2020 Card--the OVERVIEW!

Greetings and salutations from your Bubbe, sheltering in place. Although we have no idea when we'll get back to the mahj table, we do know what the new card is, and we've got all the time in the world to study it!

You might not receive the 2020 card in the mail for a day or two, or possibly even a week or two. In this particular column I will give an overview, and in subsequent ones I will give more specific information about ambiguous exposures, new features of the card, etc. I'll do my best to give you the information you need to be ready for the table... or the online game, in the short term.

Many of you are familiar with the way that I attack a new card. In my book, Searching for Bubbe Fischer, I say that this game involves a lot of luck, but luck favors the prepared mind: the more prepared you are, the more you will be able to take advantage of any lucky tiles that come your way. I want you to prepare yourself by knowing the card as well as you can. The less time you spend looking at the card, looking at your tiles, looking back at the card...the more time you have to think about what might come your way and anticipate how you might use it. I always recommend understanding every part of the card: don't be afraid of the Singles and Pairs or the Quints, don't be afraid of three-suited hands. Know the whole card.

If this is your first "new" card, you're in for a surprise. Every year, the card changes significantly. Sometimes an entire section is added or taken away, sometimes variations are made on hands, sometimes favorite hands disappear completely. Only about 30 to 40% of the hands stay the same from the previous year. That's one of the benefits of this game, though: we have to forget the previous card and get up to speed with the new one. That's what keeps our minds sharp!

So, without further ado....the 2020 card!

Needless to say, 2020 is a desired combination. That means you're going to need at least two soaps. There is one hand that involves all four soaps being used as zeros, the "big" hand which, as I expected, is 2020 in two different suits, a pair of Flowers, and NEWS. I was right, but I didn't expect that they would raise it to 85 cents!! I've heard grumblings that it really shouldn't be so much more valuable than previous years, that the biggest trick to it is just getting all the soaps. I say it's nice to have one really big hand and I don't quibble about an extra dime.

Besides having the big hand in the Singles and Pairs section, there is of course a 2020 section with various hands, but just as last year, there are additional 2020 hands in the Winds and Dragons section. As I said above, know the whole card!

I'm going to do a whole separate article just on 2020 hands, but suffice to say that I don't think that this year's hands are particularly creative. Many of them involve two Flowers, two kongs of various types, and a 2020. Kind of a dud.

A change from last year is that there are no longer any combinations requiring three Flowers. There are, however, several that involve five Flowers, including the Quints junk hand (Flowers, dragons and a number in any suit, not necessarily the same suit as the dragons). This should make things interesting, because an exposure of five Flowers will not tell you what the person is playing. (Just an aside for the true card mavens: since five Flowers don't technically require a joker, I suppose it wasn't necessary to include those other hands in the Quints section.)

There is no "addition hands" section this year. Although there isn't a separate section called "Multiplication," there are several multiplication hands on this card. In the 2468 section, four times six is 24 and six times eight is 48. In 13579, three times five is 15 and five times seven is 35. This should make things interesting. Each such hand requires four Flowers.

There are three open Like Numbers hands this year. One is the most basic, with a pair of Flowers and a kong of the same number in all three suits. The others are slightly different, but variations on previously seen hands. The most interesting thing is that none of the Like Numbers hands is closed/concealed.

Another quick overall observation I will make are that our favorite kind of Consecutive Runs hand, with Flowers, two consecutive numbers, and matching dragons, was removed again this year. There are some variations on it, but not any that requires only those four elements. There are also no "knit hands," which have appeared in the past, with numbers in alternating suits including dragons.

I was pleased to see that the Mahj Police heard my grumblings, because although almost every open hand is only worth 25 cents, those that involve three pairs are each worth 30 cents! Justice!! There are several of those (two kongs, three pairs) scattered around the card, including some Winds and Dragon hands, some 13579 hands, a Consecutive Run hand and a 369 hand.

Probably by the time this article is published, someone will have contacted the League, if the League is answering the phone, to clarify, but the biggest issue I saw with the card was the lack of explanation about the second Quint hand. It involves two consecutive pairs in one suit, and then two quints of the third number in the other two suits. It's not clear whether it has to be in that exact order, or if the pairs can be on either side of the quints, or even both on the high side of the quints. In other words, must the progression be in ascending order at all times, or can the pairs be split and/or go on either side of the quints, so that quints of ones and twos are eligible?

As for specific patterns:

The code isn't as easy to crack as it used to be. I still always look to the first Consecutive Run hand, which this year is again a "staircase" (pair, pair, pung, pung, kong) as opposed to a bell curve with the kong in the middle and the pairs on either end. It also appears on the first 13579 hand.

There are two different important pung and kong combinations on this year's card. The first is pung pung kong kong (3 3, 4 4) usually with the pungs in suit A and the kongs in suit B. This shows up all over the card: in 2468, Consecutive Runs, 13579, Winds and Dragons, and 369.

The second pung kong variation this year is an alternating pattern kind of like a knit hand, except that it's all in one suit. It's a pung, a kong, a pung again, and a kong of dragons, and it shows up in the Consecutive Runs, the 13579, and the 369 sections.

My immediate overall impression is that the easiest thing to do this year is to collect consecutive numbers in the same suit (with or without matching dragons or Flowers) because there are so many different hands that use them, not only in the Consecutive Run section but also in Singles and Pairs and Quints. My other impression is that those pung/kong dragon hands will be the go-to hands of this year, just as last year's CR5 (three Flowers, two kongs of consecutive numbers and three dragons in same suit) was the easiest hand to make.

When you get your card, feel free to compare it to this post. I'm going to be giving a lot more detail going forward, but I just wanted to give you an overview. Always look for patterns, always try to get them down quickly and test them out for yourself before you start playing against other people. I recommend playing against bots on the online games, or doing the Charleston solitaire that I mentioned in my book.

I'd love to hear your opinions, you can always reach me at bubbefischer@gmail.com . I'm going to be posting more about ambiguous exposures, illegal exposures, how to switch your hand from one to another, all sorts of important things. Stay tuned!

Talk to you soon.

Bubbe Fischer