The best way to learn is just to play.

On a rainy Friday morning, I decided to check out the Don Persson Renton Senior Activity Center’s twice-weekly Mahjong games, where seniors come and play the 19th-century Chinese game of “skill, strategy and luck.”

“It’s good for seniors because it exercises your hands and your brain – but not your feet,” Niko Spencer said with a laugh. Spencer lives in Tukwila and has been coming to the Renton Senior Center to play Mahjong since 2023.

A tile-based game, Mahjong is similar to gin rummy in concept, but is made up of 144 tiles that are numbered and categorized into bamboo, number characters, dots, winds, dragons, flowers, seasons and sometimes jokers. The object of the game is “three, three, three, three and a pair,” as Spencer said.

Best played wit

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