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About Shishen-Sho
Shisen-Sho, or ‘Four Rivers’ in English, is a Mahjong-style game originating from Japan. Japan’s TAMTEX simplified the Solitaire Mahjong concept in 1989 and brought it to arcade cabinets across the whole country.
The game was a hit, finding an audience across every age group. Similar games were subsequently released, and soon, Shisen-Sho became known worldwide. Now you can enjoy it for free online here at CoolOldGames!
Quick Instructions
For those unfamiliar, a Mahjong set has a total of 144 tiles, which are then split into 7 suits. The suits are as follows:
| Suit | Tile Count |
|---|---|
| Dots (筒子) | 36 |
| Bamboo (索子) | 36 |
| Characters (萬子) | 36 |
| Winds (風牌) | 16 |
| Dragons (箭牌) | 12 |
| Seasons (季牌) | 4 |
| Flowers (花牌) | 4 |
| Total | 144 |
Except for tiles from the ‘Flowers’ and ‘Seasons’ set, all Mahjong tiles have a duplicate, which is integral to the gameplay of the classic Mahjong.
Shisen-Sho, at its core, is a game of match-two. If you’ve played any Mahjong Solitaire games, you’ll feel right at home with Shisen-Sho. The most basic layout used in Shisen-Sho is the 18×8 rectangle.
Unlike other variants of Solitaire Mahjong, there is no vertical stacking of tiles, such as in the popular ‘Shanghai’ game, and all tiles exist on a single layer.
Shisen-Sho’s simplicity is part of the magic. By removing tiles pair-by-pair, the goal of the game is to clear the board of all tiles.
The challenge comes from the rules of tile matching. You can’t just choose any two matching tiles from across the board. Instead, the tiles need to be connected via a path consisting of not more than 2 bends. The connecting lines can only be drawn vertically and horizontally, diagonal lines are not allowed.
Boardstates and Plays
Since Shisen-Sho uses all 144 tiles from the Mahjong set, there are nearly infinite possible starting boards. Here’s a quick introduction to possible plays you can make given a basic starting board.
Figure 1 shows the typical starting board of 144 tiles. To start things off, try looking for the
This is a perfectly valid play, though the common strategy is to work starting with the outer edges. So instead, we opt for these two tiles on the far-right edge.
Note that both plays are perfectly valid. The latter play is just a more optimized variant, since it is easier to limit your vision to the outer edges to begin with.
Note that you cannot simply match two matching tiles. For example, the two inverse “中” tiles on the upper edge can be matched, as shown below.
However, the following match is illegal:
This is because there are tiles blocking the connector line.
Similarly, the following match is illegal:
You can count a total of 4 lines used in the connector, which exceeds the maximum limit
of 3 lines.
Strategy Tips
When it comes to Shisen-Sho strategy, the first few moves are arguably the most important. Instead of removing any matching and legal pairs right off the bat, try clearing out the outer edges as much as possible. This opens more possibilities without ruining the board state.
Most experienced players will tell you that it’s often best to avoid breaking the single rectangle into multiple shapes. Once you get a disconnected board, matches will be harder to make due to the need for more complex paths.