows the game played with either the NMJL card or Grad's own Siamese card. As a game's help page, its procedures are the platform's implementation of the rules

    Only cited here · bibliography #428

  5. Commercial I Love Mahj. "2025 Siamese Mah Jongg® Card Clarifications." Knowledge Base. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://ilovemahj.com/kb/67000740845

    AI summary The platform's notes on Gladys Grad's 2025 Siamese card, which say they were checked with Grad. They cover the card's open and concealed notation, the 10-point concealed bonus, hand-by-hand readings, and the (*) bonus that applies only to Royale, the 3- and 4-player game.

    for this variant Shows that by 2024-2025 Grad issued a card of her own, with its own notation and scoring, so the game's hands come from her card as well as the NMJL's. It says nothing about 2015

    Only cited here · bibliography #429

  6. Official rules National Mah Jongg League. Mah Jongg Made Easy. New York: National Mah Jongg League, 2022 edition per its contents page (Internet Archive item dated 2020). cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://archive.org/download/mah-jongg-made-easy/Mah%20Jongg%20Made%20Easy_djvu.txt

    AI summary The League's official rule book: setting up, the Charleston, play, jokers, penalties and bettors. Its section on two- to six-handed play gives the League's own two-handed game, which has one hand per player and no Charleston.

    for this variant The League's own two-handed rules, the baseline that Siamese departs from. Nothing in the rule book describes two hands per player or two racks, so the Siamese rules do not come from the NMJL. The text calls itself the 2022 edition, while the Internet Archive item is dated 2020

    Only cited here · bibliography #430

  7. Rulebook Grad, Gladys. Siamese Mah Jongg. mahjongg.org. canonical checked 2026-09-18

    https://mahjongg.org/

    chart’s note The two-handed variant, 2015.

    for this variant The chart's own source. Only its homepage has been read, through the Wayback Machine on 2026-09-18. The rules sit on a separate page, mahjongg.org/siamese-rules/, which I Love Mahj links and Sloperama points to; it could not be reached on 2026-10-09 because the live site answers with a Cloudflare 403 and the Wayback Machine was unreachable

    Only cited here · bibliography #23

  8. Guide Sloper, Tom. "FAQ 4B: Lots o' Mah-Jongg Links." Sloperama. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq04.html

    AI summary Sloper's annotated directory of mah-jongg websites. It describes Grad's mahjongg.org as the home of the 2005 Standardized National Mah Jongg Rules for Tournaments and of Siamese mah-jongg, which it dates to 2015 in Florida.

    for this variant Confirms 2015 and adds Florida as the place of origin. It also shows mahjongg.org to be Grad's tournament site, which explains why its homepage reads as a Master Points page. Same author as FAQ 2b

    Only cited here · bibliography #422

  9. Guide Sloper, Tom. "Mah-Jongg Cards." Sloperama. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/cards.html

    AI summary Describes how the annual American card works as an artefact and how the NMJL and AMJA cards differ in form. Used here only for structure, never for hand content.

    for this variant Shows that the game has an annual card of its own, so its hands need not come from the NMJL card. It does not say when the first Siamese card appeared. Same author as FAQ 2b

    Also cited on: NMJL card, AMJA card, Mhing · bibliography #52

  10. Law United States Patent and Trademark Office. SIAMESE MAH JONGG. US Serial No. 86709446, Registration No. 5030029. TSDR status record. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://tsdr.uspto.gov/statusview/sn86709446

    AI summary The federal trademark register's record of the service mark for organizing and conducting games of Mah Jongg. Filed 30 July 2015 with a claimed first use of 27 April 2015, registered 30 August 2016 and renewed in 2026, owned by G & G Tournaments and Events, Inc., a Florida corporation.

    for this variant Dates the name independently of Sloperama: the applicant claims first use on 27 April 2015 and filed on 30 July 2015, which fits the chart's 2015. The first-use date is the applicant's claim, which the Office did not test, and the record says nothing about rules

    Only cited here · bibliography #424

  11. Law United States Patent and Trademark Office. SIAMESE MAH JONGG LEAGUE. US Serial No. 87539579, Registration No. 5412223. TSDR status record. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://tsdr.uspto.gov/statusview/sn87539579

