The rules

Players start by building four "walls": long, face-down rows of tiles stacked 2 high.

You deal and draw from the walls.

The dealer, called "East", deals everyone 13 tiles from the walls, plus one extra tile for East, so East starts with 14 (we'll revisit dealing etiquette later!). Next comes the Charleston, a round of trading tiles you'll learn in chapter 5. Then East starts play by discarding one tile, and you're off to the races.

If you all keep drawing from the walls until there are no tiles left, the hand ends with no winner. That's called a wall game, and it happens more often than you'd think!