Whoop! There it is!

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe with the information we've all been dying to hear--an overview of the 2019 card!

A lot of 2018 hands are back, don't worry. The big issue is learning/updating your mind to note the changes for the new card. We still have Like Numbers and Addition hands (but a little bit different!), and of course the “year” hands reflect 2019. Otherwise, the card has the usual sections of 2468, Quints, Consecutive Runs, 13579, Winds and Dragons, 369, and Singles and Pairs.

As for specific hands:  I explain in my book, “Searching for BubbeFischer,” that the very first place to look when you get a new card is the first hand in the Consecutive Runs section. It's 1 2 3 4 5 or 5 6 7 8 9, in one suit. It always is. The question is, in what form? Where are the pairs? Is there a kong at the end or in the middle? Could they one day surprise us all and make it four pungs and a pair?

Well, this year, it's shaped like a bell curve. I use that image to help me remember that the pairs are on either end, pungs next, and the high point of a kong is in the middle. The reason I say to look at that particular hand is because the pattern shows up in other places on the card. For instance, there's a similar-shaped hand in the 2019 section, the 2468 section, the 369 section, and the 1 3 5 7 9 section (with three-suit variation!). See what you can find, yourself. Commit the shape to memory.

The second very important pattern to look for is the second Consecutive Runs hand. Some years it's pung-pung-kong-kong, or what I call 3344. Other years, the pungs and kongs alternate, as 3434. It's always in two suits. For the 2019 card, we see an alternation between pungs and kongs: 3434. You will also see this pattern all over the card. It's in 2019, it's in 2468, it's in 13579, it's in 369. It's a VERY important pattern to remember. Most people use this as their single most popular, easy type of hand to attain because it is an open hand that requires no pairs. You can use Jokers and call for every part. Know it.

Beware, there are no more SIX FLOWER hands in 2019, but Flowers may appear as pairs, pungs, OR kongs. Pay attention to which combination you need for your hand!! 

There are a few other real standouts, on first glance:

*Fewer closed hands this year, especially in Winds and Dragons

*In the 2019 section, the pair of Flowers, Year, and two Dragon kongs is back!

*The Like Numbers hand requires three kongs, instead of 6 Flowers or the Opposite Dragon

*The Addition hands use kongs of 5's: 5+6, 5+7, 5+8 either in one suit or all three

*My favorite Quint "junk" hand uses Flowers, not Dragons, so it might be even easier to get!

*One of the new Quints super-sizes 2018's "kong, kong, Opposite Dragon" Like Numbers hand

*The Consecutive Number kongs with Dragons now needs pungs of Flowers and matching Dragons

*That confusing Quints hand has been replaced by a confusing closed Consecutive Runs hand

*Don't forget to look in Winds and Dragons for an extra 2019 hand!

*There are fun Wind/Like Numbers hands. Remember: E is for EVEN numbers!!

*Last year's 369D knitted hand is back, but technically it's the only knitted hand on the card!!

*The BIG HAND (2019 in all three suits) is back, and valued at 75 cents

My next column will talk about immediate “wrong” exposures, so that you don't make that mistake and that you can call another player's hand dead if they put them up. I will also talk about ambiguous exposures, which are helpful both for defense and for being able to quickly change your hand.

As always, I am happy to hear from you and answer any questions you might have. Feel free to contact me at bubbefischer@gmail.com

Check back in a day or two. I will talk to you again very soon.

Karen Gooen

A Funny Story

Greetings and salutations from Bubbe, with a true Tale from the Table!

I just got back from a one-day tournament in Farmington, Connecticut, with a new group called the Connecticut Mah Jongg Club. There were eight tables of ladies playing six rounds, with a lovely catered breakfast and lunch plus prizes throughout the day. Some of the attendees had never been in a tournament before, but they caught on just fine. Everyone had a wonderful time, and I see bright things in the future for this group.

Per Bubbe's usual tournament style, I was planning to keep statistics on how many Flowers and Jokers I began with, what I thought I would play by the end of the Charleston and what I ended up playing, and what the winning hand turned out to be. I was also East, trying to keep everything going with two newbies, and by the third hand of the first round, I just couldn't keep the statistics. Sorry to let you down.

Many of you don't go to tournaments, so you may not know how the scoring differs from regular play. No one actually gets "double points" for self-picking or getting a jokerless (non-Singles and Pairs) hand. Instead, those feats are awarded 10 and 20 additional points, respectively. Also, every player whose hand is still viable at the end of a Wall game receives 10 points.

