And another for Limit Hands
Wednesday, 22 July 2015
Hong Kong Old Style Visual Scoring Guides
Here are two pages that can be printed off and brought to mahjong games as a reminder of all the yaku we use in our Hong Kong Old Style mahjong games. Hopefully beginners will find the game less intimidating with these available, and even non-beginners might be able to better analyze their hands' options with these visual aids. The McGill Students Mahjong Club will have prints of these pages available at our meetings for players who need them. Click the images to see their full size.
And another for Limit Hands
And another for Limit Hands
Wednesday, 15 July 2015
Simple Hands for Mahjong Beginners
When you're new to the game (and even for when you're more advanced), starting your hand can be a bit intimidating. With our Hong Kong Old Style rules of a 3 faan minimum requirement, and the Japanese Riichi one yaku minimum requirement, you need to have some idea of the final shape of your hand from the beginning. Here are some common hands that you can aim for.
All Pungs and Seven Pairs
All Pungs and Seven Pairs are very similar hands in a lot of ways, and it's hard to say whether one is better than the other or not. Generally, Seven Pairs is considered a more 'advanced' or 'skilled' yaku to aim for (All Pungs is treated as a very simple, novice yaku), but both have their advantages or disadvantages. Generally, you'll go for one of these two hands if your opening hand has at least four pairs, or a couple of concealed pungs.
Now, you'll have to decide which way to take that hand the first time someone discards a tile to turn one of your pairs into a pung. If you take the call, your hand is entirely forced to be All Pungs, and that's probably all your hand will score (except maybe if you're lucky enough to have a pung of dragons or valuable winds, or your own bonus tile). If you ignore the discard, your hand has a bit more versatility, but is slowed down if you go for All Pungs later. However, one huge benefit of a Seven Pairs hand is that it always inherently gets an extra faan for having a Concealed Hand.
Seven Pairs is also generally faster than All Pungs. If you open with five pairs, you only need to draw one of nine tiles from the wall (pairing up one of the three unpaired tiles in your hand) and you'll be waiting. If you open with two concealed pungs, you still need to create two more pungs and another pair. Even being able to call on tiles for pungs generally doesn't make up for the inherent slowness of an All Pungs hand.
Half Flush and Full Flush
Half Flush and Full Flush are the most common hands to aim for in Hong Kong Old Style mahjong, because of how simple and intuitive they are. If your opening hand seems biased towards one suit (at least five or six, plus a few honor tiles), it's could be a good idea to go for one of these hands. Within the first few turns, you should have an idea of who's going for one of these hands by paying attention to their discards: Anyone who discards honor tiles early on is likely going for a different hand (or far less likely, putting all their hopes on a Full Flush), and anyone who discards two different suits over the first few turns is likely making a hand based on the third suit.
Unfortunately, since there are four players but only three different suits, it's incredibly common for two or even three players to be trying to make a hand based on the same suit. If the player to your left seems to be going for the same suit as you, your hand will be much more slow to develop: Since you can't expect her to discard any tiles in that suit until her hand is almost complete, it'll be almost impossible for you to make any open chows. On the other hand, if the player to her left is going for a different suit, he'll naturally end up feeding her all of his spare tiles. In cases like this, it might pay to go for a different hand or to just focus on playing defensively, hoping someone else discards her winning tile in the end.
The other main downside of these hands are how easy it is to defend against them. Once you see a player make two or three open melds of a suit, it's best to stop discarding tiles in that suit (even at the cost of completing your hand), and the other player will have to rely on a self-picked win. In addition, since the Full Flush hand is liable for the responsibility penalty, you should always be cautious about discarding tiles if a player has three open melds in that suit, or else you might have to pay for the entire value of her hand.
Of course, Half Flush is much easier to get than a Full Flush, but the Full Flush is worth twice as much (neglecting any dragon or valuable wind pungs in the Half Flush), so it's sometimes worth slowing your hand down a bit if you can spare it.
Other Common Hands
Sometimes, your opening hand won't have lots of pairs, and won't be biased towards one suit. In these cases, you just have to try to mix multiple cheap yaku together and scrape together a 3 faan win.
The most common, easy yaku to get is an All Chows hand. Chows are much easier to make than Pungs since instead of waiting on one of two tiles to complete the pung, open-ended chows can be completed with one of eight tiles.