    AI summary The register's record of a second Siamese mark: filed 2017, registered 2018 and cancelled in 2024, with a claimed first use of 1 August 2015. The owner is G & G Tournaments and Events, Inc. of Sarasota, Florida, and Gladys Grad is named as correspondent.

    for this variant Ties the company that owns the SIAMESE MAH JONGG mark to Gladys Grad by name and places it in Sarasota, Florida, which matches Sloper's 'Florida'

    Only cited here · bibliography #425

  12. Commercial Grad, Gladys. "Mah Jongg Madness Tournaments and Colorful Stories." Mahjong Tales blog, The Mahjong Line, 23 June 2021. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://themahjongline.com/blogs/mahjong-tales/mah-jongg-madness-tournaments-and-colorful-storie

    AI summary Grad's own signed account, on a tile retailer's blog, of the Mah Jongg Madness tournaments and NMJL cruises, of her 2005 standardized tournament rules and of Mah Jongg Master Points. It dates her invention of Siamese Mah Jongg to 2015 and names its 3- and 4-handed versions.

    for this variant The designer's own dating of the game to 2015. She is the author of the chart's canonical source, so this is not independent of it

    Only cited here · bibliography #426

  13. Journalism Santa Barbara Independent. "Learn the Siamese and Royale Style of Mah Jongg." Events listing for a class at the University Club of Santa Barbara, 20-21 June 2023. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://www.independent.com/events/learn-the-siamese-and-royale-style-of-mah-jongg/

    AI summary A newspaper's events-calendar listing, written by the organisers and not reported, for a two-day class. It sums up Siamese (two players, one set, double racks, two Mah Jonggs) and Royale (four players, two sets, double racks).

    for this variant An independent teacher's summary that agrees with Sloperama and I Love Mahj on the defining facts, and shows the game taught with the 2023 NMJL card. It is an events listing written by the organisers, not a reported article

    Only cited here · bibliography #431

AI-generated

Analysis

Written by an AI model from the sources above. It is a reading of them, not a source in its own right: every figure in it points back to a numbered source, and where the two disagree, the source is right.

Assessment

Confidence
documented a published ruleset or rule description exists and is cited
Evidence
corroborated two or more independent sources agree on the facts that define this variant

Cross-comparison

What each source was read to say, set side by side. The numbers are the sources above.

SourceTilesHandFlowersScoringPayout
[1]—each of the two players plays two hands at once———
[2]—two hands per player, each on its own rack, and both must be declared to win; one may be exposed early, but its jokers can then no longer be redeemed—the letter says the scoring differs from the four-player game and points to mahjongg.org for the rules and scoring—
[3]each player takes 27 tiles at the starttwo racks per player and two Mahjongs to finish; one rack's Mahjong may be declared and exposed without ending the game, after which its jokers cannot be exchanged——a player is paid only for a Mahjong exposed on the rack
[4]—each player has two racks, each holding up to 17 tiles; a called tile is assigned to one rack, and Mah Jongg is called for one rack at a time—at the end of the game the player with more points, including bonuses and penalties, wins, and a draw is possible—
[5]———most hands on the 2025 Siamese card may be played open or concealed, and a concealed hand earns a 10-point bonus—
[6]—one hand per player in the NMJL's two-handed game———
  • [1] special two-handed rules by Gladys Grad, 2015; the name plays on 'Siamese twins'. Two players each play two hands on specially designed two-tiered racks. Primarily designed with American mah-jongg in mind, but the concept can be applied to any variant
  • [7] the cited site was read through the Wayback Machine. The archived homepage is about Mah Jongg Master Points, American tournaments and prizes, and does not describe Siamese Mah Jongg at all, so the citation does not currently support the node's rules claims
  • [1] Re-read on 2026-10-09 and unchanged since the reading of 2026-09-18. The entry names mahjongg.org as the game's website
  • [2] The letter also reports a four-player version with two sets of tiles and two racks for each player. Sloper's reply calls the game an unofficial variant and a commercial product. The same FAQ gives the official American two-player rules: four walls, 14 tiles to the dealer and 13 to the other player, and no Charleston
  • [8] The page gives mahjongg.org/rules/ for the 2005 tournament rules and MahJongg.org for Siamese
  • [9] Grad's Siamese card is listed among the alternatives to the NMJL card, and questions about it are sent to Grad at mahjongg.org
  • [10] Service mark SIAMESE MAH JONGG, registration 5030029 of 30 August 2016, renewed in May 2026. The owner is a Florida corporation now at Surprise, Arizona, and MAH JONGG is disclaimed
  • [11] Filed 24 July 2017 and registered 27 February 2018 as no. 5412223. It was cancelled on 9 September 2024 because no Section 8 declaration was filed. The owner is G & G Tournaments and Events, Inc. of Sarasota, Florida
  • [12] Grad names the 2-handed game together with 3- and 4-handed versions (Royale Siamese Mah Jongg and Siamese Solitaire) and says Siamese tournaments are spreading. She also writes that she codified the Standardized National Mah Jongg Tournament Rules in 2005 and introduced Mah Jongg Master Points
  • [3] Neither Siamese nor Grad is named. When not keeping score, players often wait until both racks are complete
  • [4] The page links to mahjongg.org/siamese-rules/ for the rules and scoring
  • [5] The card's notation and colours differ from the NMJL card. Hands marked (*) concern only Royale, played with two sets, where finishing with natural tiles instead of jokers earns 25 bonus points
  • [6] East alternates and the blank walls draw no hands. The same section gives three-handed play, also without the Charleston
  • [13] A two-day class at the University Club of Santa Barbara on 20-21 June 2023, recommended for players already proficient in four-player American mah jongg