There are also penalties. In this particular tournament, instead of owing double for throwing the tile to a winning hand, you are only penalized 10 points for throwing to zero or one exposure, or 20 points for throwing to two exposures. In the rare event of throwing to three exposures, you’re penalized 25 points. If you are just a bystander in a mah jongg win, you neither gain nor lose points.

So...understanding those scoring rules, let me tell you about what was one of the most amusing four-game rounds of my life. It was the first round after lunch, where we were told that another player had scored over 300 points in the first three rounds (for comparison purposes, I find that tournament winners generally need to accumulate an average of 60 points per round).  None of the four of us at my fourth round table could hope to catch up with her for the grand prize. We were there for the joy of playing.

During the second hand of the round, I started to amass a mix that would turn into a pair of Flowers with consecutive kongs in each of the three suits. As we played, South exposed two kongs of Like Numbers, and West had a kong of Soaps exposed.

There was already a 3 crak on the table, and then South threw another. Thinking it was safe, I followed with a 3 crak from my hand. We were surprised when North called for it, using a joker and the fourth 3 crak to expose a pung. A few throws later, she exposed a pung of 4 craks.

As you know, the most obvious hand that this could have been is the first Consecutive Runs hand of the 2018 card: 11 22 333 444 5555. It also could have been the second Consecutive Runs hand: 333 444 5555 6666.

There were already two 1 craks on the table and I felt like taking a chance, so I threw the third 1 crak. In my next turn, I figured I was completely safe in throwing out a 5 crak: obviously North was not going for the first Consecutive Runs hand, since it was no longer viable.

North then did the equivalent of walking into oncoming traffic: she called for it and exposed a kong of 5 craks. I just looked at her and pointed at the table and said, “You know there's already three 1 craks out there, you know your hand is dead, right?”

She said, "Yes," and then explained what is at once the funniest and yet most brilliant tournament strategy I've seen in a long time.

She said that she would rather have her hand go dead than throw to one of our hands. Based on the exposures she'd seen, she felt the chances were fairly good that she would be penalized for throwing someone's mah jongg tile. By being called Dead, she would not suffer any penalty. If we had a Wall game, she wouldn't get any points, but she wouldn't lose any, either.

Even though time is of the essence in a tournament, I had to take a good 15 or 20 seconds to just pause and laugh. I don't know chess well enough to be able to come up with an equivalent scenario, but I found it to be a plausible defensive play. Bubbe always says, "If you can't win, don't lose." Break up your hand so that you won't throw someone else's tile; in a tournament, you might still get ten points if it ends in a Wall game.

This particular North had a different perspective. She was fairly certain that one of us would win, and did not want to be responsible for it. Hers was a strange but beautiful logic: If it's clear that you can't win because among your discards is a tile that would make someone else's mahj (e.g. a Flower), and you'd rather not be forced to throw that, you might as well make your hand go dead: go out with a bang! Obviously, breaking up a hand is Bubbe's go-to strategy in this scenario, but this struck me as so funny, so cavalier/"hey, why not?" that it amused me.

I promise as soon as I get to see the 2019 card, I will share my tips with you. I look forward to hearing your questions and comments, you can always reach me at BubbeFischer@gmail.com

Talk to you very, very soon.

Bubbe

New from Bubbe!

Greetings and salutations and new ideas from Bubbe!

Don't get excited, this isn't about the new card. I don't have it yet, either.

I did get a fascinating email from Vickie Reynolds, who shared with me a variation that she and her friends play. I warn you that it is absolutely a table rule game. The League doesn't know about this, the League doesn't approve of this, there are no hard-and-fast rules to it other than the ones that Vickie taught me, and if you call the League about it, they'll think you're crazy.

Mah jongg maven extraordinaire Tom Sloper says, and I agree, that table rules are just that, not conventional NMJL rules; once you start using them, you've gone to uncharted territory and therefore can't ask the League for any help to settle your disputes. Understand it's a certain kind of lawlessness that you and your friends must all agree to uphold, and to settle amongst yourselves.

I’m not completely against table rules to change things up. A while ago, I posited a table rule that we could have a special sticker to designate one of the eight jokers as “magic.” If one wins a hand using that particular joker, there could be a certain bonus involved, like maybe another quarter from each player. If you had the opportunity to exchange for one of two jokers, you might choose the “magic” one; otherwise, it was purely the luck of what you picked or exchanged, yourself. It's like paying the winner double when East rolls doubles to break the first wall: a very simple, basic table rule.

