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By Tom Sloper
December 28, 2014 Column #626 |
American Mah Jongg (2014 NMJL card). Of course, you never simply keep your eyes on your own hand. An opponent is showing two exposures. What do you do?
1. Could be either 2014 #3 or W-D #6. Hot tiles: twos, ones, and fours in all suits, and red and green. Ones and fours are key (if any one or four is dead on the table, you can eliminate one possibility from your thinking).
2. Consec. #5. Hot: F and soap. Soap is key (if it's dead, her hand is dead, and you should say so).
3. She's making 369 #1. F, R, and 6C are hot - and all are key, meaning if any one of them is dead, her hand is dead.
4. This is W-D #5 - a concealed hand. Call her dead. The pung of Wests is a dead giveaway on this card. If she'd exposed the Wests first, you could've called her dead right then.
5. Consec. #2, the most powerful hand on the card. Hot: 1C and 4B.
6. 369 #4; F and 6C are hot (F is key).
7. Consec. #2 again. Hot tiles are threes and fours in the other suits.
8. Evens #2. Hot tiles are 4C, 8B, 8D; all are key.
9. Consec. #6. Hot: 3C 4C 3B; craks are key.
10. Odds #5. Hot: 5B 7B 7D; bams are key.
11. Evens #1. Hot: 2C 4C 8C; 2C 4C are key.
12. Quints #2. Hot: 4C.
13. Consec. #2 yet again. Hot: 6C 9D. The absence of any key tiles (pairs) is one of the factors that makes this hand so perennially powerful.
14. 2014 #1, but if she's discarded since her second exposure, call her dead. "2014" is not a legal exposure.
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Question or comment about this column? I often, um... intentionally... "miss" something; maybe you'll be the first one to spot it! Email 
and the discussion will be posted on the Mah-Jongg Q&A Bulletin Board. Hit me with your best shot! Like this...
Column 626
>From: Belinda
>Sent: Monday, December 29, 2014 9:12 PM
>Subject: Mah-Jongg Q+A
>My mah-jongg question or comment is:
>Column 626 #7, Wouldn't the hot tiles be fours and fives in the other suits, not threes and fours?
>Bee
>From: Belinda
>Sent: Monday, December 29, 2014 9:17 PM
>Subject: Mah-Jongg Q+A
>My mah-jongg question or comment is:
>Column 626 #10 couldn't it also be odds #2 with 7D and 7C as hot tiles?
>Bee
Hi Bee,
Sure enough, I typed the wrong numbers in #7, and I missed Odds #2. Hat's off to you!
May the tiles be with you.
Tom Sloper
トム·スローパー
湯姆 斯洛珀
Creator of
the weekly Mah-Jongg column and
the Mah-Jongg FAQs -- donations appreciated.
Author of "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," the definitive book on Mah-Jongg East & West.
Los Angeles, California, USA
December 29, 2014
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