Another really common yaku for these cheap hands is having a Concealed Hand. As long as you get a waiting hand without making any open melds, you're guaranteed one faan for that. Though it might be tempting to try to make pungs of dragons or valuable winds, keep in mind that by doing that, you're losing any opportunity to get All Chows, or to get Fully Concealed if you make an open pung, so it's a net loss of one faan overall.
Your third faan can come from any number of sources. Usually, you'll be hoping that you don't draw any bonus tiles before you make a quick win, but sometimes the odds will be against you. If you can't get a faan for no bonus tiles (or for getting one of your own bonus tiles), you'll have to hope on winning by Self-Pick, All Chows, Concealed Hand for a 3 faan win.
On the other hand, if you're lucky enough to get both copies of your bonus tiles, you can either make a Concealed Hand with pungs or an open All Chows hand. Get even more bonus tiles, and you might not even have to worry about those qualifiers.
Riichi
Riichi is by far one of the easiest yaku to get in Japanese Style mahjong, and it can combine with virtually any other yaku. Though there are some risks in declaring riichi (defense becomes impossible and a chance at losing your 1000 points bet), the fact that you get access to the under dora and a chance at One-Shot generally makes up for these risks. Riichi is essentially identical to a Concealed Hand in Hong Kong Old Style mahjong, so just try to get your hand to a waiting position as fast as possible without calling on any tiles. Before you do declare riichi though, double check all of your discards to make sure you're not in furiten! If any of your discards could possibly be your winning tile (even ones the other players called on for an open meld), you won't be permitted to win off of any discards, and you can't change your hand to fix that once riichi is declared.
As a note, beginners should never expect their only yaku to be Fully Concealed: If you can declare riichi, you probably should unless someone else at the table has an obviously valuable hand. More advanced players will know when to declare riichi and when not to (and those that don't still will almost always have some yaku beyond just Fully Concealed).
Pon of Dragons, Seat Wind, or Round Wind
If your opening hand comes with a pair of any of these tiles, you're guaranteed a yaku to make a cheap win if you want one. Of course, this would be an incredibly cheap hand, so unless you have some other yaku or a couple dora tiles to combine with it, it's often better to keep your hand closed and go for riichi than to open it to take the honor tile pon.
All Simples
This yaku is so fast and cheap that some house rules don't even allow it to be earned if you have any open melds (The McGill Students' Mahjong Club is NOT one of these groups, feel free to make an open All Simples hand here). It's incredibly easy to make since you can call any chiis or pons you want, as long as you don't use any honor tiles, 1's or 9's. Conversely, the All With Orphans hand (which is basically the opposite of All Simples) is an incredibly bad hand for new players to go for, with a high-risk/low-return play style.
On the other hand, it can sometimes pull your hand into furiten (if your final meld is a 2-3 dots and you draw a 1-dots, you can't win with it since your hand will no longer be All Simples, and once you discard it you can no longer win with another player's discarded tile). Pay attention to your 2-3 and 7-8 potential melds for this reason.
In any case, this hand is also incredibly cheap, so you're often better keeping it closed and going for riichi unless you can score some other yaku with it or need a cheap, quick win.
Peace
Peace is a complicated hand for beginners to understand, but it can combine really easily with many, many different hands (commonly All Simples; Riichi; Large Straight; Three Colors, One Chii; Pure Double Chii...). It's important not to think of it as identical to Hong Kong Old Style mahjong's All Chows hand, but it does play very similarly to a cheap All Chows and Concealed Hand.
