A Nibble of the New...

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe, with just a taste of the new card!

I know some of you may not have it yet, and I will not publish photos because it’s a copywritten document, but I can give you some very useful PRELIMINARY information to consider—and for those of you who already have the new card, feel free to read along. 

First of all, there are only eleven hands that are identical to last year’s card—that’s only about 21%, a little lower than usual. It’s going to take a little while to forget the old and remember the new.

HOWEVER—super good news: our FAVORITE HAND, Consecutive Runs with matching dragons, is back! Everywhere I went, people told me how much they missed that hand. I guess the League just wanted us to appreciate it more—this year’s version will be kongs of Flowers, N and N+1, with a pair of matching dragons. 

There are a couple of very familiar hands that have also returned. The first Consecutive Run hand is back to a “bell curve,” e.g. pairs of ones and fives, pungs of twos and fours, and a kong of threes in the middle. Same with the upper half of the numberline (five through nine) as well as the first “Odds” hand: pairs of ones and nines, with the high point at a kong of fives.

The “old reliable” pair-free combination (all pungs and kongs) is back to 34-34: a pung and kong in one suit, and then a pung and kong in a second suit. It shows up all over the card: Consecutive Runs, Evens, Odds, 369. There’s also a 3-4-3-4 Year (2017) hand!

Another pattern that returns from last year is the stutter-step: pair, pair, pung, pung, kong. That shows up in many places: two different “Evens” hands, two different “Odds” hands, Consecutive Runs, 369, Winds and Dragons. Remember that the pairs are the hardest part!

One of the biggest surprises of the year: sure, we’ve got hands that use pairs of Flowers, we’ve got hands that use kongs of Flowers—but this year, there are two hands that feature PUNGS of Flowers! (Technically, there are three hands: Kongs of East/West or North/South, and Kongs of Like Numbers). Sure, it means you’ll need six Flowers overall, but remember that you only have to expose three at a time! I recommend NOT putting out jokers if you can at all help it—and certainly not for the first of the pung exposures. It’s too easy for someone else to take those jokers away from you!

Another big surprise: just like last year, most hands are worth 25 or 30 cents, with two each of the 40 and 45 cent Quint hands—but this year there is no 75 cent hand!! The most valuable hand is a twist on the Year hand: only two, with matching dragons, but they must be Craks and Bams! Tricky!

Other key things: the addition hand is back again, using 13 instead of 11. And, needless to say, the “Year” hand is now 2017. Keep in mind that a kong of sevens is now the official “ambiguous exposure” of the year: it shows up all over the card, in Year, Like Numbers, “Lucky 13,” Consecutive Run, Quints, and Odds.

As for Bubbe’s favorite bluffing section—Quints—let’s just say that you can get a lot of mileage out of a Quint of fives or nines—they can be used in any of the new Quint hands. 

My next article will be about ILLEGAL exposures and AMBIGUOUS exposures—by then, many more of you should have cards so you’ll be able to follow along.

Questions, comments—you can always reach me at bubbefischer@gmail.com I look forward to hearing from you!

Bubbe

Jokers, Jokers, Jokers

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe, here to reveal the truth about jokers!

I know what you all are saying, around the table: “Uch, does this set even come with jokers?” “I can’t get a joker to save my life.” And for the Scooby-Doo fans among us, “I would have made that hand, too, if it weren’t for my never getting any jokers!” The flip side, of course, is when you finally settle on a beautiful Singles and Pairs hand and suddenly pick a joker…or two. Only when you DON’T want them, amirite?

Bubbe likes to empirically test her ideas, and the ideal time to test them is when playing in tournaments. As I wrote in a previous blog, I played 29 hands in less than 24 hours and kept stats on each of them. Besides my win/wall percentage (just over 20 percent each), I also kept stats on jokers: specifically, “How many jokers did I have from the deal? How many did the winning hand use?” In looking at those numbers, I was hoping to see whether jokers actually DO play as important a role as we all think. Of course, I am not nimble enough to write about how many jokers get exchanged (if I’m taking too many notes, I can’t PLAY)—but looking at the deal and the winning hand is, at least, a start.

