Mah Jong Strategies

'Mah Jong, Anyone?' (by Kitty Strauser and Lucille Evans)

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Index

• Starting.
• Strategies.

Starting

Fastest way to begin:

1. Find a group that welcomes beginners.

2. Get an intro book with lots of illustrations. A good start is:

3. Look through the book's illustrations.

4. Get a sense of the sequence in which things happen: the way tiles are laid out in 'walls', how players pick their 13 or 14 (usually) tiles, how play commences, and the goal of play, which is to form any of a set of target combinations of types of tiles. Don't worry about the scoring at this point: it is rather ornate.

5. Go to one of the group's games; sit and watch for a few rounds. Notice especially:
   • How different players lay out their tiles, grouping them to show a preliminary plan for what target combinations they want.
   • How players decide and set aside tiles that are useless to them and can be discarded.
   • How they switch stategies, particularly in changing from runs (rising triplets in the same suit) to triplets (

Strategies as recommended in A Mah Jong Handbook: How to Play, Score, and Win

If you want to win at Mah Jong, this is the book for you: great for strategy.

1. Starts with basics: seating, dealer selection, wall-building, tile-dealing, and play.
2. Scoring.
3. Part III is brilliant in its presentation of strategy.
4. Sample hands to show you how to decide on your possible target hands with great flexibility and adaptability.
5. Sample hands to show you how to decide what to discard.
6. How to read your opponents.
7. Sample hands to show you how to decide what to discard.

Mah Jong Mini-Glossary

Garden wall.

Tiles reserved from the far end of the Wall, for a player to pick up when appropriate, particularly when a flower or a kong is exposed.

Kong.

Four of the same tiles (same suit and same number).

Kong: Concealed kong.

A player holds a pair of the same tiles (same suit and same number) and picks up another of the same tile on their turn. She retains this set in the hand. [If she is able to announce Mah Jong then each concealed pung has twice the value of an exposed pung

Kong: Exposed kong.

A player holds a concealed pung and anyone else discards another of the same tile, which the player with the pair claims by announcing 'KONG'. The resulting set of four is placed face-up, exposed on the rack. The player draws a tile from the garden wall to compensate for the extra tile: 4 in a kong instead of 3 in a pung).

Alternatively, a player holds a exposed pung and she draws another of the same tile; she adds this face-up to her exposed pung. The resulting set of four is placed face-up, exposed on the rack and the player draws a tile from the garden wall to compensate for the extra tile in the set of 4 (instead of 3 if it had been an exposed pung).

Pung.

Three of the same tiles (same suit and same number).

Pung: Concealed pung.

A player holds a pair of the same tiles (same suit and same number) and picks up another of the same tile on their turn. She retains this set in the hand. [If she is able to announce Mah Jong then each concealed pung has twice the value of an exposed pung

Pung: Exposed pung.

A player holds a pair of the same tiles (same suit and same number) and anyone else discards another of the same tile, which the player with the pair claims by announcing 'PUNG'. The resulting triplet is placed face-up, exposed on the rack.

Also see ... Jigsaw Completion Strategies: Jigsaws — they ain't for wimps

Biopsychology. Criminal Behavior. Death and Dying. Ecology. Enneagram. Evolution. Evolutionary Psychology. Personality Psychology Psychological research methods. Psychology books: Nature of Prejudice by Gordon W. Allport. Learned Optimism by Martin E. P. Seligman. Pessimism (defensive) (Norem).

Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas by Professor Elaine Pagels. Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code by Professor Bart D. Ehrman.

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