Left Panel of the 2025 card

 

Greetings and salutations from your Bubbe, who's been watching way too much professional basketball.

I'm imagining the hype that you hear before they introduce the team. The searchlights go on, sometimes there are even (indoor!) fireworks. Thumping rhythms blast over the sound system. A DJ yells, “Are you ready to meet your…. Left hand panel of the 2025 card?!”

Let's get to it!!

 

YEAR

Technically the 2025 card lists only four hands here, but there are some others hidden in the Winds and Dragons section as well as Singles and Pairs. Know the whole card, don't rely strictly on the idea of neighborhoods.

Everyone who plays against me knows I'm a sucker for a soap and they never pass them to me (except of course my dear friend Sharon who occasionally threw me a bone). I'll find any excuse to play this corner of the card. The problem is, it can be tricky to amass all the components, especially when “2025” itself is four singles and you can't call for anything but a final tile. Having a pung/kong Year hand makes my heart sing.

Y1 Fair enough, that 2025 meld can be tricky, but the rest of the hand is doable. A kong of Flowers, two pungs of 2s in different suits…true, a smart defender might not throw you any of the 2s in that third suit because they think you're going for LN2, but perhaps someone will throw a soap or a 5 that they don't need. Almost a pung/kong hand. If you've got three out of the four components of the “2025” after the Charleston, you're in great shape!

Y2: the true pung/kong Year hand. Pung of 2s in suit A, kong of soaps, pung of 2s and kong of 5s in suit B. Note that neither suit A nor suit B has to be dots, although either one could be. Like Y1, we're dealing with potential exposure of two pungs of 2’s…. There are a lot of switching opportunities here, hard to defend!

Y3: for this hand, suit matters. As I've said before, the soap goes with any suit to make 2025. The trick here is that you'll need pungs of 2s and 5s in suit B and four dragons of suit C. Obviously, kongs may include jokers, so if your “2025” meld is not dots, there's a possibility that you'll need at least one joker to make the dragon kong. Just remember, three suits: year meld; pungs of 2s and 5s; and dragon kong.

Y4: Surprise, this time the concealed hand has got nothing to do with Winds. Those hands appear on the right panel of the card.

This particular hand reminds me more of a classic concealed hand, four pungs and a pair. I talk all the time about how a winning mahj hand must add up to 14. 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 2 = 14. Each of the numbers (2, 2, and 5) has to be in its own suit, and it doesn't matter in which order. It would be a super easy hand to complete if you could call for each of the pungs, but you can't. Make sure you have that pair of Flowers.

 

 

EVENS

Bubbe doesn't mark up her card as she makes each hand, but if she did there'd be a lot fewer dots here than most sections. Years, Like Numbers, Quints, Consecutive Runs…those are the ones she'll gravitate to. On the other hand, she knows that if the tiles say it's time to go a certain way, you just play it.

E1.1 and E1.2: pung/kong, super accessible. If you find yourself with lots of even tiles, and/or people seem to be passing them around in the Charleston and you have no better idea, grab ’em. Can either be all in one suit, or suit A for the first pung/kong and suit B for the second. Easy peasy.

E2a or E2b: looky here, it's an addition hand tucked away in the Evens section. A pair of Flowers with three different-suited kongs of even numbers. It's not differential calculus, just 2 + 4 = 6 or 2 + 6 = 8. Just remember the kongs are in three different suits.

E3: a one-suited Even stutter-step hand. We've talked about these in previous years, pair+pung, pair+pung, and then a kong of matching dragons on the top step with 14 tiles. The pairs are definitely the trickiest part.

E4: Pep rally, with lots of color. 2468, who do we appreciate? Even tiles! A kong of Flowers, the 2468 meld in suit A, and matching even-numbered pungs (pung-pungs?) in the other two suits. It's quite cute, and the exposures are ambiguous with, at minimum, LN2. Go team!

E5: another monochrome hand. Remember the 14 rule: somehow all the tiles have to add up. This is the one that uses a pung of Flowers. Then there are pairs of the 2s and 4s, the pung of 6s and the kong of 8s to get you to 14. The big difference between E3 and E5 is where the pairs fall, and whether you have Flowers or matching dragons.

E6: slightly more challenging but way snazzier than E1.1, you have to pay attention. Pung of 2, kong of 4, and pung of 6 in suit A, but it's completed by pairs of 8 in suits B and C. You could easily have your opponents thinking that you're going for E1.1. Clever!

E7: Is this an Evens hand or a Like Numbers hand? Come on. It's three-suited, three kongs and a pair of Flowers. The kongs are like Even numbers in two suits, with a kong of Dragons in the complementary suit. Don't forget it doesn't have to be 2s, it could be any even number as long as they match.

E8: The concealed one. That's a lot of components, using all three suits. It almost could be in the Singles and Pairs section, except that once you get your pairs across the board in suit A (2+2+2+2), you're going to need matching even pungs (3+3) in suits B&C. Remember it's closed, you'll have to quietly amass those pungs on your own… unless of course someone discards that last tile for you!

 

LIKE NUMBERS

I've already alluded to the fact that Like Numbers are all over this card. It's certainly easy to do the Charleston by just collecting one promising number, and then seeing what other honors fall your way. Flowers? Dragons? Winds?  Let's just see what happens!!

LN1: Yesterday I mentioned there are single dragons on this card. Kind of fun. It is easier to get a single than a pair. As we go over the components, keep that number 14 in your mind: two kongs of like number, a pair of that number in the third suit, and you're up to 10 tiles. Add one dragon that matches each of the two kongs, and finish it off with a pair of Flowers.

Or, if you're one of those who enjoys Bubbe’s trippy visuals: three parties of Picnickers. Two are families of four, both of whom brought their dogs, and the third picnickers are a young, carefree couple in the throes of romance. Look, one of them even brought the other a pair of Flowers!!

LN2: The sneaky one. It's got five components, kind of. I alluded to this yesterday when I said it was a like-numbered pung/kong hand.  You need a kong of Flowers and a natural kong of the number in suit A, which you will have to split into two pairs. The other two suits will have pungs which can use as many Jokers as you need and can be called for exposure, so honestly, the trick is to determine which number you can get all four of, naturally, without exposing…. Unless you feel lucky and it'll be your final tile.

LN3: concealed. Like Y4, this is one of those classic “four pungs and a pair” concealed hands. It's as basic as it gets. A pair of Flowers. Pungs of number X in all three suits. A pung of dragons in your choice of suit. This is one where a good Charleston can really set you up nicely, especially if you have a few jokers. Just make sure you have the pair of Flowers, and you're good to go.

 

Okay, that's the left side of the card. I tried to jazz it up a bit, especially with the E4 pep rally and the LN1 picnickers…. We'll see if the middle section is more inspiring, tomorrow.

 

As ever, if you have any comments, you can reach me at bubbefischer@gmail.com

Talk to you tomorrow

 

Bubbe