Reading it

Sources read on 2026-10-09 support the node's label and detail. Siamese Mah Jongg is a two-player form of American mah jongg played under NMJL rules, devised by Gladys Grad, a Florida tournament organiser who runs Mah Jongg Madness and mahjongg.org. Each player plays two hands on two racks and must declare two Mah Jonggs to win; one may be exposed early, but its jokers are then lost. Grad dates the game to 2015 in her own 2021 account. The USPTO register records a claimed first use of 27 April 2015 for the SIAMESE MAH JONGG mark, which her company filed in July 2015, and Sloper called it a new variant in March 2016. The rules come from Grad, not the NMJL. The League's rule book has only a two-handed game with one hand each and no Charleston. Since at least 2024 Grad has issued a Siamese card each January with its own hands and scoring, though the game is also played with the NMJL card. On details the sources differ: only Sloperama mentions two-tiered racks, and only the Mahjong Line gives a deal (27 tiles each). The chart's citation is right in substance. Still unread are Grad's rules page, her cards and her chapter in Swain and Salk's 2020 book.

Looked for, not found

  • Tournament rules Siamese tournaments are attested: Grad's 2021 post, a reader's comment there announcing one in Seminole, Florida on 7 April 2022, and the Siamese Mah Jongg League mark (2015-2024). Web searches on 2026-10-09 found no event's own rules. Grad's 2005 Standardized National Mah Jongg Tournament Rules (mahjongg.org/rules/) govern four-player tournaments and sit behind the same Cloudflare block
  • Historical The game dates from 2015 and is still played. Its contemporary record is in the sources read under other kinds: the 2015-2016 trademark filings, Sloper's March 2016 answer and the 2016 reader letter in FAQ 13A. No period manual exists
  • Scholarship None found and none expected for a commercial variant from 2015. Neither the general web search nor the Internet Archive turned up any study
  • Encyclopedia English Wikipedia has no article, finds no 'Gladys Grad', and its 'American mahjong' article does not mention the game. Wikidata has no item. The Mahjong Wiki's search gave no readable result (2026-10-09)
  • Organisation The NMJL's own site (home, FAQ, game and league pages, read 2026-10-09) says nothing about two-handed or Siamese play. Grad's organisation site, mahjongg.org, refuses automated readers, and its rules page is listed in wanted under official-rules
  • Collection No museum, library or archive record found. The game's objects are double rack sets and an annual card, sold commercially (eBay and Etsy listings seen in web results). The Internet Archive holds no item on the game

Known, not yet read

Sources that look worth having but could not be read for this entry. If you can reach one, it can be read and added. Every variant’s list is gathered on Missing sources.

