Much Ado about Nothing?

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe, making a big fuss about a hand using "0"!

I'm taking a break from Passover prep to write to you because I know it's only going to get crazier for me as the week goes on. This morning I cut up five pounds of raw chicken breasts for future meals; made six pounds of turkey meatballs; and after I finish this article I'll be making my pareve Passover chocolates. Pareve, for anyone who doesn't know kosher laws, means that it contains neither dairy (milchig) nor meat (fleischig) ingredients, so it can be eaten with either.

So here's Bubbe's simple Pareve Pesadik candy recipe: melt down some (dark) chocolate chips in a double boiler if you're old-school, or the microwave if you're under 60. Stir in what you want: raisins, coconut, chopped nuts--you could even put in those little Passover Cheerios if you want, for some extra crunch--then spoon into mini-cupcake wrappers and refrigerate.


As promised in my last blog, where I couldn't win to save my life, I devoted quite a bit of time this past week to looking at the 2019 hands. I readily admit that I am a sucker for a Soap: as soon as I have one, I immediately jump to the Year section and try to figure out a way to make one of the hands. I was having a hard time with this new card, so spent some extra time practicing it.

I've mentioned that there are more hands beyond the 2019 section: there's one in Winds and Dragons (WD #2) and the "big" Singles and Pairs hand #7, worth 75 cents. That makes a total of 6 1/2 "2019" hands. Today I'm going to talk about that "hand and a half" hand (2019 #2), something that I think is just remarkable about this year's card. Maybe I'm making a bigger deal than necessary, about this, but that "hand and a half" is probably the first of its kind, at least the first I've seen in seventeen years of cards. Let me explain:

It's a pung-kong hand (no pairs required), and while it's represented as either one or two suits, it's really more complicated than that. First of all, remember to think of Soaps, when acting as "zero", as pareve. I explained, above, about pareve foods being neither milchig nor fleischig. Soaps, for the purpose of Year hands, become zeros so they don't belong to any suit, just as Flowers don't belong to any suit. They go with everything. They're pareve!

Okay, so according to this new card, the second 2019 hand can either be one- or two-suited. As presented on the card, it's either

222 0000 111 9999 (all one suit)   or     222 0000 111 9999  (two suits)

which is slightly misleading. What it really means is either the 2's, 1's and 9's are all one suit OR the 2's are one suit and the 1's and 9's are the other suit. The kong of Soaps is ALWAYS Soaps; the numbers may or may not be dots, it's irrelevant.

Let me make the 2019 #2 hand more clear, acknowledging that the 0's are pareve (non-suited). 

You can have either 222 0000 111 9999 OR 222 0000 111 9999
 
Essentially, if you go for this hand, collect 1's and 9's in your strongest suit, but if you aren't getting the 2's you need, and have them in a different suit, great! Go ahead and make that pung in the second suit.

PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong (bubbefischer@gmail.com), but I don't think I've ever seen a hand that is virtually identical to another hand except for the suit of one pung.

Let me show you what I mean. 

*There are hands that are clearly designated as either one suit, or all three, as in  

FF 1111 2222 3333 vs. FF 1111 2222 3333,

or the addition hands which have a one- or three-suit option, say

FFFF 5555 7777 12 vs FFFF 5555 7777 12.

*There are two-suited hand, such as 111 2222 333 4444, where the two suits are very clearly delineated.

*There are hands where suits intertwine, or are "knit," such as 

3333 666 9999 DDD




I might be making a bigger deal out of this than needs to be said, but I think it's pretty interesting. Never before have we had such a strange little option for two hands that are so easy to switch between.

An example (from an online game): I had exposed the kong of Soaps, the pung of 1 craks and the kong of 9 craks:

 0000 111 9999

In my hand I had one 2 crak and a Joker. Someone else had previously exposed a pung of 2 craks so no more were available. I picked up a 2 dot, and decided to switch to dots. No one knew whether I was going for the 2's in craks, dots, or bams. I ended up picking another 2 dot for the win.

As I said, maybe I'm making a bigger deal of this than necessary, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong:  has there ever been a hand before that was EXACTLY like another hand, except for the suit of one pung??!

I'll write more about My Favorite Year (hands) after Passover, but I thought I'd just share this little rant with you--not to mention the kosher cooking lesson!!

Talk to you soon!

Bubbe Fischer