2020--What's OLD?

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe, on this sunny last Thursday in March.

It seems like people are enjoying yesterday'sarticle, whether they have the new card or not. There are a few who are grumbling not to be told anything until they receive theirs, but it's a free world and they're welcome to ignore my comments for eternity, let alone until they have the card for context. 

For those of you who DO have the card, or are curious, or are tired of feeling so isolated, I think I'm going to start writing every day. Keeps my mind busy, and hopefully it gives you a little bit of a distraction from epidemiology statistics and fears of going out. Stay home: what could be safer than reading about mah jongg?

So today I have to correct myself. I originally said that 30 to 40% of the hands are the same. Boy, was I wrong! I compared the 2019 card to the new card, just to have a really clear picture. I was surprised to find that there are only six hands that are absolutely identical to last year's card: under 10%!  Obviously there are some that are slight variations on the old ones, but I'm not going to count those for now.

So what's "old" that remains on the card?

Well, obviously all of the 2020 hands are brand new, so they're immediately ruled out!

There are two hands in the 2468 section that remained the same. Last year's third hand--kongs of twos, fours, and sixes, and a pair of eights, all in the same suit--appears again this year. Also that interesting bell-shaped hand: pairs of twos and eights, pungs of four and six, and a kong of dragons, all on the same suit, is still on this year's card.

The first Like Numbers hand is also the same. That's not a surprise. When you're talking about like numbers, it's the definitive hand: a pair of Flowers and kongs of the same number in all three suits. As simple as can be.

This year's Quints are different from last year's in interesting ways.  Even my favorite junk hand is not how it used to be.

Consecutive Runs? NONE. Not one of the hands is the same as last year's. It's going to take people a while to get used to this. Many of us are going to make illegal exposures until we get used to doing it right. That's part of why I do these articles, to get you to think about the new hands and  learn not to make obvious mistakes.

None of the 13579 hands are the same, either. I give them a lot of credit, the people who designed the card this year were creative and I think we're all going to benefit from that.

For the Winds and Dragons hands, they varied last year's patterns such that all of the open hands are different. The only one that is identical from 2019 is the closed/concealed hand, with a pair of Flowers and pungs of each wind.

In the 369 section, they kept the most basic pair of hands: two Flowers and then kongs of three, six, and nine, either all in one suit or representing all three suits. Because there were so few that carried over from last year, I'm going to count those as two hands.

Finally, it was to be expected that the big Singles and Pairs hand changed, but every hand in that section is different. Reminiscent, but different.

I think we all need to look at this card closely for the first month or two. Old habits die hard, and if we don't pay close attention, we're bound to make some mistakes!

If you have questions or comments, please feel free to contact me at bubbefischer@gmail.com, I love hearing from you!

Talk to you soon. Probably very soon.

Bubbe Fischer