Large Straight and Three Colors, One Chii
These yaku are rather similar in Japanese Riichi mahjong. Both of them are simple to make easily, but become cheap enough to be almost worthless on their own if your hand has any open melds. Large Straight has the benefit of being fairly easy to combine with a Half Flush or Full Flush, whereas Three Colors, One Chii can easily combine with All Simples, All With Orphans, or All With Terminals. If your opening hand has a few almost-chiis to make either of these hands, consider working towards them. However, be aware that these hands have to risk playing around furiten for the same reason as All Simples, so closed waits are far safer for these hands if you open them (A 1-3 bamboo is guaranteed to win with a 2-bamboo, but you might lose your chance at Large Straight if you draw a 4-bamboo with a 2-3 bamboo already in your hand)
All Pons and Seven Pairs
Unlike in Hong Kong Old Style mahjong, Seven Pairs is generally seen as objectively superior in Japanese Riichi mahjong. Since the game is more defensive and the dead wall limits the tiles available, it becomes much easier to make a Seven Pairs hand than an All Pons hand, and the former also is easier to take apart and defend with if you need to. But there are still some hands that can easily go for All Pons, and if you can get Three Concealed Pons with one as well, you can easily get a big hand. Concealed pons are also good for fu, while a Seven Pairs hand's biggest weakness is the heavily limited amount of fu it has, meaning it's hard to make it valuable without declaring riichi.
Half Flush and Full Flush
Just like in Hong Kong Old Style, these are always valid hands to go for, but a Half Flush is generally considered too slow and not subtle enough to compare against most other hands in Japanese Riichi mahjong. By the time you open your second meld, any other player might have finished her All Simples hand, or might have an open pon of dragon tiles to run away with a cheap win. And since it's as easy to defend against as it is in Hong Kong Old Style, you usually have to pray for a self-picked win (or someone in riichi being forced to discard your winning tile).
HONG KONG OLD STYLE HANDS
All Pungs and Seven Pairs
All Pungs and Seven Pairs are very similar hands in a lot of ways, and it's hard to say whether one is better than the other or not. Generally, Seven Pairs is considered a more 'advanced' or 'skilled' yaku to aim for (All Pungs is treated as a very simple, novice yaku), but both have their advantages or disadvantages. Generally, you'll go for one of these two hands if your opening hand has at least four pairs, or a couple of concealed pungs.
Now, you'll have to decide which way to take that hand the first time someone discards a tile to turn one of your pairs into a pung. If you take the call, your hand is entirely forced to be All Pungs, and that's probably all your hand will score (except maybe if you're lucky enough to have a pung of dragons or valuable winds, or your own bonus tile). If you ignore the discard, your hand has a bit more versatility, but is slowed down if you go for All Pungs later. However, one huge benefit of a Seven Pairs hand is that it always inherently gets an extra faan for having a Concealed Hand.
Seven Pairs is also generally faster than All Pungs. If you open with five pairs, you only need to draw one of nine tiles from the wall (pairing up one of the three unpaired tiles in your hand) and you'll be waiting. If you open with two concealed pungs, you still need to create two more pungs and another pair. Even being able to call on tiles for pungs generally doesn't make up for the inherent slowness of an All Pungs hand.
Half Flush and Full Flush
Half Flush and Full Flush are the most common hands to aim for in Hong Kong Old Style mahjong, because of how simple and intuitive they are. If your opening hand seems biased towards one suit (at least five or six, plus a few honor tiles), it's could be a good idea to go for one of these hands. Within the first few turns, you should have an idea of who's going for one of these hands by paying attention to their discards: Anyone who discards honor tiles early on is likely going for a different hand (or far less likely, putting all their hopes on a Full Flush), and anyone who discards two different suits over the first few turns is likely making a hand based on the third suit.
Unfortunately, since there are four players but only three different suits, it's incredibly common for two or even three players to be trying to make a hand based on the same suit. If the player to your left seems to be going for the same suit as you, your hand will be much more slow to develop: Since you can't expect her to discard any tiles in that suit until her hand is almost complete, it'll be almost impossible for you to make any open chows. On the other hand, if the player to her left is going for a different suit, he'll naturally end up feeding her all of his spare tiles. In cases like this, it might pay to go for a different hand or to just focus on playing defensively, hoping someone else discards her winning tile in the end.
The other main downside of these hands are how easy it is to defend against them. Once you see a player make two or three open melds of a suit, it's best to stop discarding tiles in that suit (even at the cost of completing your hand), and the other player will have to rely on a self-picked win. In addition, since the Full Flush hand is liable for the responsibility penalty, you should always be cautious about discarding tiles if a player has three open melds in that suit, or else you might have to pay for the entire value of her hand.
Of course, Half Flush is much easier to get than a Full Flush, but the Full Flush is worth twice as much (neglecting any dragon or valuable wind pungs in the Half Flush), so it's sometimes worth slowing your hand down a bit if you can spare it.