Vickie's group has an idea that blew my mind. Maybe Bubbe just doesn't get around that much, I don't know. Vickie's group uses four additional tiles--all blanks--for a total of 156 tiles. Now, if your set doesn't have extra blanks but does have additional Flowers, you could put stickers on them, or designate the four Season tiles as your “blanks”. The main point is that these tiles need to look exactly like all of your other tiles from the back, but on the face are clearly distinct from any of your usual 152 tiles. For brevity's sake, I will hereafter refer to this version as “Tuile Blanc” (“blank tile”), or TB for short.

In TB, whenever someone picks one of the four special tiles, it is as if they had picked a super-joker with a unique function. A TB may be exchanged for any discarded tile--including a Joker! The TB does not have to be used immediately, but the exchange can only take place during your turn.

For example, you may pick up a TB, see nothing on the table that you want or need, and hold on to it for the future, discarding something else. A few turns later, you may see that someone has discarded a tile that you need for a single or pair, or a Joker, or one of the other components of your hand. Just like in regular League rules, your turn begins when you either call for the current discard (which you must use in an exposure) or pick from the wall. While it is still your turn, you may redeem any of your tiles for exposed Jokers; you may exchange your TB for any discard on the table, including discarded Jokers; or you could even exchange your TB for a discarded tile that was previously not redeemed for a Joker, and take THAT Joker. You can redeem as many Jokers on any turn as you like, but you may only exchange one TB during a turn. Your turn ends with a discard or by declaring mah jongg.

Two interesting related rules to remember if you're going to play TB. The first is that you do not need to show/expose how you are using your newly-revived tile. You simply make your TB exchange, and the new tile stays in your rack, not exposed. Secondly, you may find that you don't need the TB, after all, and may discard it like any other tile. Obviously, it would be better to take advantage of this bounty, but there may be a certain hand where you just can't use it. You MAY NOT declare mah jongg with a blank tile among your 14--it must be exchanged for a “real” tile.

I think it’s fairly obvious that the main advantage of this version is that it’s more likely that someone will win. I can’t imagine there are as many Wall Games when anyone can resuscitate tiles that have already been discarded. On the other hand, it doesn't guarantee a winner: if someone drew all the TB’s she still might not win, e.g. all the tiles she needed for pairs were exposed or kept by other players. Hopefully she would know the card well enough to figure out a way to change up her hand.

I'm not married to the name “Tuile Blanc.” I picked it because it was similar to “Carte Blanche,” but that's just me. You might prefer “Zombie Mahj” (because discards can come back from the dead) or “Super Joker,” I don't know. Anybody have any fun ideas for a title?

Let me know if any of you try this. I don't recommend playing it every week, but it might be fun to change things up once in a while... especially while we're waiting for the new card.

Feel free to contact me at bubbefischer@gmail.com with similar ideas and comments. I love hearing from you!

Talk to you VERY soon.

Bubbe

Happy 2019!

Greetings and salutations from your friendly year-end Bubbe!

We all know that, even if the calendar is turning over to 2019, the year doesn't REALLY start
until the end of March, when the National Mah Jongg League releases its newest card. The
suspense is always thick: will we still have hands using six Flowers? Will there be more Winds
and Dragons hands? What will the addition/multiplication hands be? We know 9’s will be hot (for
2019), but beyond that, it's anyone's guess. It's all speculation until approximately April 1st.

Until then, we continue on with our trusty 2018 cards. Unfortunately, some players have grown a
little restless after nine months of the same hands, and are looking for new ideas to keep the
game interesting.

There are table rules that make the game more interesting by changing the payoff: for instance,
add a sticker to make one of your eight jokers “magic”. Any winning hand that includes that joker
earns double.

It doesn't have to be a joker. You could randomly select a tile, before each game, and if the
winning hand uses that tile, it pays double.

To add a mental challenge, you might add a hand-du-jour from an old card. I personally really
miss the 1-9 and 2-8 hands: a pair of Flowers with kongs of 1,9,Dragon or 2,8,Dragon in same
suit or all three suits. Just make sure that everyone at the table is aware of the extra hand(s) so
that they can play defense.

Bubbe says to go ahead and spice up your game a little...it will make these shorter, colder days
fly by!

Let me know if you have any such table rules with your group. You can email me at bubbefischer@gmail.com

Talk to you soon!

Bubbe Fischer