But wait, there's more!

Greetings and salutations, only a few hours later. Bubbe's back with a little bit more about the 2019 card. Obviously I haven't had a chance to play with it, I don't have it in physical form yet and none of my friends do, either. But just from looking it over, I wanted to give you my usual warnings and hints.

Per my previous blog about the 2019 card, there will be hands with a pair of Flowers, with three Flowers, and sometimes with four Flowers. It will be really important for you to keep these straight. The most obvious point is that IF your hand has three kongs (**except for 2222 4444 6666), the remaining two tiles are going to be a pair of Flowers. Beyond that, I haven't figured out an easy trick for deciding how many Flowers for each kind of hand. I think this aspect of the 2019 card is going to take a while to master.

As for illegal exposures, the only single exposures that are illegal are three of any Wind or five of any Dragon or Flower. Three Dragons are legal, three of any number-- yes, including 9s--is legal. It's just the Winds, which only show up as pungs in the closed Winds hand.

As for unique combinations:

There is a Consecutive Runs hand with AAA AAA (pungs of the same number in two different suits). It is viable for any number between 2 and 9. There is no legal exposure of pungs of the number 1 in two different suits. There happens to be a second legal exposure of two pungs of 6's in different suits; it's in the 369 section. 

I want to talk a little bit now about ambiguous exposures: times when two exposures still don't make the hand obvious. This is important both for defense (being able to guess what your opponent might be playing, based on their exposures) and also for switching your own hand. Many times, players are afraid to call for a tile because they don't want to be tied to one hand. Understand that every single legal exposure on this card (except five Winds) could be in at least two hands. Even better, many of the second exposures don't tie you to one hand in particular; if you are stymied in your original goal, you might still be able to switch your hand. If you want to learn more about this, why not try reading my book?

In the case of AAAA AAAA (kongs of the same number in two different suits): there are at least two different hands for any number tile, one in the Like Numbers section and one in the Winds and Dragons section. (Reminder again: Evens go with East and West; Odds go with North and South). Any two kongs of the same odd number could also be a 13579 hand. Finally, two like kongs of the numbers 4 and up appear in a Consecutive Runs hand. 

ALSO:

*There are two very different hands that use kongs of North/South or East/West. 

*There are two DDDD DDDD hands (kongs of two suits of Dragons): a 2019 and a Winds/Dragon hand.

*There are at least two different hands with kongs of two consecutive numbers in the same suit (1111 2222, any number): the hand with a pair of Flowers and three consecutive kongs, and the hand with three Flowers, two consecutive kongs, and the pung of matching dragons. The extra hand that you might have forgotten about is the addition hand 5555 + 6666.

In addition:

There's an ambiguous exposure that reflects the difference between the first Consecutive Runs hand and this year's first Quint hand. As written on the card, they begin identically with a pair of 1s, a pung of 2s, a kong of 3s. If you were trying to go for the Consecutive Runs hand, but the 5s kept being discarded, you couldn't attain the pair and make the hand....but you can use your 4s and some Jokers to get a quint. Pretty nifty trick. Obviously this works for the 5 through 9, as well! NOTE: The Quint hand does NOT have to be 1 through 4; it's any four consecutive numbers.

I could probably go on and on about this. I just wanted to make you think analytically about the card. The most important lesson from my book is that "luck favors the prepared mind." Learn the card and think about the tiles--prepare yourself to play well. By knowing the various hands, and thinking in advance about your options, you will be ready when "lucky" tiles come to you, and you'll know what to do with them!!!

Please feel free to contact me at bubbefischer@gmail.com , I love hearing from you.

Talk to you soon.

Bubbe

Whoop! There it is!

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe with the information we've all been dying to hear--an overview of the 2019 card!

A lot of 2018 hands are back, don't worry. The big issue is learning/updating your mind to note the changes for the new card. We still have Like Numbers and Addition hands (but a little bit different!), and of course the “year” hands reflect 2019. Otherwise, the card has the usual sections of 2468, Quints, Consecutive Runs, 13579, Winds and Dragons, 369, and Singles and Pairs.

As for specific hands:  I explain in my book, “Searching for BubbeFischer,” that the very first place to look when you get a new card is the first hand in the Consecutive Runs section. It's 1 2 3 4 5 or 5 6 7 8 9, in one suit. It always is. The question is, in what form? Where are the pairs? Is there a kong at the end or in the middle? Could they one day surprise us all and make it four pungs and a pair?

Well, this year, it's shaped like a bell curve. I use that image to help me remember that the pairs are on either end, pungs next, and the high point of a kong is in the middle. The reason I say to look at that particular hand is because the pattern shows up in other places on the card. For instance, there's a similar-shaped hand in the 2019 section, the 2468 section, the 369 section, and the 1 3 5 7 9 section (with three-suit variation!). See what you can find, yourself. Commit the shape to memory.

The second very important pattern to look for is the second Consecutive Runs hand. Some years it's pung-pung-kong-kong, or what I call 3344. Other years, the pungs and kongs alternate, as 3434. It's always in two suits. For the 2019 card, we see an alternation between pungs and kongs: 3434. You will also see this pattern all over the card. It's in 2019, it's in 2468, it's in 13579, it's in 369. It's a VERY important pattern to remember. Most people use this as their single most popular, easy type of hand to attain because it is an open hand that requires no pairs. You can use Jokers and call for every part. Know it.

Beware, there are no more SIX FLOWER hands in 2019, but Flowers may appear as pairs, pungs, OR kongs. Pay attention to which combination you need for your hand!! 

There are a few other real standouts, on first glance:

*Fewer closed hands this year, especially in Winds and Dragons

*In the 2019 section, the pair of Flowers, Year, and two Dragon kongs is back!

