Greetings and salutations from a very remiss Bubbe!
It's almost like Confession: "
It's been three months since my last post." The problem is that my new dog keeps me from sitting down at my desktop computer. Such is my life. It's certainly not the worst thing in the world, having an adorable puppy, but it does keep me from checking in with all of you. I apologize.
Fortunately, today I had such an interesting deal that I knew I had to write about it, especially for you fledgling players who wonder how to choose which hand to play.
I started with
66 6 6 D D N W JJJ 4 8 --yep, THREE jokers in the deal!
If you've read my old blogs about statistics in tournament play, you know that jokers provide a definite advantage: the more jokers, the more likely it is that a hand can win. You have
65% chance of starting with a joker in each deal: sometimes you'll get one or two, and sometimes none. It is very rare to get more than two at the start, so if you get them, you need to think about how to take advantage of such a windfall.
I assessed my tiles for strengths. The most obvious assets were the three jokers, the Sixes in all three suits, and matching Dragons to two of the suits. At first glance, with a wealth of jokers, one might be tempted to go for the Quint hand of Like Numbers:
11111 11111 1123
or possibly the other Quint hand involving Winds and Dragons:
11111 NNNNN DDDD
Another attractive option based on my starting point was Like Numbers with Dragons:
11 DD 111 DDD 1111
Obviously, without going through the Charleston there was no way to know exactly what hand to choose. I decided to play my usual Sesame Street-inspired "One of these things is not like the others," in order to eliminate unnecessary tiles.
Because my beautiful Sixes were even, I knew that I would not need a "North" tile (unless I suddenly picked up enough for Quints). I decided that the North, the Four bam and the Eight dot were expendable. I decided to keep the two Dragons on the chance that I might get more of them--especially a pair of Reds, which would make the Like Number/Dragon hand simpler.
After the first Across pass, I had
66 6 6 D D E W JJJ 2 9
This is where
Bubbe's wisdom comes in handy. Luck favors the prepared mind. KNOW THE CARD AS WELL AS YOU CAN. If you understand all the different possibilities, you can make the best choice.
Seeing those two "Even" winds--East and West--made the choice easy for me. I would keep both the Winds, and one of the Dragons, because they provided more options: either the Wind/Dragon Quint hand OR the Wind/Like Numbers hand:
EEEE 22 22 22 WWWW (any even number)
More importantly at this point, I would stop collecting Dragons in more than one suit because the Like Number/Dragon hand was a Concealed Hand. Having three jokers was lovely, but if I was playing a Concealed hand I wouldn't be able to call for any exposures!!!
Once I decided to give up on the Concealed hand, I had confidence going into my first Left pass. Unfortunately, after my second Left, I was actually kind of stuck:
66 6 66 EE W JJJ 3 7
As much as you hate to pass away a tile you need, there is no way out of that second Across--you must pass three tiles. Obviously the Three and the Seven were going, but I needed to select a third. I decided that it would be foolish to give up any of the Sixes, since the pairs were so essential. The second East was the most expendable--it still might come back in the passing, or if it got thrown, I would call for it and hope that I got a chance at another joker, either by exchanging back for it or picking---or perhaps picking a second West.
Luck favors the prepared mind...and Bubbe was prepared, let me tell you. In the final, optional across I was passed a North and TWO Easts. Somehow no one had an inkling of what I was playing.
66 6 66 N EEE W JJJ
It was probably as close as I have come to a heavenly hand (starting the game with mah jongg). All I needed was to complete my East and West kongs before the third Six bam was discarded, and hopefully either pick it myself or have it thrown to me.
I threw the North as my first discard, hoping someone would assume Winds were safe. Sure enough, someone threw a West and I called for it, exposing two of the Jokers. No one would have any idea that I didn't even need the fourth East, since I had a Joker to cover it. It was now a waiting game to see if a Six bam would come my way.
Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long. About four turns later, I picked my own Six bam--and won sixty cents from each of my opponents, who were shocked at how quickly the game ended.
What was the most valuable lesson here? Know the card, and make your decision based on what is most attainable. Especially with a wealth of Jokers, don't go for a Concealed hand if an easier, open hand is possible. I agree that it was risky--what if someone had been playing a hand that used three of the Six bams, so I could never make that last pair? Honestly, even if I had exposed both Easts and Wests, my hand would not have been called dead. There was still NNNN EEEE WWWW SS, or FFFF EEEE GG WWWW, or the East/West kongs with pairs of any other even numbered tile. The prospect of my hand being called dead was certainly not enough to detract from making this easy choice!
What I always recommend is thinking about these situations in the abstract, so that when you are in a game situation it is EASY for you to make the right choice! Faced with the options of Open vs. Concealed, I definitely chose well. Waiting around for Sixes and Dragons that I couldn't call would have been so frustrating!!
I hope this was helpful to you. You might want to read
my book for more ideas. If you have questions or comments, you can always check in with me at bubbefischer@gmail.com I am REALLY good at replying quickly to emails--finding the time to sit down and write a whole article is quite another story.
Talk to you soon--
Bubbe Fischer
