Now, I know that mah jongg is more than just a competitive hobby. If you've ever heard my presentations, you know I discuss the psychological benefits of the game. (If you've NEVER heard me speak, email me and we can figure out how I can share my wisdom with your community!)
Not everyone sits down at the table with the mindset of winning. Occasionally we just want to relax with friends, or distract ourselves from whatever issues are bothering us. We might even see that a fellow player needs a boost more than we do, and throw a tile or two their way. Sometimes winning is the furthest thing from our minds.
HOWEVER...experience tells me that many of you, at least some of the time, are playing to win. There is absolutely no sin in that. We're playing a game, and it's natural to want to be good at it. I'm going to guess that you read my book and my blog because you want advice about how to "get good."
Okay, perfectly understandable. Read my archives. Better yet, buy the book. I talk about how to best prepare yourself. After all, "luck favors the prepared mind." The better you understand the tiles and the card, the better prepared you will be when good tiles come your way.
But as I also say, it's unreasonable to expect to win every hand. Among evenly matched players, over time, you will probably only win about 20 percent of the games. Even with players who are not at your level, it's unlikely that you will win every single hand--the tiles just won't come your way every time.
There are occasions when you don't have a hope of winning. The tiles you want have not come to you; you don't have enough jokers to call for exposures that you need; key pairs are no longer attainable because three of that tile have been thrown or used by other players; you've run out of wall, and there are only so many picks left in the game. For whichever reason, you're not going to win. So what does a smart (and competitive) player do?
Well, another famous Bubbe-ism is "If you can't win, don't lose." Especially when your hand is completely hopeless, to battle back to a tie is its own kind of victory. In tournaments, a wall game earns each player ten points!
In order to not lose, one has to have some defensive savvy. You need to be able to figure out what your opponents are playing, or at least have an educated guess as to what tiles are more valuable. Some players claim they can tell what everyone else is playing from the outset, based on the Charleston and the first few discards. I don't personally believe that--I've done my own research and find that, literally half the time, I end up changing my hand from the one I had expected after the Charleston.
As the game wears on, though, I do believe it becomes more clear what other players are doing. Certainly if they have an exposure or two, you can get a decent picture of where they might be headed. It may not be perfectly obvious: for instance, say my opponent has exposed three 2-dots and three Soaps. They could be playing a variation of either of two hands:
222 000 1111 8888
or 1111 222 3333 000*
*(note that a third exposure, a kong of 1-bams or 1-craks, would still keep this ambiguous
If the game is almost over and I am far from winning, then it would be smart for me to refrain from throwing 1, 3, or 8 tiles, even if it means breaking up my own hand.
What does "far from winning" mean? Let's be realistic. Say there are 12 tiles left in the wall--three picks each--and my hand is still missing four tiles. It is smart to recognize the impossibility of winning, and shift to defense.
Last week, I was actually shocked at the following scenario: I was one tile away from winning. I was going for
FFFF 2222 0000 18
and only had the kong of 2's exposed. I needed a Flower, Soap, or joker to win. We were down to the last four tiles. I picked and did not get a useful tile. The next player picked and discarded and the player to my left called it for exposure--NOT mah jongg, just exposure! This meant that I was entitled to one more pick. Sure enough, the next tile was a Joker, so I picked my own mah jongg! (The final tile was a Soap, so I might have even called for that if it had been discarded).
The lesson to be learned in that scenario was, at the end of the game, think defensively. If you are far enough away from winning that you are calling tiles for exposure (not mah jongg), you probably should not be calling for them. CERTAINLY don't expose at that point, if it means exposing a viable joker (one that can still be redeemed). In disrupting the order, you are allowing players to get extra picks.
One defensive thing to note is that, if you were the only one who would have called for tile X, then X is probably a "safe" tile to throw. No one else wanted or needed it, so late in the game, so it would be the perfect discard.
The ONLY reason to expose so late in the game would be to put other players on the defensive, so that they would break up their own hands...but generally a solo exposure, that late in the game, is not a smart play. If you are playing competitively and are far from winning, try to minimize your risk.
I hope that's helpful. I would love to hear from you. Email me at bubbefischer@gmail.com
Talk to you soon.
Bubbe Fischer