Other Common Hands
Sometimes, your opening hand won't have lots of pairs, and won't be biased towards one suit. In these cases, you just have to try to mix multiple cheap yaku together and scrape together a 3 faan win.
The most common, easy yaku to get is an All Chows hand. Chows are much easier to make than Pungs since instead of waiting on one of two tiles to complete the pung, open-ended chows can be completed with one of eight tiles.
Another really common yaku for these cheap hands is having a Concealed Hand. As long as you get a waiting hand without making any open melds, you're guaranteed one faan for that. Though it might be tempting to try to make pungs of dragons or valuable winds, keep in mind that by doing that, you're losing any opportunity to get All Chows, or to get Fully Concealed if you make an open pung, so it's a net loss of one faan overall.
Your third faan can come from any number of sources. Usually, you'll be hoping that you don't draw any bonus tiles before you make a quick win, but sometimes the odds will be against you. If you can't get a faan for no bonus tiles (or for getting one of your own bonus tiles), you'll have to hope on winning by Self-Pick, All Chows, Concealed Hand for a 3 faan win.
On the other hand, if you're lucky enough to get both copies of your bonus tiles, you can either make a Concealed Hand with pungs or an open All Chows hand. Get even more bonus tiles, and you might not even have to worry about those qualifiers.
JAPANESE RIICHI STYLE HANDS
Riichi
Riichi is by far one of the easiest yaku to get in Japanese Style mahjong, and it can combine with virtually any other yaku. Though there are some risks in declaring riichi (defense becomes impossible and a chance at losing your 1000 points bet), the fact that you get access to the under dora and a chance at One-Shot generally makes up for these risks. Riichi is essentially identical to a Concealed Hand in Hong Kong Old Style mahjong, so just try to get your hand to a waiting position as fast as possible without calling on any tiles. Before you do declare riichi though, double check all of your discards to make sure you're not in furiten! If any of your discards could possibly be your winning tile (even ones the other players called on for an open meld), you won't be permitted to win off of any discards, and you can't change your hand to fix that once riichi is declared.
As a note, beginners should never expect their only yaku to be Fully Concealed: If you can declare riichi, you probably should unless someone else at the table has an obviously valuable hand. More advanced players will know when to declare riichi and when not to (and those that don't still will almost always have some yaku beyond just Fully Concealed).
Pon of Dragons, Seat Wind, or Round Wind
If your opening hand comes with a pair of any of these tiles, you're guaranteed a yaku to make a cheap win if you want one. Of course, this would be an incredibly cheap hand, so unless you have some other yaku or a couple dora tiles to combine with it, it's often better to keep your hand closed and go for riichi than to open it to take the honor tile pon.
All Simples
This yaku is so fast and cheap that some house rules don't even allow it to be earned if you have any open melds (The McGill Students' Mahjong Club is NOT one of these groups, feel free to make an open All Simples hand here). It's incredibly easy to make since you can call any chiis or pons you want, as long as you don't use any honor tiles, 1's or 9's. Conversely, the All With Orphans hand (which is basically the opposite of All Simples) is an incredibly bad hand for new players to go for, with a high-risk/low-return play style.
On the other hand, it can sometimes pull your hand into furiten (if your final meld is a 2-3 dots and you draw a 1-dots, you can't win with it since your hand will no longer be All Simples, and once you discard it you can no longer win with another player's discarded tile). Pay attention to your 2-3 and 7-8 potential melds for this reason.
In any case, this hand is also incredibly cheap, so you're often better keeping it closed and going for riichi unless you can score some other yaku with it or need a cheap, quick win.
Peace
Peace is a complicated hand for beginners to understand, but it can combine really easily with many, many different hands (commonly All Simples; Riichi; Large Straight; Three Colors, One Chii; Pure Double Chii...). It's important not to think of it as identical to Hong Kong Old Style mahjong's All Chows hand, but it does play very similarly to a cheap All Chows and Concealed Hand.
- Keep your hand concealed. You can't score Peace if you have any open melds.
- Your pair can't be dragon tiles, your seat wind, or the round wind. Change them out for anything else.
- Your final hand must be waiting on at least two tiles, and it must be to complete the chii. For this reason, it's more important to have a pair early than a chii, so sacrifice sets like 4-6 earlier than pairs (especially since closed waits like that invalidate Peace).
