About Wall Games

Greetings and salutations from your Beach Blanket Bubbe!

Okay, maybe I'm not sitting in the sand playing mahj with Frankie and Annette, but I have played a bit this summer and plan to have a few more games before the leaves start to fall. One thing I've noticed, now that we're 3+ months into this card, is that my regular group seems to be very adept at reading one another's hands: we've had a lot of WALL games, where we got to the end of the tiles without anyone declaring Mah Jongg.

Some of you may grumble about how unsatisfying a Wall game is: no one's happy. It's true that no one attained their goal of completing a hand. BUT...no one lost, either. The Wall game gets no respect, even though it happens very frequently. Those who play with table rules like hot or cold walls have them even more often. If you keep a kitty of 25 cents per player for every Wall game, you could have quite a pot by the end of the night!

Those of you who have read my book Searching for Bubbe Fischer know that one of Bubbe's important rules is

                           "If you can't win, don't lose."

What does that mean? It means, if you're getting to the end of the game (maybe 10-12 tiles left in the Wall) and it's pretty clear that you will be unable to complete your hand, then it's time to play smart defense. For instance:

* don't feel bad about breaking up your hand! Bubbe also says, "You can't mahj second." Sure, you may have been only one or two tiles away, but if you throw someone their winning tile, your being close is irrelevant!

* do call for an exposure without Jokers. It might put someone else on the defensive so that they have to break up their own hand.  

* don't make a last-gasp exposure that includes Jokers, "just to show everybody"--don't put up three tiles and a Joker, for instance, if that Joker could be claimed. Someone else might be close and would just LOVE to redeem that Joker for mahj!

* do try to figure out the safest tiles to throw. For example, if there are three of each Wind on the table, feel free to throw the fourth. To make the Quint or any other Wind hand would require so many jokers that it's very unlikely. Do not feel "safe" on Winds if you only see two of each out--it's not improbable that someone's going for the Wind Singles and Pairs hand

                                           NN EE WW SS 11 11 11


or for the concealed "Wind pung" hands

                                 1111 NNN 11 SSS 11   or     2222 EEE 22 WWW 22 

* don't--to the best of your ability--throw a tile that someone else needs. Sure, just as I listed above, there are hands that are concealed, and one exposure does not necessarily indicate a specific hand--but if someone has two or more exposures, the options are more clearly defined. For instance, on this year's card if you see two pungs:

                                             666  888 

don't throw a five, seven or nine crak, a two or four dot or bam, a Soap or Green dragon. If there are already three of the five craks or nine craks, or two or four dots or bams, on the table, then go ahead and throw the fourth, because their hand is already dead.

Side question: should you call a hand dead very late in the game? IF you have no chance of winning, then it's actually to your advantage NOT to call that hand dead. It is impossible for that player to win, they pose no threat to you. Meanwhile, you don't want any on-call player to get extra chances to pick a winning tile. (Note: In a tournament, any player still "alive" at the end of a Wall game gets 10 points, and a player might conceivably wait until the last or second to last tile to call someone's hand dead in order to prevent them from getting extra points...but that's another story.)

A final note: while we were playing last week, having our marathon of Wall games, I came up with yet another new Bubbe-ism:

                                 "If you can't win....get a snack."

It must never be forgotten that the two essential components of this game are kvetching and noshing. Grab a little comfort food.

If you have questions or comments, I'd love to hear from you at bubbefischer@gmail.com

Talk to you soon!


Bubbe