Legal Advice--Don't Pass it Up!

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe, with more insights on the new NMJL card! This time I'm talking about illegal exposures and tiles you should think twice about passing.

First of all, when you get your card, take a look at the Winds section. Just as they did, last year, those sneaky folks at the League office have set the two Concealed hands in the middle of the pack. Make sure you pay attention to which hands are open vs. closed—it’s very easy to have your hand go dead by accidentally confusing matters and exposing three Winds. Don’t do it!! Some people even use a highlighter to indicate which hands, throughout the card, are Concealed. Just a hint from Bubbe.

The other exposure that is absolutely illegal, and will result in your being called dead, is three dragons. You may recall that last year’s card had one legal dragon pung exposure: three soaps in one of the 2016  hands. This year, the similar hand is part of a “3-4” hand so the correct number of soaps would be FOUR. The only use of a pung of dragons, in any suit, is as part of the Concealed Consecutive Runs hand or the pung of soaps in the Concealed 2017 hand (thanks, Karen Hasty-Zhang!).

Meanwhile, we know that this is the first year, in a long time, that a pung of Flowers is legal. The final hand requires two sets of three, or six, altogether. Between pairs, pungs, and kongs, this is a year where passing Flowers is a terrible idea. If you don’t need them, yourself, you should keep them in the hope of exchanging them for jokers.

Another slight change is the “big hand” no longer requires three sets of the Year. It’s now two sets, in craks and bams, with pairs of the red and green dragons. For me, this means that all dragons are valuable. I used to be more cavalier about passing red or green dragons, NEVER passing soaps—now I will be hoarding any kind of dragon. Kongs of dragons appear all over this card, quite often in a contrasting suit from the number tiles. Just as with the Flowers, above, you should hold onto your dragons for the possibility of a joker exchange.

The number tiles that are most valuable are ones, twos, and nines. In a “bell curve” hand, the tiles at either end of sequences are pairs, and in the Consecutive Runs and 13579 sections, these are ones and nines (fives are slightly less important). Twos are also valuable for a similar reason, needed as a single or pair in the 2468 section and necessary for making most of the 2017 hands. Finally, if you must pass a seven tile, pass it by itself, not as a pair or with one of another suit: don’t make it easier for anyone to use these tiles to build their hand.

Of course, you don’t need to use these suggestions as absolute law. Any tile except a joker is fair game for passing, but IF you have a choice, I recommend avoiding the tiles listed above. Once in a while you’ll find yourself in a circumstance (e.g. five jokers or perfectly set-up singles and pairs) where you’re forced to pass things you would rather not give to another player—a pair of the same tile or a Flower or dragon. In such a situation, you do what you must.

One thing I don’t recommend is stopping the Charleston just to avoid passing a good tile. Even more so, I discourage players from stopping just because they can’t decide what hand to play. In “Searching for Bubbe Fischer,” I use the term Charleston Karma about hesitant beginners who stop the Charleston after first left: they are uncomfortable choosing between two equally mediocre hands, and don’t want to give either one up. A person in that kind of situation, who stops the Charleston due to indecisiveness, often ends up losing—hence, Charleston Karma.

I participated in a tournament, earlier this month, where one player stopped the Charleston twice in our four games. In the second such game, she offered three tiles for her optional across. Apparently, she had three tiles she could pass across, but not for second left. It would have been inappropriate for me to question her about it. Any person is entitled to stop the Charleston for whatever reason they want, and does not need to provide any explanation….but true to Charleston Karma, she lost both of those hands.

Hope you’re enjoying the new card, or if you don’t have it yet, that you get it soon. If you want to check in with me, I’m happy to hear your questions and comments: email me at bubbefischer@gmail.com

Talk to you soon!

Bubbe

A Nibble of the New...

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe, with just a taste of the new card!

I know some of you may not have it yet, and I will not publish photos because it’s a copywritten document, but I can give you some very useful PRELIMINARY information to consider—and for those of you who already have the new card, feel free to read along. 

First of all, there are only eleven hands that are identical to last year’s card—that’s only about 21%, a little lower than usual. It’s going to take a little while to forget the old and remember the new.

HOWEVER—super good news: our FAVORITE HAND, Consecutive Runs with matching dragons, is back! Everywhere I went, people told me how much they missed that hand. I guess the League just wanted us to appreciate it more—this year’s version will be kongs of Flowers, N and N+1, with a pair of matching dragons. 

There are a couple of very familiar hands that have also returned. The first Consecutive Run hand is back to a “bell curve,” e.g. pairs of ones and fives, pungs of twos and fours, and a kong of threes in the middle. Same with the upper half of the numberline (five through nine) as well as the first “Odds” hand: pairs of ones and nines, with the high point at a kong of fives.

The “old reliable” pair-free combination (all pungs and kongs) is back to 34-34: a pung and kong in one suit, and then a pung and kong in a second suit. It shows up all over the card: Consecutive Runs, Evens, Odds, 369. There’s also a 3-4-3-4 Year (2017) hand!

Another pattern that returns from last year is the stutter-step: pair, pair, pung, pung, kong. That shows up in many places: two different “Evens” hands, two different “Odds” hands, Consecutive Runs, 369, Winds and Dragons. Remember that the pairs are the hardest part!

