Mahjong tiles click on the table as four players shuffle them. The women sitting Monday at the table at Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point begin dividing them, building walls in front of each of their racks.

The soft clicks continue as the tiles are dealt and passed amongst the players, and each woman begins to organize her hand. And then, after each compares her hand to the card she has on the table in front of her, the game begins in earnest.

“I start, so I’m going to put down five crack,” Debbie Bonds says as she lays down the first tile of the game. Each tile has a name, and as the women continue to play and lay out tiles, they say the respective names – like one bam, five crack or red dragon – aloud.

While to the uninitiated, the American Mahjong players may seem to be speaking in code, several of the women picked up the game not too long ago. They now meet every Monday at the club, and in other “pocket” groups throughout the city, to play the derivation of the Chinese rummy-like game that was invented in the 1800s, played with tiles rather than cards.

Frances Livesay Smith is a regular at these “pocket” groups, despite only learning to play mahjong at a class in September. She picked up the game after moving back to West Point in May, and has kept playing ever since. Now, she is organizing a mahjong tournament for area players as a fundraiser for The Mission – a nonprofit rehabilitation program based in West Point that helps men struggling with addiction.

“It’ll just be a good day of fun and fellowship and to meet mahjong players,” Smith said.

The Mahjong March Madness tournament is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. March 29 at The Mission, 2494 East Churchill Rd., with an admission fee of $40 per player. Smith said the fee will include players’ lunch, but players will need to bring their own cards – issued annually by the National Mah Jongg League to define the hands for the game that year – to play.

The tournament has already started to draw players from Memphis, Oxford, Amory, Columbus and more to register, Smith said.

“People that play it really are passionate about it and love it, and they want other players to learn about it and love it too,” Smith said.

‘Everybody has a group’

Janice Reynolds sat at one of four mahjong tables Monday at Old Waverly. Like Smith, she picked up the game when she moved to the area. But she’s had tiles in her hands a little longer.

“I moved here about five years ago, so I was learning (mahjong) to meet people,” Reynolds said. “… There was a place in Starkville having a class, so I went to that. Then I went to the one here in West Point. It was a way for me to get to meet new people.”

Patricia Blair, another player, said she picked up mahjong about 15 years ago.

“I’m the old lady of the group, and when we moved over here, I tried to get everybody interested in this,” Blair said. “There was one person there, and that wasn’t enough to try.

Then we went on a girls trip, and I persisted and took my set,” she added. “I got some of them hooked then, and then the others took lessons. So now, everybody has a group.”

“It intrigued me because it’s a way to have companionship, meet people and do things, and then, it’s good for your mind,” Marcia Bryan, a player at a table across the room, said.

Similar to Bryan, Sandra Harpole started playing after her husband, Martin, died a year ago. She picked up on the game by playing with others, rather than taking a class.

“For me, and I think for her too, we’ve enjoyed being able to do things like this,” Harpole said.

Another local mahjong player who was not in the room Monday is Chase Hazard, co-owner of Lighting Unlimited + Uncommon Living. She picked up the game in January, playing with her mother after her father passed away.

Ever since, Hazard has continued to play with relatives and friends from college, and her love of the game has motivated her to carry high-end Americanized sets at her store.

“We’ve been surprised that people are willing to splurge on these tile sets,” Hazard said. “It’s been surprisingly good for us.”

Hazard said she and her friends regularly go from Columbus to West Point to play the game. Likewise, Blair said she regularly travels the opposite direction to play with others. Having a tournament on the horizon has encouraged local players from the whole area, Blair said.

“We’re excited about this tournament that’s coming up,” Blair said. “We’ve got people from several other towns coming. It’s going to be really fun.”

Flowers, dragons and winds

While many of the women at Old Waverly said the game has brought them companionship, Reynolds said she also uses the game as a way to keep her mind active.

Smith said the game is particularly helpful for older women to keep their minds active, as working to put together the matches in the game often feels like solving a puzzle.

Each player in the game works to put together matching tiles, arranging them to follow the lines displayed on the annual game card. This can include a pair (two matching tiles), a pung (three matching tiles), a kong (four matching tiles) or a quint (five matching tiles). To form these matches, players put together tiles featuring different symbols, including cracks, bams (short for bamboo), dots, dragons, flowers, winds or jokers.

Throughout the game, players discard tiles to form the matches they need. Harpole said this is one of the most difficult parts of the game, since there are many options of hands they can assemble. The challenge, she said, is mentally engaging.

“I think the hardest thing for me to learn is what tiles to discard, and then how to choose which one of these lines you’re going to play,” Harpole said. “I think sometimes I’m going to play one line, and then I draw stuff that makes me switch.”

Bonds told The Dispatch she enjoys playing with her group, both for the companionship and for the mental elements of the game.

“It is so fun,” Bonds said. “We love it because it makes us think. … It’s social, it makes us think, and we’re learning something new.”

Sets and cards, along with other information about mahjong, are available through the National Mah Jongg league’s website at nationalmahjonggleague.org/. More information about the tournament is also available on The Mission’s Facebook page.