A Life or Death Decision

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe, eagerly checking my "Inbox" to see what you have to say.

I love getting letters--they spark the best columns. Sometimes you ask for clarification, which means I need to define my terms, or illustrate my point, more clearly. If one of you writes to me with a question, it's probably something that dozens of you were wondering about!

Specifically, Rae asked what I meant in a recent column when I talked about "illegal" exposures. I sent her a private email:

I like to point out the exposures that are invalid/illegal/unacceptable for this year's card. If you look over the whole card, there is no EXPOSED hand that uses a pung/three Winds or three Nines. In comparison, every other single exposure (three of any other number, dragon, or flower; four of ANY tile; and even five of any number or Wind) is legal.

I do this to remind you to be careful not to make that mistake. I also remind you for defensive planning. As you see on the card, there are hands with three Winds or three Nines, but those are CONCEALED hands. If an opponent makes such an exposure, it is illegal and means that you can call that player's hand dead.

Now we come to a new, interesting, and highly controversial point. You can (or may, if you're a real stickler for grammar) call your opponent's hand dead. But should you?

First of all, a reminder that you cannot declare your own hand dead, even if you have no chance of winning. If you only have twelve tiles, or have fourteen, fifteen or sixteen (what the heck are you doing?), you must keep playing as if nothing's wrong. If you have no exposures, no one will know that the hand you are attempting is unattainable. The only way an opponent will know your hand is dead is if they notice that you have too many tiles or if your exposures indicate that your hand is not attainable.

The most obvious reason why your hand is unattainable would be that it is clear from your exposures that you need a specific pair, and three of the tiles are already exposed and/or out on the table (or you need a single tile and all four are out). Same idea if you need a pair of Flowers and seven are out. Also, as I've mentioned, if you make an illegal exposure (this year it's pungs of Winds or nines), then your hand is invalid so mahj itself would be unattainable.

Any single LEGAL exposure will not make it completely obvious which hand you are playing, on this year's card. (True, five Winds show which Quint hand you are working on, but no one will know which Dragon or number tile you need). Even if the tiles you wanted are no longer available, you can either switch your hand or play on, blithely pretending that there's nothing wrong. Once you make that second exposure, it still may not be clear what you are playing (see this article for some examples).

There ARE some double exposures that are more obvious and tie you down. For example, if you have 333 5555 it can only be the first Consecutive Runs hand, in craks. If there are three one-craks or two-craks on the table, you're not going to make that hand! If you are going for 66666 66666 5667, exposing the Quints in bams and craks, and someone else exposes three six-dots, you're not going to be able to make mah jongg. Don't make a fuss, don't say anything, keep playing. It's not up to you to give yourself away.

But what do you do, on defense, when you see that someone's hand is unattainable? As I mentioned above, if your friend Selena exposes a pung of Winds or nines, she's playing a concealed hand and can't win. In another scenario she might have two exposures that tie her hand down to a goal that is no longer attainable, and you recognize that fact. You could immediately call her hand dead--because it is--but there are a few strategic reasons why you might choose not to do so!

The first, which Bubbe doesn't subscribe to at all, is etiquette--you might not want to hurt Selena's feelings! This, as I say in my book, is irrelevant. Selena knows that she can't win. Hopefully she recognizes that it's nothing personal, and that she is welcome to play the next hand as soon as it starts--in three or four minutes.You're giving her a chance to grab a nice piece of pineapple or check her email, she shouldn't be so sensitive. 

A better reason comes up if your own hand is far from winnable. To battle to a wall game, you might want to slow the other players down. Having four players means that each one only sees 25% of the tiles; if you call Selena's hand dead, it means the other two players are seeing more tiles and improving their chance of winning. It could be good defense to keep her in the game. If one of the other two players notices that Selena's hand is dead, they can call it--but why should you help them?

The other main reason why you might not call another player's hand dead has to do with unredeemed Jokers. There's a lot of controversy over this--I'll save it for another column.

I hope this clarified a little more about strategy. I promise we'll go back to the unredeemed Joker issue another day. For now, keep playing the new card and let me know if you have any questions: you can email me at bubbefischer@gmail.com

Talk to you soon!

Bubbe Fischer