Greetings and salutations from your movie maven Bubbe, a big fan of the old MGM musicals.
One of my favorites
when I was a kid was a lesser-known Gene Kelly/Frank Sinatra movie called
"Take Me Out to the Ballgame." There are some really fun numbers in
it, and one of my favorites is a song Betty Garrett sings with Frank Sinatra. It's
called "It's Fate, Baby, It's Fate."
That song was running
through my head as I played a recent hand. I had fully intended to go for a
different hand, but you can't fight fate!
I was dealt a variety
of tiles:
F2337D455168N
It seemed to me that
the 2 and 3 bams, 4 and 5 craks would make a very nice CR5.2:
222 333 4444 5555
I ended up getting a
second Flower during the Charleston, and thought that perhaps if some 4 dots
fell in I might be able to use junk hand CR3.3 as a backup:
FF 3333 4444 5555
As the game progressed,
I picked up a joker which would definitely be needed to complete most of the
melds. Nobody was throwing 2 bams or 3 bams, and I only had one joker so when a
player threw the 4 crak I wasn't ready to call for a kong exposure. I just kept
biding my time, thinking of my old adage, "If you can't win, don't
lose." At worst, I would play strong defense and try for a wall game.
Meanwhile, no 4 dots
were showing up, but I held on to those two Flowers because they might be
useful joker bait. And then I picked up a third Flower. I started thinking,
"Am I missing the boat here, should I be going for a wedding hand of some
kind?"
I picked up a second
joker. Still no 4 dots. I picked up a fourth Flower.
FFFF 233455W JJ
I decided it would be
foolish for me to not take advantage of these Flowers, and that I should try to
force a wedding hand. I would be able to call for a fifth and sixth Flower to complete two pungs, no problem, I wouldn't need to use either of those jokers...but
what combination of wedding hand should I play?
I had the pair of 3
bams and the pair of 5 craks, but no other 3s or 5s in a second suit to make LN1.
Really the only thing that made sense, were I to get enough jokers, would be CR2:
FFF
3333 FFF 4444
Someone threw a
Flower and I called it, exposing one pung of Flowers. I drew a third joker.
That actually was really handy. I would be able to use one joker with the pair
of 3 bams to call for the first kong exposure, and two jokers with the 4 crak
to call for the second kong exposure.
I picked up my sixth
Flower so I didn't need to call for it, and when someone threw a 4 crak I
called for it, exposing two jokers. Remember: one of those jokers was safe from
exchange because someone had earlier discarded a 4 crak.
Now no one knew
exactly what I was going for, that's the beauty of the wedding hands. Obviously, they could figure out that I needed another pung of Flowers and a kong, but of what? My opponents didn’t
know whether I was going for LN1, and if so, was I looking for 4 bams or
4 dots? Perhaps they thought I was going for CR2, which could mean I
needed 3 bams, 3 dots, 5 bams or 5 dots. It's a pretty hard situation to
defend.
I ended up pulling my
own 3 bam, which completed the kong, and therefore I won 50 cents per person on
a self-pick.
"It's fate,
baby, it's fate." Don't fight it even if it doesn't immediately make sense
to you, listen to those tiles and figure out a way to use your assets. I
couldn't turn my back on four Flowers. I knew there had to be a way, with all
these wedding hand options, to make it work!
I hope this was a
helpful scenario for you, showing how what wasn't even originally a backup hand
suddenly became the best--and winning -- choice!
I love hearing game
stories. If you want to share one of yours with me, contact me at bubbefischer@gmail.com
Talk to you soon
Bubbe
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