Bubbe's Wisdom

Greetings and salutations from your long-lost Bubbe!

I’ve been away from my blog for way too long, caught up in working on Take Two, the second of my Mah Jongg Table Talk Tale novels. I’m hopeful that it will be ready by the holiday season.

In the meantime, I'm going to run another of my old articles about Bubbe's Wisdom:

I want to tell you about a mistake I made, a few years back. I had a really pretty hand—lots of jokers, a typical 3-4 hand. I don’t remember the specifics, let’s say it was

                1122233344JJJ

Suffice to say that I had thirteen tiles and was waiting for the fourteenth. It was very early in the game for me to be so set. Someone threw what could have been my fourteenth tile—a one-bam—but I was too greedy to call it. I knew I couldn’t be jokerless but I wanted double pay, so I decided to hold out until I could pick my own winning tile. I continued to pick and throw, pick and throw, not getting any of the tiles I needed—and someone else won the hand!

In this particular case the bettor had selected me, and boy, was she mad! I often say, “Don’t bet on me” because I go for crazy choices, but this time I was just playing selfishly and stupidly.

This leads me to a new maxim for the Bubbe canon:

                 

A WIN IS A WIN.

Don’t get schmancy. Don’t try for the self-pick. Don’t wait to go jokerless. Especially in tournaments, just try to win the hand and move on to the next one.

If you want to learn more of Bubbe's wisdom, you can always pick up a copy of  Searching for Bubbe Fischer. I’ll be curious to hear which Bubbe maxim is your favorite. Is it the newest, “A win is a win,” or one of these: 

“Life’s too short to play boring mah jongg”

“If you can’t win, don’t lose”

“Luck favors the prepared mind”

“What’s said at the mah jongg table stays at the mah jongg table”

If you have one you’d like to add, please contact me at bubbefischer@gmail.com! 

Talk to you soon!

Bubbe Fischer