Tuesday, March 27, 2018

First impressions of the 2018 card


Greetings and salutations from your long lost Bubbe, who stepped away from simmering the brisket long enough to give you FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE NEW CARD!

Boy, oh boy, you’re gonna love it.

Off the top—the basic patterns this year are 22334 and 3344—that means ascending pairs, pungs, and kongs shows up in many places as does  AAA BBB CCCC DDDD. Also—big shock—the addition hand this year is “12,” in one or three suits, for 3-9, 4-8, and 5-7 combinations.

To be fair, however, this is an Agatha Christie card—full of twists and turns. Just when you think you understand the 3344 pattern, they’ve tricked you! The “knit hand” Consecutive Run hand (AAAA BBB CCCC DDD) is back—note that the “DDD” really DOES mean “dragon”—and note that it’s kongs on either side of the pung, with a pung of matching dragon. The fun surprise is that it shows up again in the 13579 section: 1111 333 5555 DDD or 5555 777 9999 DDD and in 369: 3333 666 9999 DDD

More new and interesting twists: THREE FLOWERS (a pung) is a thing again, but in a new and better way—it’s not just for Like Numbers anymore. Although the opposite Wind kongs/Flower pungs hand is gone, the Like Numbers hand (two Kongs of a number in different suits and two pungs of Flowers) still exists. In addition, a Flower pung (or two!) shows up unexpectedly in 2468, 13579, and 369. You won’t be able to tell from one exposure, what someone is playing, or even if they will need more Flowers!

Speaking of twists, turns, and Flowers: sometimes a kong of Dragons is accompanied by a pung of Flowers; sometimes by a pair of Flowers; sometimes by a kong of Flowers (well, only if it’s Soaps, in the 2018 section). 

Another thing that kind of blew me away, on first glance: there is a weird variation on Like Numbers in the 2018 section! You can make 2018 with two opposite suit kongs of ones, twos OR eights.

Singles and Pairs almost perfectly matches what I say in my lectures: each SP hand is basically a “mini” version of a different section of the card. There’s a Consecutive Run SP hand, a 2468, a 13579, a 369—you’ll see. Nothing earth-shattering in that section, and in fact, the 60 cent hand is back, to many people’s chagrin. We want the big payout!

Other big payouts (the Quint section)—kind of meh, this year, to be honest. I wasn’t blown away by any of them. The hand that I love—Quints of Winds and any number tile, plus a kong of dragons, is back. The other three hands aren’t that special, in my opinion.

As for old favorites:

NEWS is back, for those who have missed it—it’s in the closed 2018 hand, as well as a Winds/Dragons hand. An interesting point about that Winds/Dragon hand: it’s the only one on the card that uses TWO DRAGON KONGS.

The Consecutive Run “old reliable” Kong/Dragon hand is back with a variation: only two Flowers, with kongs of consecutive numbers and matching dragon. There’s a fun twist: you can also just do kongs of three consecutive numbers, and skip the dragons! That’s basically a single-suit version of the junk hand (three consecutive kongs in different suits), which also is back.

As for “illegal” exposures: the only “typical” exposures that do not exist on this card are pungs of 9’s and Winds. All single Kongs are legal, as are quints of any Wind or numbered tile.  

I will certainly write more, going forward, about ambiguous exposures and tricky variations on hands, but wanted to give you some quick feedback.

Enjoy your holiday weekend. The card’s coming, but you’ve got the inside scoop. If you want to send me your impressions when you get YOUR card, email me at bubbefischer@gmail.com

Talk to you soon!

Bubbe

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