Greetings and salutations from your relatively chill Bubbe, who is grateful for a late Pesach this year. It gives me more time to pay attention to the new card.
Today I'm going to focus on the left panel. Those of you who don't know me yet will find that I like to do abbreviations. I call the 2024 section the Year section, abbreviated Y1, Y2, etc. The 2468 section are the "Evens" part so I call hands E1, E2, etc. Like numbers are abbreviated as LN, and the lucky seven addition hands this year Will be called L7's. The other convention I use for explaining hands is to specify when there are variations, for instance if it can be either one or three suits, I will say E3.1 or E3.3. Tomorrow you'll see that, with Consecutive Runs and Odd section, it could either be in the 1-5 or 5-9, in which case the lower end of the number line is referred to as “a”, as in CR1a while the upper end of the number line is known as “b”, as in CR1b.
On with the show!
2024: the Year section
Y1: a very easy hand, no pairs and you don't even need any soaps to make it: by that, I mean it's a pung so you could theoretically use three Jokers. It is a slight variation on last year's hand. Instead of a 3434 pattern, this year's is 3344. You will need a pung of 2s in suit A, followed by soaps, but only three of them. You will need kongs of 2s and 4s in a second suit. This is slightly more difficult than last year in that, if you expose, you have to commit to the suits earlier on, but again, every meld can include Jokers and/or can be completed by calling a discarded tile.
Y2: again, very straightforward. 3 kongs and two singles. As in Y1, you don't need any soaps to make it; the entire kong could be jokers. It is a two-suited hand. The kong of 2s can be in any suit you want, but the single 2 and 4 need to both be in a second suit. There's no restriction on whether either of those suits must be dots. The trick is to remember is that it's three kongs and two singles, therefore the number of Flowers you need is FOUR.
Y3. This is a Like Numbers hand, throwing in a 2024 (each considered a single) for variety's sake. You obviously need a 2024 in suit A, with a pair of Flowers, but then in suits B&C you need like kongs of either 2s or 4s--NOT one of each number.
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Y4. The only concealed hand in this section. Essentially, it's a Winds hand with a 2024 thrown in. The pairs are on either end, North and South, and the East and Wests are pungs. As a concealed hand, you can only call for the final mah jongg tile.
2468: The Even section
E1.1 and E1.2: 2,4,6,8 who do we appreciate? Anyone who can remember, with this most basic of hands, that it's a 3344 pattern. E1.1 is all in one suit; E1.2 has the 2 and 4 in suit A and the 6 and 8 in suit B. No pairs. Can use Jokers anywhere, can call any discard for exposure.
E2. We've seen this in previous years, I call it the stutter step. It's pair-pung in suit A, then another pair-pung in suit B, and then finally you get to the kong in suit C. In this case, you're gradually going up the number line. Pair of 2s and then the pong is a 4 in the same suit. Then you start again with the pair of 4s and pung of 6s in suit B. The final kong of 8s is in suit C. Just remember it's a three-suit Even stutter step and it'll make sense; you may need to set it up with your own tiles, to get used to seeing it.
E3: a basic monochrome (one suit) stair hand, with pairs of 2s and 4s, pungs of 6s and 8s, and “top step” kong of matching dragons.
E4a and E4b: stealth multiplication hands, using all three suits!! Remember that the product is two single tiles, which means you need three kongs to complete the hand: you’re going to need four Flowers. Your two options are 4x6 or 6x8. The kongs are in suits A and B, and the product is in suit C.
E5.1 and E5.2: a sandwich in either one suit or two. A pair of Flowers, and the bread kongs of 2s and 8s. The filling, pairs of 4s and 6s, can either be of the same suit as the bread (5.1), or can both be of suit B (5.2).
E6: A three-suited, concealed hand. It's a fancy lunch combo: a pair of Flowers, and a small 246 sandwich in suit A, with the 2 and 6 being pungs and a pair of 4s in the middle. It's finished off with two garnish pairs of 8s, in suits B and C.
Like Numbers:
LN1: pungs and kongs. Just remember, there are no pungs of Flowers on this year's card, so it must be a kong, leaving you with 10 other tiles. Of those 10, it's going to be two pungs and a kong of the same number, using all three suits. You get to choose which one is the kong. As I mentioned yesterday, I have a feeling this is going to be a very popular hand. Can use jokers anywhere, can call any discard for an exposure.
LN2: A Like Number stutter step in three suits, with dragons. The cool thing is that you can expose either or both of the two pungs of dragons. All you have to do is make sure you've got pairs of your number in those respective suits, and you can use Jokers to complete the kong of the number in the third suit.
LN 3: fun that they brought Winds into the Like Numbers section! It's NOT a concealed hand, it just sometimes feels that way. The two like number kongs are the easy part. You also need singles of each Wind and a pair of Flowers. Remember that you can’t call for those parts of the hand, except your final mah jongg tile.
L7 (square, baby!) the "Lucky Seven" addition hands.
There's not a lot of suspense here. It's a pair of Flowers with three Kongs, and possibly the most interesting thing is that it's always all in one suit.
L71: kongs of 1 and 6 adding up to 7
L72: kongs of 2 and 5 adding up to 7
L73: kongs of 3 and 4 adding up to 7
I'd probably complain about how boring this section is, except that at least there are other mathematical hands on the card.
That's the left panel of the card. I don't feel like there's anything revolutionary about it. The trick is to not get mixed up on the details, for instance, make sure your L7 hands are monochrome, and remember that the pattern this year is 3344 for Y1 and the E2 hands.
You know I'm back tomorrow with the Quint, Consecutive Run, and Odd sections. We'll talk soon.
Bubbe
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