*The Like Numbers hand requires three kongs, instead of 6 Flowers or the Opposite Dragon

*The Addition hands use kongs of 5's: 5+6, 5+7, 5+8 either in one suit or all three

*My favorite Quint "junk" hand uses Flowers, not Dragons, so it might be even easier to get!

*One of the new Quints super-sizes 2018's "kong, kong, Opposite Dragon" Like Numbers hand

*The Consecutive Number kongs with Dragons now needs pungs of Flowers and matching Dragons

*That confusing Quints hand has been replaced by a confusing closed Consecutive Runs hand

*Don't forget to look in Winds and Dragons for an extra 2019 hand!

*There are fun Wind/Like Numbers hands. Remember: E is for EVEN numbers!!

*Last year's 369D knitted hand is back, but technically it's the only knitted hand on the card!!

*The BIG HAND (2019 in all three suits) is back, and valued at 75 cents

My next column will talk about immediate “wrong” exposures, so that you don't make that mistake and that you can call another player's hand dead if they put them up. I will also talk about ambiguous exposures, which are helpful both for defense and for being able to quickly change your hand.

As always, I am happy to hear from you and answer any questions you might have. Feel free to contact me at bubbefischer@gmail.com

Check back in a day or two. I will talk to you again very soon.

Karen Gooen

A Funny Story

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe, with a true Tale from the Table!

I just got back from a one-day tournament in Farmington, Connecticut, with a new group called the Connecticut Mah Jongg Club. There were eight tables of ladies playing six rounds, with a lovely catered breakfast and lunch plus prizes throughout the day. Some of the attendees had never been in a tournament before, but they caught on just fine. Everyone had a wonderful time, and I see bright things in the future for this group.

Per Bubbe's usual tournament style, I was planning to keep statistics on how many Flowers and Jokers I began with, what I thought I would play by the end of the Charleston and what I ended up playing, and what the winning hand turned out to be. I was also East, trying to keep everything going with two newbies, and by the third hand of the first round, I just couldn't keep the statistics. Sorry to let you down.

Many of you don't go to tournaments, so you may not know how the scoring differs from regular play. No one actually gets "double points" for self-picking or getting a jokerless (non-Singles and Pairs) hand. Instead, those feats are awarded 10 and 20 additional points, respectively. Also, every player whose hand is still viable at the end of a Wall game receives 10 points.

There are also penalties. In this particular tournament, instead of owing double for throwing the tile to a winning hand, you are only penalized 10 points for throwing to zero or one exposure, or 20 points for throwing to two exposures. In the rare event of throwing to three exposures, you’re penalized 25 points. If you are just a bystander in a mah jongg win, you neither gain nor lose points.

So...understanding those scoring rules, let me tell you about what was one of the most amusing four-game rounds of my life. It was the first round after lunch, where we were told that another player had scored over 300 points in the first three rounds (for comparison purposes, I find that tournament winners generally need to accumulate an average of 60 points per round).  None of the four of us at my fourth round table could hope to catch up with her for the grand prize. We were there for the joy of playing.

During the second hand of the round, I started to amass a mix that would turn into a pair of Flowers with consecutive kongs in each of the three suits. As we played, South exposed two kongs of Like Numbers, and West had a kong of Soaps exposed.

There was already a 3 crak on the table, and then South threw another. Thinking it was safe, I followed with a 3 crak from my hand. We were surprised when North called for it, using a joker and the fourth 3 crak to expose a pung. A few throws later, she exposed a pung of 4 craks.

As you know, the most obvious hand that this could have been is the first Consecutive Runs hand of the 2018 card: 11 22 333 444 5555. It also could have been the second Consecutive Runs hand: 333 444 5555 6666.

There were already two 1 craks on the table and I felt like taking a chance, so I threw the third 1 crak. In my next turn, I figured I was completely safe in throwing out a 5 crak: obviously North was not going for the first Consecutive Runs hand, since it was no longer viable.

North then did the equivalent of walking into oncoming traffic: she called for it and exposed a kong of 5 craks. I just looked at her and pointed at the table and said, “You know there's already three 1 craks out there, you know your hand is dead, right?”

She said, "Yes," and then explained what is at once the funniest and yet most brilliant tournament strategy I've seen in a long time.

She said that she would rather have her hand go dead than throw to one of our hands. Based on the exposures she'd seen, she felt the chances were fairly good that she would be penalized for throwing someone's mah jongg tile. By being called Dead, she would not suffer any penalty. If we had a Wall game, she wouldn't get any points, but she wouldn't lose any, either.

Even though time is of the essence in a tournament, I had to take a good 15 or 20 seconds to just pause and laugh. I don't know chess well enough to be able to come up with an equivalent scenario, but I found it to be a plausible defensive play. Bubbe always says, "If you can't win, don't lose." Break up your hand so that you won't throw someone else's tile; in a tournament, you might still get ten points if it ends in a Wall game.

This particular North had a different perspective. She was fairly certain that one of us would win, and did not want to be responsible for it. Hers was a strange but beautiful logic: If it's clear that you can't win because among your discards is a tile that would make someone else's mahj (e.g. a Flower), and you'd rather not be forced to throw that, you might as well make your hand go dead: go out with a bang! Obviously, breaking up a hand is Bubbe's go-to strategy in this scenario, but this struck me as so funny, so cavalier/"hey, why not?" that it amused me.

I promise as soon as I get to see the 2019 card, I will share my tips with you. I look forward to hearing your questions and comments, you can always reach me at BubbeFischer@gmail.com

Talk to you very, very soon.

Bubbe