Ambiguous Exposures

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe, who has been tied up with chores over the past few days. Lately I have had a lot more dishes to wash...funny how that happens.

I wanted to follow up on the Quiz I ran last week. I had asked, "Try and find these two exposures in at least one hand on the card".

7777 888 appears only once, in the 4th Consecutive Run hand ("CR4").

444 5555 could be CR 1, CR 4, or CR 6!

222 3333 would be CR 3

3333 3333 could be LN1, LN 2, or the second hand in 369 

5555 7777 could be CR 2 (b) or 13579 2 (b) hand

555 777 was a trick question--it doesn't appear on the 2020 card!!

Christine Blackford emailed me her answers, she got 100% on the little quiz--nice going, Christine!

This fits in with one of my favorite topics, Ambiguous Exposures. If you got to hear me on Fern Bernstein's podcast, you heard me talk about Ambiguous Exposures a lot. What I mean is that sometimes one, two (or even three!) exposures could refer to two (or more) hands. 

The concept is a little different than having a backup hand. I'll discuss that in more detail in a future article. Ambiguous exposures could be used defensively: recognizing what possibilities your opponent might be playing, based on their exposures. You can also use ambiguous exposures to your own advantage, if opponents don't know what you are playing. For instance, if the tiles you need for your original hand are no longer available, you may still have a second (or third) hand to point to, if anyone questions whether your hand is dead.

One example I used in the podcast was based on the LN #1 and #2 hands: each includes two kongs of the same number. No one would know from exposing kongs of, say, 7 bams and 7 craks, whether you were going to need that third kong (four 7 dots) or pairs of the green and red dragons. There are additional potential ambiguities, based on the number exposed: if there are two kongs of 2's, you might also be playing the first 2020 hand. If there are two kongs of 3's, you might be playing the second hand in 369.

Another example I used was based on the fifth "quiz" question, above. There is an interesting feature of the second, tri-suited version of CR2, with two kongs of different suits in two "skipped" consecutive numbers, e.g. kong of 1 crak and kong of 3 bam, with a kong of Flowers and a pair of 2 dots in the middle. This year's card has tri-suited "multiplication" hands in the Even (2468) and Odd (13579) sections, and there's ambiguity with all THREE exposures compared with CR2(b): four Flowers and then kongs of 4 and 6 in different suits; 6 and 8 in different suits; 3 and 5 in different suits; and 5 and 7 in different suits. The last two tiles could be "24," "48," "15," and "35," respectively, in the third suit...OR they could be the middle "pair" (55, 77, 44, or 66) in the third suit.

A third example was how both the first and fourth 369 hands involve a pung of 6s in one suit and a kong of 9s in a second suit.

The advantage with each of these "ambiguous hands" is that you avoid being called dead. In the Like Numbers example, if three dragons go out in one of the suits you need, you can avoid being called dead because it's possible that you are going for the third like numbered kong. In the CR2(b)/ multiplication example, if the pair in the middle is no longer available, you can try for the "product" numbers, or vice versa. The 369 example is even better, because if you were going for hand #4, involving two pairs of 3's but they were unavailable, you can say you were going for the non-pairs 369 hand (369 #1)--and that hand NEVER goes dead!

Try looking the card over and seeing if there are other examples, I'm sure you'll find some!

I always enjoy hearing from you--feel free to contact me at bubbefischer@gmail.com

 

Talk to you soon!

Bubbe Fischer