- You must keep your winning tile separate if your self-pick it. This is always a good idea in Japanese Riichi mahjong, but if you mix the tile in with your hand before revealing it, you will lose your chance at Peace (since it can't be proven that you were waiting to complete the chii with one of two tiles).
Large Straight and Three Colors, One Chii
These yaku are rather similar in Japanese Riichi mahjong. Both of them are simple to make easily, but become cheap enough to be almost worthless on their own if your hand has any open melds. Large Straight has the benefit of being fairly easy to combine with a Half Flush or Full Flush, whereas Three Colors, One Chii can easily combine with All Simples, All With Orphans, or All With Terminals. If your opening hand has a few almost-chiis to make either of these hands, consider working towards them. However, be aware that these hands have to risk playing around furiten for the same reason as All Simples, so closed waits are far safer for these hands if you open them (A 1-3 bamboo is guaranteed to win with a 2-bamboo, but you might lose your chance at Large Straight if you draw a 4-bamboo with a 2-3 bamboo already in your hand)
All Pons and Seven Pairs
Unlike in Hong Kong Old Style mahjong, Seven Pairs is generally seen as objectively superior in Japanese Riichi mahjong. Since the game is more defensive and the dead wall limits the tiles available, it becomes much easier to make a Seven Pairs hand than an All Pons hand, and the former also is easier to take apart and defend with if you need to. But there are still some hands that can easily go for All Pons, and if you can get Three Concealed Pons with one as well, you can easily get a big hand. Concealed pons are also good for fu, while a Seven Pairs hand's biggest weakness is the heavily limited amount of fu it has, meaning it's hard to make it valuable without declaring riichi.
Half Flush and Full Flush
Just like in Hong Kong Old Style, these are always valid hands to go for, but a Half Flush is generally considered too slow and not subtle enough to compare against most other hands in Japanese Riichi mahjong. By the time you open your second meld, any other player might have finished her All Simples hand, or might have an open pon of dragon tiles to run away with a cheap win. And since it's as easy to defend against as it is in Hong Kong Old Style, you usually have to pray for a self-picked win (or someone in riichi being forced to discard your winning tile).
Friday, 10 July 2015
The Responsibility Rule
'Responsibility', also known as 'pao' (パオ) is a penalty applied to a player who takes unnecessary risks around incredibly valuable hands. In general, the basic reasoning behind 'responsibility' is "If I know a player is close to a limit hand and I still give him the tiles he needs to advance his hand, the limit hand on the table is entirely my fault."
In our Japanese Riichi rules, 'responsibility' applies to the following limit hands:
'Responsibility' occurs when a player is only missing one meld (and possibly the pair) to complete her high value hand, and all of their other melds are open and visible. For example:
In Japanese Riichi style, a concealed gong is treated as an open meld for the purposes of responsibility. For example, if player A has a concealed gong of green dragons and a concealed gong of red dragons, and then later uses player B's discarded white dragon to complete a pung, player B is still 'responsible' for this hand. This does not occur in Hong Kong Old Style, since the tiles used in player A's concealed gongs are not visible in this ruleset.
In our Japanese Riichi rules, 'responsibility' applies to the following limit hands:
- Big Four Winds (for the fourth wind pung)
- Big Three Dragons (for the third dragon pung)
- All Honors (for the fourth honor pung)
- All Terminals (for the fourth terminal pung)
- Perfect Green (for the fourth 'green' meld)
- Four Kans/Gongs (for the fourth gong)
'Responsibility' occurs when a player is only missing one meld (and possibly the pair) to complete her high value hand, and all of their other melds are open and visible. For example:
- Player A has an open pung of the green dragon and the red dragon, so it's expected that the players should be wary about discarding the white dragon, to prevent a limit hand.
- If Player B later discards a white dragon, and Player A does call it for a pung/gong, Player B becomes liable for the responsibility penalty.
- If Player A self-picks her winning tile while Player B is liable for the responsibility penalty, player B must pay the entire 384 (HKOS) or 32000 (Riichi) points for the hand (it is still scored as a self-picked win, but Player B must also pay the shares for Players C and D).
