King and Queen Kong: Ambiguous Double Exposures

Greetings and salutations from your Bubbe, who’s been looking over the new card whenever I’m not chopping celery or polishing the silver…

If you read my previous article, you’d see my immediate enthusiasm for a few features of this year’s card. I like that the three Flowers aren’t a giveaway as to what hand you’re playing. I like that “knitted” hands are in three different places. I like that NEWS is back.

Another thing I love is the ambiguity. In my book, Searching for Bubbe Fischer, I encourage players to look at the card and critically assess which exposures won’t force them into a corner. It’s so important to have a backup plan, especially once they’ve made one (or more) exposures. 

Today I’m going to talk about double kong exposures. There are plenty of hands where you can make two kongs exposures and your opponents will STILL not be sure what you are playing. They will have a hard time deciding how to defend against two, three, or MORE hands….and best of all, even if your original target becomes unavailable (e.g. you don’t have a pair of Flowers), there’s generally an option that could be made with extra jokers.

Example:

You put out kongs of two consecutive numbers in the same suit, e.g. three- and four-craks. You could be playing

   111 222 3333 4444 or 111 222 3333 4444*

Or 

   FF 3333 4444 DDDD

Or

   FF 2222 3333 4444 or FF 3333 4444 5555

*Note: if you use ones and twos, or twos and threes, you will not be able to do this particular hand—otherwise, for any other exposure of two consecutive kongs in same suit, your hand could not be declared dead because you could be going for the top combination.

If you put out kongs of the same number in two suits, for instance 2222 and 2222, you could be playing

  FF 2018 2222 2222

Or

 FF 2222 DDDD 2222

Or

 FFF 2222 FFF 2222

You could claim that you were going to use Jokers to acquire enough Flowers, even if all the Flowers go out. It’s hard (but not impossible) for your hand to go dead.

Note that the above scenario also true of kongs of one’s and eight’s. If you put out kongs of threes, sixes, or nines, you could be playing a variation of

  FF 33 66 99 3333 3333

or either of the official Like Numbers hands, above.  Two different kongs of fours, fives, or sevens can only be one of those two Like Numbers hands.

Other fun ambiguous Double Kong exposures are with two kongs of the same suit, two numbers apart, e.g. one and three dot.

These could be part of:

                FF 1111 2222 3333

Or

                1111 222 3333 DDD

Or

 

                FF 1111 3333 5555**

**Note that every kong combination: 1 and 3, 3 and 5, 5 and 7, or 7 and 9 will be a variation on that 13579 hand, and there is an additional option for the 3 and 5 or 7 and 9; 2 and 4 or 4 and 6 will be part of the 2222 4444 6666 88 hand, and kongs of 6 and 8 will be part of 222 444 6666 8888. 

In this situation, even if ALL Flowers are discarded or used, you can still not be declared dead because of the “knit” hand scenario.

There are many other two-kong exposures that are ambiguous--look at the card and you'll find them in almost every section except Quints and Singles and Pairs!

I hope this little lesson will help you to think critically about backup plans and how the various hands can be switched, even after you’ve made one (or more) exposure(s)!

Back to the kitchen I go! Talk to you soon.

Bubbe Fischer