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SLOPER ON MAH-JONGG

By Tom Sloper
April 9, 2023
Column #786

American Mah Jongg (2023 NMJL card). Continuing my analysis of the 2023 card.

You read the back of the card, of course, right? There are no changes except the fax number was removed. Who faxes anymore, anyway? Oh, and of course: the price has changed. Have you purchased any paper products lately? Paper products have gone out of stock, and the prices when they're not - through the roof! Prices of everything have gone up since the pandemic, which we all feel at the grocery store. But let's turn to the colorful side of the card.

Up top, the phrase "Jokers cannot be used in a 2022 grouping," which was atop last year's card, is no longer there. That phrase did not appear on any other card this century, yet people may wonder what its absence this year signifies; it signifies nothing. Adding Addition Hands to the left pane necessitated extra space, and the removal of that phrase helped make room.

Pungs are easy to make, so I always look for pungs of non-suit tiles: Flowers, Dragons, and Winds. There are no Flower pungs on this card. Dragon pungs have sometimes been bellwether exposures, enabling an observant opponent to discern what hand(s) a player is making, or even that a player is dead. This year there are three exposable dragon pungs. And each of those hands (2023 #3, W-D #3, and 369 #4) uses two dragon pungs. When you see a dragon pung, dragons are hot.

Pungs of winds are of course limited to the W-D family. If you see an exposed pung of N, E, or S, your opponent could be working on either of the top two hands in W-D. But if you see an exposed pung of W, your opponent could be working on W-D #1, #2, or #5.

The concealed hands at the bottom of Evens and Consec, and 369 #4, include four pairs, which increases their difficulty, but since one of the pairs is Flowers, they're not as hard as you might think.

Quints #2 can be made with only one joker, so its lower value reflects its lower difficulty. The logic of this hand is easy to understand: "Two twos, three threes, four fours, and five fives." This hand has an interesting strategic value to confuse your opponents; we'll get into that in a subsequent column.

In the past week since the card started showing up in mailboxes, I've received an average of a question a day about the card. The most frequent question I've gotten is about Consec #5. People ask if the three consecutive numbered kongs have to be the numbers shown (1-2-3) or if they can be any consecutive numbers. I keep telling them that the only hand in Consecutive Run that requires specific numbers is the top one. All the hands (except the first) are flexible.

Two people (so far) have asked me about 2023 #4. Maybe the order of the parenthetical phrases confuses them, putting "Pair of 2s may be in any suit" after "Any 2 suits." Maybe it's less confusing if you first decide what suit the pair of 2s is. Then the pung of 2s and pair of 3s can be any other suit.

These and other questions about the 2023 card are answered in FAQ 16.


麻雀

QUESTIONS about the 2023 NMJL card? See FAQ 16.

COMMENTS
Email . Hit me with your best shot!

Join Johni Levene's popular Facebook group, "Mah Jongg, That's It!" for lively conversations about American mah-jongg and all things mah-jongg.

Where to order the yearly NMJL card: Read FAQ 7i. But you're missing a bet if you don't order your NMJL card directly from the National Mah Jongg League!

Need rules for American mah-jongg? Tom Sloper's book, The Red Dragon & The West Wind, is the most comprehensive book about the American game, a good supplement to the League's official rulebook. AND see FAQ 19 for fine points of the American rules (and commonly misunderstood rules). AND every player should have a copy of Mah Jongg Made Easy, the official rulebook of the National Mah Jongg League (see FAQ 3 for info on mah-jongg books).

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