It finds what you keep getting wrong.
Pink Bird Mahj: Card Coach plays American Mahjong with you and grades the judgments you make — when to call, when to pass, when a hand is dead and which way to pivot. It keeps track of the ones you keep missing, and gives you the practice session that fixes them. You bring your own National Mah Jongg League card; this teaches you to read it.
Why another mahjong app?
Most mahjong apps are one of two things. Either a place to play, or a course to sit through. A place to play will not tell you why you lost. A course teaches everybody the same thing in the same order, and then it is over. Twelve lessons and you are done.
We start with the basics too. Color the Hand teaches you this year's patterns and suits. The building blocks are always pairs, pungs, kongs, quints and singles, but the pattern is different every year. Same Bones shows you which hands on this year's card are similar, so you can pivot later when one of them dies.
That is where everybody starts, and it is where most apps stop. We keep going. Joker Moves is a good example. It teaches a new player when a joker can be used at all, and an experienced player when to hold one back instead of exposing it.
It plays hands with you, works out what you keep getting wrong during your play, and gives you a drill for it. It watches what you actually do - when you call, what you pass, how you spend your jokers - and when the same mistake shows up more than once, it tells you. Then it gives you the drill.
The drills are there from your first day. The coach needs a few hands before she has anything to say. She would rather say nothing than guess at you.
When the new card comes out in April, everybody is a beginner again. It takes time to get familiar with the new hands, and everyone still has last year's hands in their head. The only way to get comfortable with a new card is to play it. That is what this app is for.
Meet the coach
Coach Starling is the part of the app that pays attention. She grades your judgments as they happen, keeps a running picture of each skill separately — calling, jokers, dead hands, the Charleston, defense — and waits until a weakness is real before she says anything. One unlucky hand is not a weakness, and a coach who talks constantly becomes wallpaper.
Coach Starling
“You take an exposure the moment it appears. Twice this session, that told the table where you were going before you needed them to know. Joker Moves drills that timing.” One thing at a time, in plain English, with somewhere to go about it.
The Practice Table
The drills are what the coach prescribes. Each one isolates a single judgment and makes you practice it against real board positions — so a diagnosis always comes with a fix, and you can also just work through them on your own.
Know the Card
Read what the card is actually asking for.
Same Bones
Block vision — seeing that very different-looking hands share the same underlying shape.
Color the Hand
The suit rule. Which groups must share a suit, which must differ, and why.
Build Your Hand
Your own rack: pick a direction, finish it, and know when to change your mind.
Name That Hand
Given thirteen tiles, name the directions worth committing to.
Complete the Hand
What are you waiting on? Three levels, ending in a live table read.
Two Roads
Hand selection — play a deal out, then replay the identical deal down the other road.
Pivot Hands
Knowing when your line is dead and which hand to switch to.
Know the Table
Everyone else's hand: what they're chasing, what's safe to throw, and when to stop pushing.
Joker Moves
Call or pass? The joker economy, with the discipline traps that make it hard.
Read the Table
Their exposures and their discards — what is that opponent chasing?
Last Stand
Your hand is gone and the wall is nearly out. You cannot be second in mahjong, so play for the wall game.
Tile Scanner — not a drill. At the table, photograph your rack and it reads your tiles, then ranks the hands on this year's card by how close you are to each one — three away, one away, or a win. Useful right through the Charleston, when you are working out which hands are worth developing and whether you are passing down the right path.
Join the beta
Card Coach is in testing now on iPhone, and we are looking for American Mahjong players to break it. If you play at a club, in a league, or around a kitchen table on Wednesdays, you are exactly who this was built for. Android testing opens right after this round; if that is you, say so and we will hold your name for it.
What you get
- The full app, free for the whole beta.
- A direct line to the person who built it. Tell us what confused you and it changes.
- Your name in the credits, if you want it there.
What we need
- Play about once a week for four weeks. Use it the way you would actually use it.
- Tell us what did not make sense, what you expected to happen, and where you got stuck.
- Answer a few short questions along the way. Nothing long.
- About an hour a week. An iPhone, for this first round, and your own National Mah Jongg League card.
This is not come and play for two hours. We are asking for a month, and we are asking for the truth. Compliments are not what we need. What you tell us goes into the app while you are still testing it, and that is the whole reason to do this now instead of after it is finished.
What lands during the beta
- Coach Starling reads four parts of your live play today: when your hand dies on you, how you spend your jokers, how long you keep chasing a hand that is already gone, and whether you took an exposure you did not need. Defense is what she learns next. You will watch her get sharper while you test, and what you tell us is part of why.
The first round is on iPhone, because Android needs a different set up and we are doing one at a time. We will send you a TestFlight invitation. If you are on Android, say so and we will hold your name for the round straight after. No cost, and nothing to cancel.
You bring the card
An official National Mah Jongg League card is required to play, and must be purchased from the League, an authorized store, or a dealer. Card Coach works alongside your physical card — it never displays or replaces it. The app points you back to the card, because reading it fluently is the skill being taught.
Status: Card Coach is in beta on iPhone ahead of release, with Android to follow. Join the beta, or write to info@pinkbirdmahj.com for launch news.
About Pink Bird Mahj LLC
Pink Bird Mahj LLC is an independent software company registered in Texas, United States. We build one thing: tools that make American Mahjong players better at the game.
My niece painted the bird years before any of this. It wasn't a mahjong picture, and it wasn't meant to be anything in particular. I have just always liked it. It hangs at my Mom's house. When I started playing Mahjong and this company happened, I found a way to use something she created. It isn't a particular kind of bird and it was never tidy, and that is exactly why I picked it. American Mahjong is a strategic game played around a table by people having a good time. A slightly lopsided pink bird felt closer to that than anything polished would have.
General enquiries: info@pinkbirdmahj.com