  • Official rules Grad, Gladys. Siamese Mah Jongg rules page, https://mahjongg.org/siamese-rules/ (siamesemahjongg.com redirects to mahjongg.org) — The designer's own rules and scoring, and in substance the chart's canonical source. It would settle the deal, the early Mah Jongg rule, the scoring, and when the rules were first published
    Where: https://mahjongg.org/siamese-rules/ and its Wayback Machine captures. Tried: 2026-10-09: the live site (and siamesemahjongg.com, which redirects to it) answered curl and WebFetch with its own Cloudflare block page (HTTP 403), so this is the site's refusal. The Wayback CDX API and an id_ capture URL failed about 20 times between 12:22 and 12:40 UTC with connection resets in the proxy tunnel, and archive.ph also reset. Those failures were on our side, so someone on another network may be able to read the captures
  • Official rules Grad, Gladys. Siamese Mah Jongg card, issued each January (editions of 2024, 2025 and 2026 at least) — The game's own hands and scoring. The first edition would date when Siamese stopped relying on the NMJL card
    Where: Sold through mahjongg.org; I Love Mahj implements the 2024-2026 cards. Tried: No image or text of any edition found by web search on 2026-10-09; mahjongg.org refuses automated readers (Cloudflare 403)
  • Rulebook Swain, Gregg, and Toby Salk. American Mah Jongg for Everyone: The Complete Beginner's Guide. Tuttle Publishing, 2020 (ISBN 9780804852470), with a foreword and a chapter on the rules of Siamese Mah Jongg by Gladys Grad — The only printed statement of the rules known, written by the designer
    Where: In print and as a library e-book (OverDrive). Tried: Tuttle's product page was read on 2026-10-09 and confirms the chapter. The book is not on the Internet Archive (title search, 0 hits) and is in copyright

Where it was searched

Every place the search checklist names for this variant’s languages, and what each gave, including nothing. The last full pass was on 2026-10-09.

Names searched: English Siamese Mah Jongg, Siamese Mahjong, Siamese Mah-Jongg.