- If instead, Player A wins off of Player C's discard, both Players B and C pay 128 (HKOS) or 16000 (Riichi) points to Player A (it is scored as a win by discard off of Player C, but Player B has to split the cost).
- If, despite 'responsibility', Player B, C, or D win the hand, the lucky Player B does not suffer any further penalty.
- Even if the Perfect Green hand has four open 'green' melds, it is possible that the pair is not 'green' and that the hand would not be a limit hand.
- If Player A declares a win with a hand like this, the responsibility penalty is ignored.
- But if Player A changes her pair to be 'green' tiles before declaring a win, the responsibility penalty applies.
- The All Honors and All Terminals hands are treated the same way, as are the Full Flush and Ruby Dragon hands in our HKOS rules.
- The Four Gongs hand only qualifies for the responsibility penalty if both of the following conditions are met.
- Player A has three melds of gongs already visible at the time of the open gong taken from Player B. None of her gongs can be undeclared in her hand at the time, and an open pung that Player A turns into a promoted gong some time after taking the open gong from Player B does not qualify (The responsibility penalty is never applied retroactively).
- Player A calls an open gong off of Player B. If Player A instead calls an open pung and later upgrades it to a promoted gong, Player B is not liable for the responsibility penalty.
In Japanese Riichi style, a concealed gong is treated as an open meld for the purposes of responsibility. For example, if player A has a concealed gong of green dragons and a concealed gong of red dragons, and then later uses player B's discarded white dragon to complete a pung, player B is still 'responsible' for this hand. This does not occur in Hong Kong Old Style, since the tiles used in player A's concealed gongs are not visible in this ruleset.
Wednesday, 15 April 2015
April MSMC Tournament
I hope to see all of you at our tournament this Saturday, April 18, at noon in room 433-A of the SSMU building.
RULES
1 FAN
PENALTIES
RULES
- The tournament is free to enter for any interested people.
- The amount of winds we play will depend on how many people attend.
- We will use the standard Hong Kong Old Style rules of the MSMC, with a 3 faan minimum as usual. (Check the links in the sidebar for a list of HKOS rules if needed)
- There are no abortive draws. This means that if all four players discard the same wind tile as their first discard, the hand continues regardless.
- Please clearly vocalize all calls. The terms you use should be clear and consistent (Chow/Chi, Pung/Pon, Gong/Kan, Win/Mahjong/Ron/Tsumo)
- Do not stall for longer than necessary. Excessively slowing down the game may be penalized.
- Do not take any tiles from the wall before the previous player has finished discarding. Drawing out of turn may be penalized, even if you do not look at the tile's face.
- Give other players enough time to call on discards. Do not play excessively fast for the purpose of making other players miss their opportunities to call on discards.
- You may take back any call until you have discarded a tile or revealed any tiles from your hand to accept the called tile.
- Once a discard hits the table, you may not take it back and discard a different tile instead. Your turn ends as soon as the tile is discarded.
1 FAN
- Pung of Dragons
- Pung of Seat Wind
- Pung of Round Wind
- No Flowers
- Own Flower
- Set of Flowers
- Exactly Six Flowers
- All Chows
- Self-Pick Win
- Concealed Hand
- Win Off the Last Tile
- Win Off a Replacement Tile
- Rob a Gong
- Gong-On-Gong
- Little Three Dragons
- Seven Flowers*
- Seven Pairs
- Mixed Flush
- All Pungs
- Full Flush
- Four Concealed Pungs
- Thirteen Orphans
- Big Three Dragons
- Little Four Winds
- Big Four Winds
- All Honors
- All Terminals
- Nine Gates
- Four Gongs
- Eight Flowers
- Perfect Green
- The Chariot
- Ruby Dragon
- Gift of Heaven
- Gift of Earth
- Gift of Man
- Eight Dealer Keeps
PENALTIES
- There is no penalty to accidentally revealing 1-2 tiles from the wall during a hand, or revealing any amount of tiles from your own hand.
- If you accidentally reveal 3-5 tiles from the wall during a hand, there is a penalty of 2 points paid to each other player.
- If you accidentally reveal 6 or more tiles from the wall during a hand, there is a penalty of 8 points paid to each other player.
- If you accidentally reveal any tiles from another players hand, you are no longer permitted to win for the rest of that hand.
