American Mah Jongg Tutorial, Part IV - Claiming Tiles

In Part III, you saw how to begin building a winning hand during the Charleston exchanges. Once the Charleston has ended and East Wind has begun the game by discarding her 14th tile, there are two ways to continue to build your hand. Moving counter-clockwise, each player draws one tile from the broken end of the wall and then discards one tile that doesn't fit in with the rest of the tiles in her hand. In this way, play proceeds around the table.

Naomi draws a tile

Claiming a Discarded Tile

A second way to build a winning hand is to claim a discarded tile. Remember, when a player discards a tile, she places it face up in the middle of the table and names it. At that point, ANY player may claim the discarded tile, if it can be used in her hand and if the entire unit of the hand can be revealed.

By "unit," I mean the small section of a hand. For example, in the hand FFFF 5555 6666 11, the four flowers constitute a unit, as do the four 5s, the four 6s, and the two 1s. If a player has three Flowers, and a Flower is discarded, she says, "I claim that tile," and reveals the other three Flowers. All four Flowers must then be placed, face up, on the flat surface of her rack.

Once part of a hand is revealed this way, it may not be altered, except for the exchange of Jokers, which will be explained later.  A player may change the hand she intends to play, but the new hand must contain the revealed unit.


A tile that completes a PAIR may NOT be claimed when it is discarded, unless it is the final tile that creates a winning hand for the player claiming it.

In our Pocatello version of Mah Jongg, it's become customary for a player to say, "Wait!" when she thinks she may want to claim a discarded tile. Then, we pause while she verifies her choice.

Alexis ponders her choices

If she changes her mind about claiming the tile, play proceeds. If she claims the tile, she places it on her rack with the rest of the unit of her hand and then discards. Any player may claim a discarded tile, although precedence goes to whomever said, "Wait!" first, and the player to the right of the person who discarded the tile always has first choice, even if she didn't say "Wait!"  Counter-clockwise play resumes with the player who claimed the tile, which means that, occasionally, one or two players miss a turn.

     Once a tile is discarded and not immediately claimed, it is out of play for the rest of the game.

     Players do not expose units of the hand they are making unless they are claiming a discarded tile or, of course, if they end the game by drawing or claiming the file 14th tile they need to complete a hand and declare, "Mah Jongg."


[Click on the images below to enlarge them.]

Waiting for the Final Tile (the Bird Bam, in this case)

Use of Jokers

In American Mah Jongg, there are 8 Jokers, which may be used as "wild cards" in building hands.  There are, however, some restrictions on where/when Jokers may be used.  A Joker may NEVER be used in a pair, in the NEWS (winds) unit, or in the year (2011) units.

     To use our example (FFFF 5555 6666 11), a player is making a hand that requires four Flowers. If another player discards a Flower, the player who needs the Flower may claim it if, in her hand, she has 3 Flowers, or if she has 2 Flowers and a Joker, or 1 Flower and 2 Jokers, or even if she has 3 Jokers, which she reveals and names as Flowers.

     When one player has a Joker on her rack as part of an exposed unit, another player may take the Joker, if the player has the tile that the exposed Joker represents.  The current player begins her turn by drawing or claiming a tile, then exchanges the appropriate tile for the other player's Joker.  The Joker is then part of the current player's hand. In some instances, a player may have to discard a Joker, but Jokers cannot be claimed from the discard pile by anyone.

Winning the Lucky Way

On the National Mah Jongg League's official card, each hand is notated by an "x" or by a "c."  The "c" indicates a "concealed" hand. No part of a concealed hand may be revealed during play.  The player of a concealed hand must draw all the tiles in the hand, rather than claiming discarded tiles. The only exception is the 14th and final tile that gives the player Mah Jongg. That tile may be claimed when it's discarded. 

Winning the Hard Way

American Mah Jongg Tutorial, Part III - Assessing Your Hand

The most difficult aspect of Mah Jongg has to be assessing your tiles and choosing a hand to play. I thought my head was going to pop off when I was first learning the game, and it's only slightly better now, a year later.
One of the things that the National Mah Jongg League does is publish, annually, a card with all of the approved Mah Jongg hands for that particular year. The hands in Chinese Mah Jongg are not regulated this way, and I've often wondered if Chinese Mah Jongg would be harder or easier than American Mah Jongg. But, it is what it is, and I can only assure a new player that your head will stop hurting eventually.

Naomi finds that clutching her head sometimes helps (and so does wine).