16 places searched
  • General web search — Standard-mode WebSearch, 2026-10-09; extended mode not used. Twelve queries: on "Siamese Mah Jongg" with Gladys Grad, rules, racks, 2015, mahjongg.org, trademark, newspapers, YouTube, apps and the Swain and Salk book, plus one on "Gladys Grad" interviews and one limited to sloperama.com. They turned up the I Love Mahj help pages, two Mahjong Line blog posts, the Santa Barbara Independent listing, the USPTO marks (through Justia, whose pages answered 403; read at USPTO TSDR instead) and Sloperama FAQs 4B, 7i, 13A and 13B and bulletin-board archives 37, 47 and 56, all read. Readable but not observed: I Love Mahj's 2024 Siamese card clarifications (https://ilovemahj.com/kb/67000734741, read: Grad's 2024 card uses O for open and X for concealed, the reverse of the NMJL card); a JCC of Central New Jersey class of 20 October 2025 taught by Rhonda Riesenberg (read: 'creatively uses 2 racks'); a Cuyahoga County library event (ccpl.librarymarket.com, unread); Tuttle's page for Swain and Salk (read, see wanted); eBay and Etsy listings for Siamese rack sets (unread). Several keyword-stuffed or machine-written pages (puri.sm, govt.lc, mudfish.net, marienfried.de, anycloud.dk) were ignored
  • Wikidata — wbsearchentities for 'Siamese Mah Jongg' (en), 2026-10-09: no item
  • Wikipedia, in every declared language — English Wikipedia, 2026-10-09: a full-text search for "Gladys Grad" returned 0 hits, and the wikitext of 'American mahjong' (read through the API) does not mention Siamese, Grad or two-player play. Two further searches answered 429 (rate limit on the shared address). No other language applies
  • The sources' own references, and who cites them — One round, backward. Sloperama FAQs 13A, 13B and 7i and the bulletin board point to mahjongg.org and siamesemahjongg.com, which now redirects to mahjongg.org; I Love Mahj links mahjongg.org/siamese-rules/ (wanted; Cloudflare 403). Tuttle's page leads to Grad's chapter in Swain and Salk 2020 (wanted). Second-round leads, unread: the USPTO specimens of use filed with the SIAMESE MAH JONGG application (JPEGs of 30 July 2015 and 21 April 2016, listed at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/docsview/sn86709446), which may show the earliest rules or flyer; Grad's 2005 Standardized National Mah Jongg Tournament Rules at mahjongg.org/rules/; Bulletin-board archive 56 (2023), where Sloper sends Siamese questions to siamesemahjongg.com and a player describes Royale groups; and archive 47, where Sloper suggests Grad's idea for two-player Chinese play. Forward searching (Google Scholar 'cited by') not done: no scholarship exists to cite
  • Internet Archive full-text search — Internet Archive, 2026-10-09. The metadata search for "siamese mah jongg" gave 0 items. The full-text search found one, complicity0000flag ('Complicity', 2017), unread and probably a passing mention in fiction. A full-text search for "two-handed mah jongg" gave 18 hits, among them the NMJL's Mah Jongg Made Easy (read), Babcock's 1923 Red Book and The Complete Book of Games (1938, 1940), whose 1920s-30s two-handed rules are leads for earlier two-handed American play, unread. Swain and Salk is not on the Archive (title search, 0 hits)
  • Wayback Machine — web.archive.org could not be reached on 2026-10-09 between 12:22 and 12:40 UTC. About 20 CDX requests for mahjongg.org/siamese*, siamesemahjongg.com* and mahjongg.org/, and one id_ capture of mahjongg.org/siamese-rules/, all failed with connection resets (the proxy tunnel closed mid-exchange). archive.org's availability API answered 429, and archive.ph also reset. All of these failures were on our side of the connection
  • Google Books — Not searched: its API answered 429 in earlier passes, and the only print source known (Swain and Salk 2020) is in copyright and listed in wanted
  • HathiTrust full-text search — Not searched: a game from 2015 will not be in HathiTrust's digitised volumes, and its full-text search is behind a Cloudflare challenge
  • WorldCat — Not searched: the one book known to cover the game (Swain and Salk, Tuttle 2020, ISBN 9780804852470) was identified from its publisher's page, and library holdings would only add to its wanted entry
  • Scholarly indexes — Not searched: a commercial two-player variant from 2015 with no expected academic literature; OpenAlex wants a key
  • YouTube — Searched only through one general web search for YouTube tutorials on 2026-10-09, which found no identifiable video; YouTube itself was not searched
  • English-language forums — Reddit and BoardGameGeek refuse automated readers and were not tried. Sloperama's Mah-Jongg Q&A Bulletin Board was searched through a site-limited web search: archive 37 (March 2016) was read and observed, and archives 47 and 56 were read in passing (see citations)
  • Mahjong reference sites — Sloperama, 2026-10-09: FAQ 2b re-read; FAQ 13A, FAQ 4B, FAQ 7i (cards) and the update log read and observed. FAQ 13B was also read: in a reply of 19 April 2020 Sloper says the Siamese idea works with any four-player variant ('Print the American Siamese rules from mahjongg.org' and strike out what does not apply). FAQ 4b's old URL mjfaq04b.html now answers 404. The Mahjong Wiki's site search for 'siamese' returned no result list to a plain fetch (probably drawn by script); not pursued
  • App and platform listings — A general web search on 2026-10-09 found no App Store or Google Play app offering Siamese. The game is played online on I Love Mahj, a web platform whose help pages were read; it supports the Siamese 2024-2026 cards
  • English-language newspaper archives — Not searched in the archives: they cover the US only to 1963, or other countries, and the game dates from 2015. A general web search for coverage found no article; the only newspaper item is the Santa Barbara Independent's 2023 events listing (read)
  • Statutes published in English — The listed statute databases (Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Philippines) were not searched, because this American game is not played there. The US trademark register (USPTO TSDR) was read instead: SIAMESE MAH JONGG (reg. 5030029) and SIAMESE MAH JONGG LEAGUE (reg. 5412223) are observed. ROYALE SIAMESE MAH JONGG (serial 88344139, reg. 6072417 of 9 June 2020, claimed first use 1 September 2015, same owner) was read but not observed. TSDR answers 403 to a bare 'Mozilla/5.0' user agent but 200 to curl's and Python's default user agents

In the tree

Descends from American mah jongg, as the source chart draws it.

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