Switching Hands: A Master Class

(Here's another mah jongg tournament story, a little dated because it's from the 2015 card, but the lesson is still invaluable. KNOW YOUR CARD!!)

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe, back home in my own little corner of suburban New Jersey.

I want to talk about a defensive stunt I pulled at a Midwestern weekend tournament last weekend. One of the ladies spoke about a legendary player who “knew what you were playing before you did.” I was told that she could look at a single exposure, and the discard pile, and know exactly what you were up to….or she might predict based on her memory of what was passed to you in the Charleston.

Well, I’ve always been one to test the waters, trying to defy expectations and predictability. To be honest, I was forced to by circumstance. My post-Charleston hand was

 

                3336789 7789 89 D

 

It could have gone in two directions. I toyed with the idea of either pursuing the Singles and Pairs hand of sevens, eights and nines in three suits

 

              899  78899  778899

 

or the 369 and dragon hand in bams

 

             3333 666 9999 DDD

 

I had no jokers, so I was leaning toward the Singles and Pairs hand, but had five tiles to go before achieving it.

I was East, and threw out the Soap as my first discard. My Singles and Pairs hopes were revised, very early, when my first pick was a joker. I decided to stay in the 369 section. I picked up a six-crak and toyed with going for 3-6 in bams and 6-9 in craks

 

             333 6666 666 9999

 

 However, when someone threw a three-bam, I called it and exposed a kong:

 

            3333

 

I had no Flowers to make the simple 3 kongs, with a pair of Flowers

 

            FF 3333 6666 9999

 

I hoped for a green dragon so that I could go for the pair-free hand, pungs in 6’s and dragons and kongs in 3’s and 9’s:

 

            3333 666 9999 DDD

It felt like my opponents were channeling the legendary maven, and reading my mind. Suddenly all four green dragons were thrown, in rapid succession. That hand was out of reach, and I already had the kong of 3’s exposed. I had to think creatively. Maybe I could play kongs of 369 in three different suits

 

                FF 3333 6666 9999

Someone discarded a Flower, and a second Flower discard was called for a kong: this meant five Flowers were already played, and I didn’t have one. I knew it wasn’t likely that I would achieve a pair of them. 

I threw away one of my seven-craks, which was called for a kong exposure (including a joker). I was able to exchange my other seven-crak for the joker, so now I had two jokers:

 

              JJ6789 69 9                   3333 (exposed)

I picked up a third joker, and realized I was still very far from a real hand. But what does Bubbe always say, especially in a tournament? “If you can’t win, don’t lose”—you might pull out a 10-point score for a wall game. I discarded the eight-bam. Two six craks were thrown before I could say “boo.”

I picked up a two-bam on my next turn and then a four-dot. A thought came to me: what if I started to pursue a pung-kong consecutive run hand, with two and three bams and four and five dots? 

 

                    222 3333 444 5555

 

Since it had only just occurred to me, it probably hadn’t occurred to my opponents, either. Sure enough, when a two-bam was thrown and I called it, everyone was surprised. My hand now was

 

                  JJ 9 69 4                  2J2 3333 (exposed)

Everyone at the table was stunned by the ambiguous exposure. They looked frantically at the discards and realized that, not only might this be the pung-kong consecutive run, but somehow the first consecutive runs hand (one through five)

 

               11 222 3333 444 55

 

was actually still viable--there were only two discards of the five-bam, and one of the one-bam. Suddenly my pathetic, confused hand put them all on the defensive: I watched them break up their hands to avoid throwing a one- or five-bam, and it ended as a wall game!

Make sure you don’t “give up” too easily—if you can’t win, don’t lose, and don’t make it easy for your opponents to figure you out! Please share your defensive war stories at bubbefischer@gmail.com.  

Thanks, and talk to you soon!

Bubbe Fischer

Tournament Tales, Volume 1

NOTE: This article is about 18 months old and references hands from the 2015 card, but it's still useful analysis!!

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe, who needs some rest…

“76” is a number that resonates with a lot of Americans. 1776 was the year of America’s independence, and many of us remember the bicentennial year, 1976. (Here’s a scary thought: according to The World Factbook, the median age in the United States as of 2014 was 37, meaning that over half the population wasn’t even alive in 1976…but that’s another story.) Lindbergh named his plane “The Spirit of ’76.” The triumphant number in “The Music Man” is “76 Trombones.”

I just played 76 hands of mah jongg, over the course of 41 hours. I had a little sleep, two showers and a few meals, but the majority of my time was spent in the same ballroom of that lovely hotel in Industrial Park, New Jersey, that I described in my book Searching for Bubbe Fischer. 

I think I’ve conclusively proven that 76 hands is…a lot of mahj. My opponents (approximately 50 different women: I played against some, two or three times, because of the mini-tournaments) universally said that they felt it “wasn’t enough” for them, but I personally reached saturation point. There was a moment Saturday evening, as I was facing the 40^th hand of the day, that I definitely lost focus. Someone stopped the Charleston after first left, and I was completely befuddled.

