| By Tom Sloper
August 14, 2022 Column #771 |
|
| By Tom Sloper
August 14, 2022 Column #771 |
American Mah Jongg (2022 NMJL card). Defense exercises with hypothetical exposures of dragons and threes. An opponent shows the following:
1. A dragon pung with a same-suit kong of threes. Nothing on the card matches. If you see this atop someone's rack, call them dead.* 
2. A dragon kong with a same-suit pung of threes. Nothing fits this combo, either. Call'em dead.
3. A dragon kong with a different-suit pung of threes. Only one hand fits: Consec #4. The hot tiles are easy to determine: 2B, 2D, 3D. The twos are key tiles; if you see more than two 2Bs or 2Ds dead on the table, the hand cannot be made, and you can call the player dead.
4. A dragon pung with a different-suit kong of threes. Nothing on the card fits this. Call the player dead.
5. A dragon pung with a same-suit pung of threes. Two candidates: Consec #7 (hot tiles: F 1C 2C, the 1s and 2s being key tiles) and Odds #5 (hot tiles: 1C 5C). If you see more than two 1Cs dead on the table, you can forget about Consec, and defend against Odds #5 only.
6. A dragon pung with a different-suit pung of threes. Nothing fits. Call the player dead.
7. A dragon kong with a same-suit kong of threes. You'd think there'd be a hand like this, wouldn't you? Well, there ain't. Call 'em dead.
8. A dragon kong with a different-suit kong of threes. The player is working on Any Like #3. The hot tiles are F and 3B. Best not to discard either one, unless somebody else is feelin' lucky and discards one -- then you can follow immediately thereafter.
9. A dragon quint with a quint of threes. It doesn't matter if the threes are same-suit or not; Quints #1 says "any dragon, any no." so you're good either way. See FAQ 16. The player needs a kong of any wind, so all winds are hot. You may find clues on the discard floor (for example: if three norths are out, you can probably discard north, because the player needs four jokers to call your discard).
* I keep hearing from players who belong in groups where death challenges are not permitted. I think it's dumb to forbid death challenges, but if you play in such a group, you can simply ignore the "walking dead" player's exposures, because that player ain't gonna win nohow.
COMMENTS Email Column
771
* Note that those links will be broken after the bulletin board is archived, but the entries can then be found by navigating to the archived page and searching for the cited names or dates. - Tom
. Hit me with your best shot!
Mah-Jongg Q+A
On Sunday, August 14, 2022 at 03:53:06 PM EDT, Sue Z wrote:
My mah-jongg question or comment is:
Hi Tom. Regarding column 771. #1
This hand is dead even if there were a valid hand with a same suit dragon pung and a kong of threes, the exposure shown is 3B 3B J 4B, not valid under any circumstances. Always double check you exposure before discarding.
Sue Z
Sent from my iPad
囧
Oops! Yes, that was a goof when I was creating that image. I'm going to leave it as is, because you made a really good point - always double check your exposure before you discard and cement it.
But note that there is an open matter regarding whether one can correct any incorrect exposure before discarding, or you can only change a pung to a kong or quint or sextet, or vice versa (see "Incorrect exposure" on the bulletin board, asked Friday, July 8, 2022 by Marilyn C - and see my exchange with Kathleen D on June 2, 2022).*
Play safe out there. And
may the tiles be with you.
Tom Sloper
Author of "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," the definitive book on Mah-Jongg East & West.
Author of the
Sloper On Mah-Jongg column and
the Mah-Jongg FAQs
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Sunday, August 14, 2022, 7:35 pm
Rochester, New York, USA
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