Beware the Mahj Monster

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe--it’s time to talk about another kind of mah jongg player!

Last week, I described Ms. Hamlet, our indecisive and (audibly) self-questioning opponent. Paralyzed by uncertainty, she prefers to stand at the abyss, unwilling to make a decision—any decision—that would allow the game to continue.

These kind of ladies mean no harm. I’ve thought about whether Hamlet’s dithering is meant to distract the rest of us and throw off our concentration, but now I understand that the poor thing is just confused and worried about making the wrong choice. She is a good-hearted soul.

Today I’m going to talk about someone who is quite the opposite. I refer to her as the Mahj Monster. She’s thoroughly unpleasant, and takes an aggressive, bullying stance. She makes it clear that she’s in charge. The walls must be set up “just so”; you must keep up her pace in passing; if you call for a tile too quietly, she will complain; if you display an exposure asymmetrically, she will correct it. She’s been known to slap opponents’ hands on more than one occasion. Worst of all, she will berate you and criticize your choices, either in the middle of a game or immediately afterward: “Why did you throw that? Are you stupid? That was a terrible decision!” She’s been known to reduce her opponents to tears.

It’s possible that you may meet this kind of darling at a tournament. I wrote at length about such encounters in  Searching for Bubbe Fischer. More recently, when I went to the Mah Jongg Madness tournament in March 2015 in Las Vegas, I was lucky enough to get moral support from Shelby Rhyne and Alice Sadaka, two mahj mates from North Carolina and Ohio. The great majority of our opponents were friendly and courteous, but whenever I had to deal with a difficult player, I’d find one of them and vent about it.

Alice had an excellent technique for deflating the Mahj Monster. When MM made an offensive or insensitive comment, Alice would politely turn to either of the other two people at the table and talk about something else. She would actively ignore the unpleasantness. My own method was to smile and tell myself that there were a few more hands, less than forty—twenty—ten minutes left to play with this horrible person, and then she would be out of my life forever. 

The problem, of course, is that some of us have a Mahj Monster in our regular game! Perhaps she was away last winter when you first joined your group, and now that she’s back, she expects to resume her role as Supreme Ruler. Maybe she’d been talking about wanting to find a game, and someone in your group innocently asked her to join. She may not have always been a monster. I can imagine that an otherwise pleasant player could be transformed, if other aspects of her life weren’t going well. 

It’s possible to tame this dragon—I’ve seen it done. Be calm and brave when you confront her. Explain that it’s a friendly game and that none of the players is more “in charge” than any other. She might cooperate. On the other hand, if she’s so obnoxious that you don’t want to deal with her on a weekly basis, then a decision must be made: is this the only game in town? Should you drop out and look for a group of kinder, more accommodating folks? What if everyone else wants to kick her out, too?

I’ll consider this “to be continued”…share your stories of confronting (or avoiding) your Mahj Monster via bubbefischer@gmail.com and I’ll post some of the best, later this summer. 

Talk to you soon--

Bubbe Fischer