We all understand that eight of the 152 tiles are jokers—that’s a little over five percent of the tiles. On a very unsophisticated level, having 13 tiles in a normal deal (14 when you’re East) means that you have a 65-70% chance of getting dealt at least one joker. In other words, in two out of three games, you should start with one joker—or maybe in one game you are dealt two jokers, and none in two other games. In 29 games, getting 13.25 tiles per deal, my hypothesis is an expectation of being dealt approximately 20 (20.22) jokers: sometimes two, sometimes one, sometimes none. 

How did this bear out? Well, I actually received 21 jokers over the 29 games. Sounds like an accurate sample. What’s a little more interesting is the distribution of these jokers. Remember how I said sometimes you might get one, or two, or none? I actually received two jokers FOUR times, and in one deal I got THREE jokers! That’s 11 of the 21 jokers that I received. In other words, of the remaining 24 games, I only received a joker ten times. In 14 of the 29 games I played, I wasn’t dealt ANY jokers—that’s 48.3%, just under half of all games. 

Ok, fine. Half the time I didn’t start with a joker. Makes sense, even though we like to kvetch that we NEVER do…but is it that important to start with a joker? What if you pick a bunch, isn’t the FINAL result the most important? How many jokers did the winning hands have?

First of all, as I said before, 20.7% of the games were wall games—that’s six of the 29. How many of the winning hands were Singles and Pairs, or even regular hands that turned out to be jokerless? It turns out that no one at the tournament tables that I played at won a Singles and Pairs hand, which makes me think this is not a perfect testing ground. In this specific, limited sample, only ONE of the 23 winning hands was jokerless: the first 2468 hand with the four Flowers. That is only 4.3% of all winning hands. Sounds statistically significant to me.

How many jokers were involved in the other 22 winning hands? Consider that we pick and throw tiles throughout the game but generally hold onto our jokers, so they should be present in most hands by the end of a game. However, not every game gets to the end of the last wall. Since there are only eight jokers, the average number of jokers per player by the end of each game should be somewhere under two jokers apiece, but I’m going to hypothesize that the winner would have at least two jokers: in other words, better than just random distribution of jokers.

How did this one bear out? There were 56 total jokers among the 23 winning hands, including the one jokerless win. That averages out to 2.43 jokers per winning hand. That’s about a half a joker more, per hand, than the “just under two apiece” that would be expected when a game ends. 

And what was the distribution of these jokers among winners? As I said, one winning hand was jokerless. Four of the 23 hands had FOUR jokers; five had three jokers. Only ONE other hand ended with a single joker; half of the winning hands (12/23, or 52%) used two jokers. Again, I wish I’d kept track of exposures/exchanges, and whether these hands had used jokers that were later exchanged…

But the evidence is clear. Jokers absolutely, in this small sample of 29 games, made a BIG difference. I can only expect, on average, about .65 jokers per deal, and in half the games I started with none. The winning hand had a higher than “random chance” number of jokers, by almost half a joker per game.

Just thought you’d like to know your kvetching is well-founded!

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

Talk to you soon.

Bubbe

New Albany, Old Friends

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe, back from Ohio with a NEW article!

I've been fortunate enough to travel all over the US, speaking about my two books, Searching for Bubbe Fischer and Small World . I've met many great mahj players, some of the friendliest of whom live in Dayton and Columbus, Ohio. About a dozen of them were among the 90 women gathered together New Albany, OH, for the annual New Albany Mah Jongg Classic (NAMJC).

The Classic was created in 2013 by Shelby Rhyne and Alice Sadaka. It's a one-day tournament full of fun and surprises. Shelby has since relocated to North Carolina, and the current co-director, Lisa Crawford, is about to depart for New England, but Alice has an able new partner in Andi Malinger, who has shown herself to be ready for duty!

In what promises to become an ongoing tradition, this year's four-round event was preceded by a three-round mini-tournament and dinner on Saturday evening. Because my third table on Saturday night finished so quickly, we added an extra "bonus" hand (without official points) so in fact I played 29 hands altogether.

If you have read some of my previous blog articles, you know that I both play and take notes during tournaments--usually on those little pads you get at hotels. Tournaments provide great research fodder. The main reason I choose to analyze tournaments, rather than weekly play, is because I am exposed to so many games in such a brief period. One weekend I played 76 hands--48 as part of the actual tournament, plus three- and four-round mini-tournaments. I like to analyze my winning (and wall game/not losing) percentage, as well as look at my overall patterns.