- If you accidentally drop a tile onto the floor, there is a penalty of 8 points paid to each other player for every tile you drop.
- If you declare a win and show your hand while you have less than 3 fan, there is a penalty of 64 points paid to each other player.
- If you declare a win and show your hand while the tile discarded does not complete your hand, you must continue to play, but are no longer permitted to win for the rest of the hand (even if you change the composition of your hand or self-pick your winning tile).
- If you arrive late or must leave before the end of the tournament, there may or may not be a penalty to your score, depending on the amount of players we have.
Monday, 9 February 2015
February's meeting schedule
This month seems to be much more stable than last one! All of our meetings for the foreseeable future are in room 433-A, by the elevators on the fourth floor of the SSMU building!
Every Monday and Wednesday, we met at 7:30 - 10 PM, and every Saturday we meet at 11 AM - 3 PM. However, at the last week of the month, we will be altering our schedule slightly, so be prepared for that!
Every Monday and Wednesday, we met at 7:30 - 10 PM, and every Saturday we meet at 11 AM - 3 PM. However, at the last week of the month, we will be altering our schedule slightly, so be prepared for that!
Thursday, 15 January 2015
January's meeting schedule
Activities Night was an astounding success! Here's the schedule for our meetings this month (Future months hopefully should be more regular for us) All meetings are in the SSMU building!
Saturday, January 17: 11 AM - 4 PM, room 403
Wednesday, January 21: 6 PM - 10 PM, room 403
Saturday, January 24: 11 AM - 4 PM, room 403
Monday, January 26: 7:30 PM - 11 PM, room 433
Saturday, January 17: 11 AM - 4 PM, room 403
Wednesday, January 21: 6 PM - 10 PM, room 403
Saturday, January 24: 11 AM - 4 PM, room 403
Monday, January 26: 7:30 PM - 11 PM, room 433
Friday, 5 December 2014
Thursday's High Stakes Mahjong Match
Yesterday evening we had a small game of mahjong to mentally prepare ourselves before finals. At the end of the south round, it felt like it could be anybody's game, and we were honestly unsure of who was even winning then (Though we knew Ray was in last simply because he only managed to win one hand at that point).
By the end of the night, I won more hands than anyone, but they were all extremely cheap. And since I paid into some 6-7 fan hands four times that night, I finished pretty low in the red. I discarded a risky tile to keep my Half Flush Little Three Dragons hand, and Michael took it for the win with his own Full Flush. Of course, the *very* next tile in the wall was a green dragon that Felix would have discarded as a safe tile...
Ray just couldn't catch the luck, and though he only fed three hands that night, he only won two, and the self-picked wins caught up to him, dragging him into last place.
Felix got really lucky that night, on no less than four hands, he drew both of his own flowers. Aside from that, he managed to win a lot of decent hands, and once stole the win off of Ray when they were waiting on the same winning tile.
Michael played as well as usual, never paying into more than he won. At one point in the west round, he was two tiles away from the rare 13-Way Thirteen Orphans hand, and just two hands later was waiting on one of two tiles for the Pearl Dragon hand. Even though he didn't make any limit hands this time, he definitely won out in the end!
FINAL SCORE
By the end of the night, I won more hands than anyone, but they were all extremely cheap. And since I paid into some 6-7 fan hands four times that night, I finished pretty low in the red. I discarded a risky tile to keep my Half Flush Little Three Dragons hand, and Michael took it for the win with his own Full Flush. Of course, the *very* next tile in the wall was a green dragon that Felix would have discarded as a safe tile...
Ray just couldn't catch the luck, and though he only fed three hands that night, he only won two, and the self-picked wins caught up to him, dragging him into last place.
Felix got really lucky that night, on no less than four hands, he drew both of his own flowers. Aside from that, he managed to win a lot of decent hands, and once stole the win off of Ray when they were waiting on the same winning tile.
Michael played as well as usual, never paying into more than he won. At one point in the west round, he was two tiles away from the rare 13-Way Thirteen Orphans hand, and just two hands later was waiting on one of two tiles for the Pearl Dragon hand. Even though he didn't make any limit hands this time, he definitely won out in the end!
FINAL SCORE
- Felix +16
- Ray -96
- Chad -64
- Michael +144
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