Sim vs Play

Ranked by a 10 million game simulation that evaluated every hand concurrently, removing the influence of player strategy and favorite-hand preferences to measure each hand’s probability of reaching mahjong.

For each hand, the first bar shows how often it can reach mahjong in the simulation; the second shows its share of more than 100,000 Daily Challenge wins in the 2026 season.

Two takeaways

Players may be overlooking some promising hands in the Runs section, especially those using multiple suits. Our simulations suggest these hands offer higher winning probabilities, with flexibility to pivot between different numbers and suit combinations as tiles come in. The trade-off is that keeping track of those options takes more thought—and a quicker decision can help keep the game moving and fun.

Some hands win more than the odds predict. Any Like Numbers and Singles & Pairs make up a bigger share of Challenge wins than the simulation suggests. They’re easy to recognize and easy to track, which may be why players reach for them.

Click the Hand, Probability, or Challenge column heading to sort the table.

#
1 Runs 5B
2 Runs 2B
3 Runs 3
4 Runs 5A
5 Runs 2A
6 Winds 2
7 2468 6
8 Runs 4B
9 369 4
10 Runs 8 (C)
11 13579 4
12 2026 4
13 2468 8 (C)
14 Any Like Numbers 3
15 2026 3
16 Any Like Numbers 2
17 Winds 3
18 Winds 6
19 13579 9 (C)
20 Runs 4A
21 369 6 (C)
22 13579 1B
23 2026 2
24 369 3B
25 Winds 4
26 Runs 7B
27 2468 7
28 13579 6B
29 13579 6A
30 Singles & Pairs 3 (C)
31 369 2
32 369 5
33 2468 5
34 13579 5A
35 2468 3
36 13579 5B
37 369 3A
38 2468 1B
39 Runs 1A
40 13579 1A
41 13579 2B
42 Runs 1B
43 13579 2A
44 2468 4
45 Singles & Pairs 5 (C)
46 Winds 8 (C)
47 Runs 7A
48 13579 8A (C)
49 369 1A
50 2468 2
51 Singles & Pairs 1 (C)
52 369 1B
53 13579 8B (C)
54 2026 1
55 13579 7B
56 Winds 7A
57 2468 1A
58 Winds 7B
59 Singles & Pairs 2 (C)
60 13579 3A
61 13579 3B
62 Singles & Pairs 4 (C)
63 Any Like Numbers 1
64 Runs 6
65 13579 7A
66 Winds 1A
67 Winds 5
68 Winds 1B
69 Quints 3
70 Singles & Pairs 6 (C)
71 Quints 2
72 Quints 1