Did I mention that I'm both a math and mahj nerd?

So, as is usual at these events, some of my opponents who weren't familiar with me or my work wondered what the heck I was scribbling between hands. I explained that I like to keep notes on what I start with (pre-Charleston): how many jokers, but this time also how many Flowers. I also write down the hand I'm considering, post-Charleston; the hand I actually play by the end of the game; which hand won; how many jokers it had; whether it was picked or called for...this time I even (occasionally) noted when a Charleston was stopped after first left.

Keeping these statistics, I'm able to test out some of my theories. If you've read "SFBF" or heard me speak, you know that I feel that, over time, a well-matched group of players can each expect to win about 20% of the games, and have a wall game about 20% of the time. In my 29 games in New Albany, I won 6 games and had 6 wall games: 20.7%, each. Pretty much on target, as far as that goes.

I will write more about my tournament results in another entry--gotta run to another game! If you have any questions or comments about YOUR tournament experiences (or want to invite me to come play or speak in your town?!) email me at bubbefischer@gmail.com

Talk to you soon.

Bubbe

Beware the Mahj Monster

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe--it’s time to talk about another kind of mah jongg player!

Last week, I described Ms. Hamlet, our indecisive and (audibly) self-questioning opponent. Paralyzed by uncertainty, she prefers to stand at the abyss, unwilling to make a decision—any decision—that would allow the game to continue.

These kind of ladies mean no harm. I’ve thought about whether Hamlet’s dithering is meant to distract the rest of us and throw off our concentration, but now I understand that the poor thing is just confused and worried about making the wrong choice. She is a good-hearted soul.

Today I’m going to talk about someone who is quite the opposite. I refer to her as the Mahj Monster. She’s thoroughly unpleasant, and takes an aggressive, bullying stance. She makes it clear that she’s in charge. The walls must be set up “just so”; you must keep up her pace in passing; if you call for a tile too quietly, she will complain; if you display an exposure asymmetrically, she will correct it. She’s been known to slap opponents’ hands on more than one occasion. Worst of all, she will berate you and criticize your choices, either in the middle of a game or immediately afterward: “Why did you throw that? Are you stupid? That was a terrible decision!” She’s been known to reduce her opponents to tears.

It’s possible that you may meet this kind of darling at a tournament. I wrote at length about such encounters in  Searching for Bubbe Fischer. More recently, when I went to the Mah Jongg Madness tournament in March 2015 in Las Vegas, I was lucky enough to get moral support from Shelby Rhyne and Alice Sadaka, two mahj mates from North Carolina and Ohio. The great majority of our opponents were friendly and courteous, but whenever I had to deal with a difficult player, I’d find one of them and vent about it.

Alice had an excellent technique for deflating the Mahj Monster. When MM made an offensive or insensitive comment, Alice would politely turn to either of the other two people at the table and talk about something else. She would actively ignore the unpleasantness. My own method was to smile and tell myself that there were a few more hands, less than forty—twenty—ten minutes left to play with this horrible person, and then she would be out of my life forever. 

The problem, of course, is that some of us have a Mahj Monster in our regular game! Perhaps she was away last winter when you first joined your group, and now that she’s back, she expects to resume her role as Supreme Ruler. Maybe she’d been talking about wanting to find a game, and someone in your group innocently asked her to join. She may not have always been a monster. I can imagine that an otherwise pleasant player could be transformed, if other aspects of her life weren’t going well. 

It’s possible to tame this dragon—I’ve seen it done. Be calm and brave when you confront her. Explain that it’s a friendly game and that none of the players is more “in charge” than any other. She might cooperate. On the other hand, if she’s so obnoxious that you don’t want to deal with her on a weekly basis, then a decision must be made: is this the only game in town? Should you drop out and look for a group of kinder, more accommodating folks? What if everyone else wants to kick her out, too?

I’ll consider this “to be continued”…share your stories of confronting (or avoiding) your Mahj Monster via bubbefischer@gmail.com and I’ll post some of the best, later this summer. 

Talk to you soon--

Bubbe Fischer