WEEKLY MAH-JONGG
By Tom Sloper

May 23, 2004

Column #163

Chinese Official Tournament Rules. This game comes from Russia, and was reported by Vitaly Novikov (I've written it with my usual characters at the table). West went for the gusto, and won big time. South round. Waiyee's 2nd pick was W. She looked at her tiles in disbelief.

The hand clearly suggested Clean ("Half Flush") right away. But with all those winds, she might even try for Big Three Winds. So she decided to pung W and N at the first opportunity, and get more winds if she could.

A while later, Earl chowed 789D, and when Samantha threw W, Waiyee pounced. "Pung!"

With 54 tiles left in the wall, Waiyee picked R.

Hoping for a big hand, she threw 7B. Noriko threw N. "Pung!" Now Waiyee threw 2B. Soon she picked E, threw R - Samantha punged it. Waiyee's next pick was 5B. Going for the gusto, she threw 4B. 47 tiles left in the wall. Her next pick was S. She had to throw something.

The gods seemed to be smiling on her, so she decided to get rid of the simples; threw 5B. Noriko chowed it for a 456.

The next six turns were garbage. When Samantha threw 1B, Waiyee startled everybody with her shout: "Pung!" She threw the other 5B. 17 tiles left in the wall. 2-way call.

Noriko discarded Wh, and Earl punged it, throwing E. "HU!!"

Waiyee couldn't be blamed for shouting.

Earl showed his tiles. He'd had two chows, E, and S (damned either way). When pressed, he acknowledged that he should've broken up his chows in the face of Waiyee's dangerous exposures.

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Read about the 2002 WCMJ.

Read about the 2003 CMOC.

The next big event is the 2005 ECMJ.