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By Tom Sloper
March 15, 2026 Column #814 |
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By Tom Sloper
March 15, 2026 Column #814 |
American Mah Jongg (National Mah Jongg League rules).
It's an exciting time in the world of mah-jongg - the current social media craze for "table-scaping," with cute lamps, color-coordinated tiles and mats and racks - several new alternate cards are out for the new year - drama of customers kvetching about vendor refund policies - more drama: kvetching about the League's ways of doing things - but especially: this new generation of players, asking about rules and tips and strategies on social media... Exciting time in the mah-jongg world!
But I want to address this idea I've seen going around on social media, that doing anything that screws up an opponent's chances of success is "defensive strategy," if not actually a rule. Specifically, people all over this country are being severely chastised if they don't rack their wall picks. How dare they leave the window of opportunity open for someone to call the live discard! Not to mention that along with all that free-flowing opportunity, open windows also invite bugs. Sometimes, even birds. And squirrels! Just kidding. Bad mixed metaphor.
Let me back up a bit.
A lot of social media discussions center around the concept of "the window of opportunity," and its impact on strategy (especially, closing that window). Quoted from social media, just today: "[O]ur instructor was adamant about picking and immediately racking fully!" "[I]t was drilled in me to rack rack rack!" People tell us that if they pick a tile from the wall and look at it while holding the tile in the air, they're told that they have to rack it. And the explanation they're given is that racking it closes the window of opportunity for another player to claim the current live discard. As if closing the window was one of the goals of the game. It's worth mentioning that while this explanation is being delivered, all that opportunity is still flowing in... yet, mysteriously, nobody is taking advantage of all that distressingly free-flowing opportunity.
Bolstering the advice to shut that darn window is the NMJL's Q&A. From the 2021 bulletin, Q&A #8: "[B]est practice is to rack a tile when it has been picked." From the 2022 bulletin, Q&A #14: "Racking is not mandatory, although recommended."
I have a different philosophy. I don't begrudge the other players a discard for exposure. I don't actively try to prevent them from calling a discard for exposure. Their exposures give me valuable information, that can be used for defense and also offense. I want others to make exposures. I'm a data hound. So I give it a beat before I reach for the wall, so that someone who wants to call the live discard can go for it. I'm an enabler.
Everyone has been taught that a goal of the game is to win and not to let someone else win. But it shouldn't be "Don't let someone else win," rather "Don't give another player the win." This secondary goal isn't "do everything you can to stop them." It's "don't be the one to throw the winner's tile." Yes, you want to keep an opponent from winning... on a tile that you discarded. That's a defensive approach. Not an aggressive one.
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