One of the biggest surprises of the year: sure, we’ve got hands that use pairs of Flowers, we’ve got hands that use kongs of Flowers—but this year, there are two hands that feature PUNGS of Flowers! (Technically, there are three hands: Kongs of East/West or North/South, and Kongs of Like Numbers). Sure, it means you’ll need six Flowers overall, but remember that you only have to expose three at a time! I recommend NOT putting out jokers if you can at all help it—and certainly not for the first of the pung exposures. It’s too easy for someone else to take those jokers away from you!

Another big surprise: just like last year, most hands are worth 25 or 30 cents, with two each of the 40 and 45 cent Quint hands—but this year there is no 75 cent hand!! The most valuable hand is a twist on the Year hand: only two, with matching dragons, but they must be Craks and Bams! Tricky!

Other key things: the addition hand is back again, using 13 instead of 11. And, needless to say, the “Year” hand is now 2017. Keep in mind that a kong of sevens is now the official “ambiguous exposure” of the year: it shows up all over the card, in Year, Like Numbers, “Lucky 13,” Consecutive Run, Quints, and Odds.

As for Bubbe’s favorite bluffing section—Quints—let’s just say that you can get a lot of mileage out of a Quint of fives or nines—they can be used in any of the new Quint hands. 

My next article will be about ILLEGAL exposures and AMBIGUOUS exposures—by then, many more of you should have cards so you’ll be able to follow along.

Questions, comments—you can always reach me at bubbefischer@gmail.com I look forward to hearing from you!

Bubbe

Jokers, Jokers, Jokers

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe, here to reveal the truth about jokers!

I know what you all are saying, around the table: “Uch, does this set even come with jokers?” “I can’t get a joker to save my life.” And for the Scooby-Doo fans among us, “I would have made that hand, too, if it weren’t for my never getting any jokers!” The flip side, of course, is when you finally settle on a beautiful Singles and Pairs hand and suddenly pick a joker…or two. Only when you DON’T want them, amirite?

Bubbe likes to empirically test her ideas, and the ideal time to test them is when playing in tournaments. As I wrote in a previous blog, I played 29 hands in less than 24 hours and kept stats on each of them. Besides my win/wall percentage (just over 20 percent each), I also kept stats on jokers: specifically, “How many jokers did I have from the deal? How many did the winning hand use?” In looking at those numbers, I was hoping to see whether jokers actually DO play as important a role as we all think. Of course, I am not nimble enough to write about how many jokers get exchanged (if I’m taking too many notes, I can’t PLAY)—but looking at the deal and the winning hand is, at least, a start.

We all understand that eight of the 152 tiles are jokers—that’s a little over five percent of the tiles. On a very unsophisticated level, having 13 tiles in a normal deal (14 when you’re East) means that you have a 65-70% chance of getting dealt at least one joker. In other words, in two out of three games, you should start with one joker—or maybe in one game you are dealt two jokers, and none in two other games. In 29 games, getting 13.25 tiles per deal, my hypothesis is an expectation of being dealt approximately 20 (20.22) jokers: sometimes two, sometimes one, sometimes none. 

How did this bear out? Well, I actually received 21 jokers over the 29 games. Sounds like an accurate sample. What’s a little more interesting is the distribution of these jokers. Remember how I said sometimes you might get one, or two, or none? I actually received two jokers FOUR times, and in one deal I got THREE jokers! That’s 11 of the 21 jokers that I received. In other words, of the remaining 24 games, I only received a joker ten times. In 14 of the 29 games I played, I wasn’t dealt ANY jokers—that’s 48.3%, just under half of all games. 

Ok, fine. Half the time I didn’t start with a joker. Makes sense, even though we like to kvetch that we NEVER do…but is it that important to start with a joker? What if you pick a bunch, isn’t the FINAL result the most important? How many jokers did the winning hands have?

First of all, as I said before, 20.7% of the games were wall games—that’s six of the 29. How many of the winning hands were Singles and Pairs, or even regular hands that turned out to be jokerless? It turns out that no one at the tournament tables that I played at won a Singles and Pairs hand, which makes me think this is not a perfect testing ground. In this specific, limited sample, only ONE of the 23 winning hands was jokerless: the first 2468 hand with the four Flowers. That is only 4.3% of all winning hands. Sounds statistically significant to me.

How many jokers were involved in the other 22 winning hands? Consider that we pick and throw tiles throughout the game but generally hold onto our jokers, so they should be present in most hands by the end of a game. However, not every game gets to the end of the last wall. Since there are only eight jokers, the average number of jokers per player by the end of each game should be somewhere under two jokers apiece, but I’m going to hypothesize that the winner would have at least two jokers: in other words, better than just random distribution of jokers.

How did this one bear out? There were 56 total jokers among the 23 winning hands, including the one jokerless win. That averages out to 2.43 jokers per winning hand. That’s about a half a joker more, per hand, than the “just under two apiece” that would be expected when a game ends. 

And what was the distribution of these jokers among winners? As I said, one winning hand was jokerless. Four of the 23 hands had FOUR jokers; five had three jokers. Only ONE other hand ended with a single joker; half of the winning hands (12/23, or 52%) used two jokers. Again, I wish I’d kept track of exposures/exchanges, and whether these hands had used jokers that were later exchanged…

But the evidence is clear. Jokers absolutely, in this small sample of 29 games, made a BIG difference. I can only expect, on average, about .65 jokers per deal, and in half the games I started with none. The winning hand had a higher than “random chance” number of jokers, by almost half a joker per game.

Just thought you’d like to know your kvetching is well-founded!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at bubbefischer@gmail.com ; I love hearing from you!

Talk to you soon.

Bubbe