Mahjong is a strategic, four-player tile game often compared to Rummy, where players race to build a winning hand of 14 tiles consisting of four melds (sets of three or four matching tiles) and one pair. Originating in 19th-century China, it blends luck with deep probability and defensive strategy, as players must balance forming their own high-scoring combinations while discarding tiles that won’t help opponents win. The game involves drawing and discarding tiles from a "wall" until one player successfully calls "Mahjong!", ending the round.