Greetings and salutations from your scientific Bubbe, who ran an experiment despite being VERY confident of the outcome.
If you remember, a few weeks ago I asked for people to give me their worst possible hands. Unfortunately, I only got two participants. On that count, I am surprised and slightly disappointed that no one else wanted to play.
Be that as it may, I assure you that both entrants’ hands were awful. Just really crummy ways to start. One had a Flower, the other had none; neither had Jokers. One had three different Dragons, but not a lot to build on.
B’s was:
2568149D3678E
while H’s was:
F149D27D38DNE
Because there were so few entrants, I decided to submit one of my own as well:
137847D2569NW
I figured that I could set up a “Charleston Solitaire” where the three crummy hands would play against one completely random "East" player, "Rhonda." In Charleston Solitaire, the key is to have no vested interest in the success of any specific rack, but to maximize each one’s potential. After the Charleston, I would play out the entire match if I had time.
Now if you stop and think about it for a minute, and recognize that we've already removed tiles for three crummy hands from the total of 152 tiles, you'll realize that Rhonda’s hand would already have an incredible advantage. We've only removed one Flower from the pool, and no Jokers. In other words, Rhonda had a much better chance of getting more Flowers and Jokers than even in a "normal" deal. I've often reminded players that, on average, any hand will get 2/3 of a Joker and 2/3 of a Flower in each deal, which is to say that sometimes they'll get several and sometimes they'll get none, but in the course of the day, the averages will work out. I’ve tested this out, several different times, over 48 game tournaments—it works, trust me.
Well, as we know, there was only one Flower in the first three players’ hands, and there were no Jokers. Based on the averages cited above, we might expect 8/3 of a Joker, and 5/3 of a Flower, for Rhonda--or, rather, two or three Jokers and one or two Flowers.
Lo and behold, these were Rhonda's starting tiles:
FF2357788NSJJJ
That's a pretty nice hand to be dealt!! I guess the most obvious thing would be to go for Consecutive Runs hand #5
FF 1111 2222 3333
and hope that the 6 dots or 9 dots came: Rhonda already has nine of the necessary tiles just from the deal. Other options might be the Quint #1 hand
FFFFF 1111 WWWWW
with either 7 or 8 dots, Flowers, and one of the Winds, depending on which comes in stronger during the Charleston. It might also be possible to go for Consecutive Run Hand #2
111 2222 333 4444
with 5 and 6 bam, 7 and 8 dot, but it seemed a shame to waste that pair of Flowers.
I began playing Charleston Solitaire. I decided to focus on the Winds and Dragons section for H (it began with five); 369 for B (it had four in different suits); and hold onto number tiles on the low end for my hand (I began with five)—either for Like Numbers or Consecutive Runs. For “Rhonda,” I focused on the first Consecutive Runs hands above, trying to build up as many high-number dots as possible.
In fact, Rhonda got a third 8 dot but was forced to pass it on her second across. I figured if that 8 dot was going around, she had a chance of getting it back in the Charleston or at least calling it for an exposure. She then got an 8 dot back from H. For her last right she stole a tile for a blind pass and only passed two for the optional across.
Here is where we stood at the end of the Charleston:
B:
68944779D3366
or, set up more nicely,
3366699 84477D
H:
FD122DNNNEEWS
Me:
112334557DD58
Rhonda:
FF287778889JJJ
The real question wasn't "would Rhonda win," but "how quickly?"
“We” began with Rhonda discarding the 2 bam. The hands started to shape up. H’s second 2 crak came in and it looked like it was heading for the closed 2021 hand:
NNN EE 2021 WW SSS
B’s hand was progressing slowly toward
333 6666 666 9999
but it's hard without Jokers. My Consecutive Run #1 hand in bams was fairly healthy, with the pairs on both ends, but again without Jokers, there's no flexibility to call for exposures.
Literally on the 14th tile, Rhonda picked up the victory. Not a surprise, when your three opponents have lousy tiles and you're allowed to select from the remaining pool. In a completely randomized draw, I'm not sure that Rhonda would have been exactly that lucky, but it did stand to reason that she would have a nicer hand than the other three.
I can't say which of our three loser hands was “best.” They all made sense in their own way but none of them was close to complete. I suppose by the objective measure of how many tiles they had towards mah jongg, B's had 7 (and switched to craks on the upper end!):
69466779D3366
or
3366669 69477D
Mine still had 8:
112334557DD58
and H had 11...but it was on a concealed hand that would need a second natural West:
NNNEE 2021 WS FD
Congratulations to both B and H for participating….I’m going to say it was a tie for worst!
Have any questions about the new card? Just want to chat? I’m always happy to hear from you, email me at bubbefischer@gmail.com
Talk to you soon!
Bubbe Fischer
