Monday, January 23, 2017

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

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