WEEKLY MAH-JONGG
By Tom Sloper

September 21, 2003

Column #129

Chinese Official rules. Noriko was having a good week. She'd had good luck in her Japanese (riichi/dora) game, and now things were looking up in her Chinese Official game, too.

One scoring combination immediately suggested itself to her (can you guess what?) and then she had a second idea as well.

If you were thinking "pure," then you're in synch with Noriko. Her second thought was Pure Straight. She began by discarding 5B. Earl chowed it. On her next turn, Noriko picked 4D and discarded 9C. A little later (after an interruption by Samantha making a chow), Noriko picked 7D and threw 4C. Samantha made another chow.

Noriko picked another dot - the seven. Earl made a chow on Noriko's discard. He now showed a Mixed Double Chow (345B 345C). Noriko's next pick was a flower, replaced by 1D. She threw a crak tile.

Earl threw 4D. Noriko decided, what the heck. "Pung!" She discarded W.

Her next pick happened to be the case 4D - she threw R. Noriko had to think when Waiyee discarded 1D, but she decided she couldn't call it. A few turns later, Waiyee discarded 9D, but Noriko couldn't call that either. Samantha and Earl both made further exposures and the table was looking dangerous. Then Waiyee threw 5D and Noriko had to think again.

Taking the 5D would mean throwing 3D and waiting for 1D. She decided to take her chances on the wall instead. Then Waiyee discarded 7D. Noriko had to think some more (pure hands are very confusing) but she passed on that too. But when Waiyee threw 6D, Noriko took it.

Throwing 1D, she was waiting for 2D or 5D (2-way call for pure hand, Full Flush). Waiyee threw 5D. Waiyee had been working on a clean hand (bams) - which is why she'd thrown so many dots. The hand scored 47 points. Pure, Pure Shifted Chows, Tile Hog, Case Tile, Flower. It was a good week for Noriko.

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