I took notes on every single game I played. It became a conversation starter among my opponents: “Why are you taking notes?” I would explain that I was doing it for my blog-readers. I thought you’d be curious about which 76 hands I played, and which were successful. That got them asking about the blog, and the book, and “who the heck is Bubbe Fischer?”

Here, in a nutshell, are some of the most important statistics from the weekend. First of all, what I have been saying for years was almost spot-on accurate, at least for this limited sample size: 19 out of the 76 games I played ended as wall games--exactly 25%! And, since I consider myself a good but not great tournament player, I was pleased to note that I won 16 games—21%, which is what I say in my book. “On average, over time, against people at your level, you should expect to win 20% of the time.”

What were my successful hands, you ask? Seven of my sixteen wins came with hands that didn’t require pairs: the flexible, pairless “3-4”’s, using only pungs and kongs (e.g. 222 4444 666 8888), and NNNNN DDDD 11111. I won 50% of the times I played that, as well as FF DDDD 2015 DDDD and Like Numbers. 

I never won in the 369 and Singles and Pairs sections (although I only tried, five times). My worst performance on a specific type of hand was “two numbers and dragon”: FF XXXX YYYY DDDD, whether one suit or three, Consecutive, 1’s and 9’s or 2’s and 8’s. I played it fourteen times (18% of my hands), but couldn’t manage one win!! Also, it became a running joke about me and Soaps—anyone who’s read the blog or my book knows that I am loath to pass Soaps in a Charleston. Sure enough, I never passed one, but I tried the “2015” hands too often: 17% of the time. I only won 15% of those attempts. 

As for which hand won each particular game, mine isn’t a scientific sample—it’s just among the 76 games that I was a part of—but among those, hands in the Singles and Pairs, Winds and Dragons, and Sevens sections won least often (three, four, and three times, respectively). As for types of hands, those flexible, pairless hands made up 33% of all wins. To paraphrase Meghan Trainor: It’s all about the jokers.

Note: a 20% success rate put me in the middle of the pack of 128 players. In order to win a tournament, you need to win approximately two hands every round (50%) and make as few errors as possible. That’s why mini’s are worth trying: you only need to be hot for two or three rounds to end up “in the money.” 

I’m going to take a nap now. Talk to you soon.

Bubbe Fischer

Table Rules

Greetings and salutations from your mahj buddy, Bubbe!

I’ve mentioned table rules before, but my Florida travel has inspired me to write more about them.

Table rules are variations on the official NMJL rules. If you are going to stray from the official rules, every player in the group must be made aware before you begin playing. Table rules can be as simple as “we play with a pie of X” (a loss limit of a certain amount), or as complicated as “we’re playing with a pie of X, futures, atomic, an extra mush, hot (or cold) wall, plus a kitty for wall games and doubling everything, including doubles on the roll.” Sounds like “a hot dog with the works,” doesn’t it?!

I’m sure there are table rules I’ve never even heard of—I haven’t been everywhere yet! The most important thing to remember is to be fair to everyone at the table: if you are setting the rules, they must be spelled out. If you’re new to the group and don’t understand some of the terms that your opponents use, make sure the hostess explains them to you very clearly. 

Why do people use any variation on the original NMJL rules? 14-tile players say they prefer it because the game goes faster: they must be more decisive, choosing a tile to throw before they pick. Some players want to improve their hand, so they ask for a “mush” (extra exchange of tiles after the Charleston). Some enjoy having more options than the card offers, so they include “atomic” (a hand with seven non-flower pairs, with no particular pattern). Some hope for the opportunity for a big win, so they double everything: the value on the card, twice the payoff if East rolls doubles, another doubling if East rolls the lucky number of the day—plus they might win any kitty money that has accumulated!

Those who use them love their table rules, and get very used them. They are popular options for your weekly game, but if you want to enter tournaments you need to remember the original NMJL rules, plus familiarize yourself with the specific rules of that tournament. Probably the biggest challenge is for the person who normally plays in a 14-tile game. She’s used to throwing before she picks, but if she makes that mistake in a tournament, her hand goes dead. 

When I was down in Florida, this week, I learned a lot about table rules. Because so many people are transplants from other parts of the country, they bring their own local customs with them—that’s why Florida games are often “gemishte” (mixed, or patchwork). One of the ladies who I met at the Boynton Beach JCC told me that she plays in five different weekly groups, each with its own interpretation of table rules. Her head is spinning, trying to keep track of which rules to apply. And I should also note that it’s rumored that the NMJL won’t even answer calls from Florida, since they always involve table rules.

I’m a purist, too. I don’t believe in continuing past the final Optional pass; playing non-NMJL hands; throwing before picking; looking ahead at tiles; restricting calling for tiles…I play the basic, vanilla game. And as for speed? I watched some incredibly fast players in Florida, and I know I wouldn’t be able to keep up their pace. My question is, “What’s your hurry?!” As I say in my book, Searching for Bubbe Fischer, two important aspects of the game are kvetching and noshing—if you’re going at breakneck pace, how do you have time for either of them? 

If you have some particularly interesting table rules that you’d like to share, feel free to contact me at bubbefischer@gmail.com  Meanwhile, enjoy playing the game the way you like to—what happens at the (home) table, stays at the table!

Talk to you soon!

Bubbe Fischer