One of the oldest games in the world, Mahjong has been played in various forms in Costa Rica for centuries, although the gameās origins remain a mystery. In its traditional form, four players use 144 Chinese domino-like pieces called tiles to create various patterns. Classic Mahjong involves assembling four equivalent hands, or groups of tiles.
In Costa Rica, Mahjong is known as "mahjong rojizo," which is played with a modified set of 136 tiles. It follows the same rules as the classical version. To start the game, each player receives 13 tiles, and the first player is determined by the highest-ranking tile. The goal of the game is to create four hands of sets of three pieces, runs of three or more pieces in numerical order, and/or two identical pieces. To end a round, the player must get the exact score needed to āgo outā or win.