Ordering Your Card

To order your card of approved American Mah Jongg hands from the National Mah Jongg League, go to: www.nationalmahjonggleague.org. A standard-print-size card is $7, and a large-print-size card is $8. I highly recommend getting the large print card for an extra dollar.  When you're busy consulting your card during play, the last thing you need is to be doing is squinting.

Because the National Mah Jongg League's card is copyrighted, I cannot reproduce it here, so I will just make up some examples to explain how to choose a hand to play.


Mah Jongg Hands
The hands you build in Mah Jongg are analogous to the hands in Canasta and gin rummy; that is, you strive to collect units that look a little like runs and sets. The prescribed hands are 14-tile combinations of numbers, winds, dragons, and/or flowers.
     For example, one of the hands on your card may look like this: FFFF 111 22 333 DD. This means that you want to collect four flowers (FFFF), a set of consecutive numbers (all in the same suit), plus a pair of dragons (DD) in the same suit as the numbers.
     The hands are also notated by color. The above hand appears all in the same color, so the numbers must all be of the same suit (Bams, Craks, or Dots). In addition, the pair of dragons must be the dragon that accompanies the suit of the numbers (Green Dragons go with Bams, Red Dragons go with Craks, and White Dragons go with Dots). If the hand on the card looks like this: FFFF 111 22 333 DD, then two different suits would be involved. That is, the dragons would have to be of a different suit from the numbers.
     Sometimes, new players get confused because the three colors on the cards are red, green, and blue, and the player thinks, for example, that if the "D" is in red, it must mean Red Dragons. Not so. It just means a suit other than that which is used for the rest of the hand.


[Click on the images below to enlarge them.]


Initial Assessment of Your Hand
Before the Charleston begins, arrange the tiles you've drawn, grouping them in categories.
For example, if, initially, your rack looks like this:

Sort it to look like this:

The 13 tiles you've drawn may not closely resemble one of the 50 or so hands printed on your card. You will notice, however, that the cards are divided into sections such as 2-4-6-8 (even numbers), 1-3-5-7-9 (odd numbers), consecutive runs, winds & dragons, etc.  By comparing your tiles with the these categories, you'll see the relative strengths of your hand. This will help you decide which tiles to pass during the Charleston.
     With the above rack, you see that you have a pair of 5 Dots and a pair of 6 Craks. Consulting your card, you see that under "Consecutive Run," there is this hand: FF 1111 2222 3333. Next to the hand is a notation that says, "Any 3 consecutive numbers." This means that you could use your 5 Dot and 6 Crak pairs to begin building that hand. You notice that you also have a Flower. You decide to hold on to these 5 tiles, and you select three tiles that don't fit into that hand to pass during the Charleston. Even though you have two winds and a dragon, in this case, you might decide to not make a wind-dragon hand.
During the Charleston, you pass these three tiles:

You receive these three tiles:

Obviously, you could use the 4 Bam to make the third part of the consecutive number sequence, because it is a different suit from the 5 Dots and the 6 Craks.  As you look at the card of possible hands again, you notice another hand that uses Flowers and numbers from mixed suits.  That hand looks like this: FFFF 5555 6666 11. You decide to hold on to the 1 Bam (Bird-Bam), just in case you decide to make this hand instead of your initial choice.

You now have at least two options that might result in a winning hand (Mah Jongg).
For the next step of the Charleston, you pass these three tiles:

You receive these three tiles:
What luck!  You can use the 5 Dot in either of your possible hands, and the 7 Bam could be in the alternative third suit of your consecutive run, in case you don't get any more 4 Bams.

The Charleston isn't even finished yet, and already most of your tiles could be used in a Mah Jongg!

American Mah Jongg Tutorial, Part II - Preparing to Play

Mah Jongg is played by choosing and discarding tiles, until a player has assembled a winning combination of tiles, at which time, "Mah Jongg" is declared, and that round of the game ends.
Typically, Mah Jongg is played with four people, but it is possible to play Mah Jongg with three players. The table is laid out with all four racks, even if there are not four players. If more than four people want to play, players take turns sitting out a round.


[Click on the images below to enlarge them.]


The tiles are placed, face down, in the center of the table, and "washed" by swirling them around to mix them up.

Building the Wall
The "wall" is built by stacking tiles two-tiles-high, along the inside of each of the four racks. American Mah Jongg uses 152 total tiles, so each player will have 19 stacks in her part of the wall.

Breaking the Wall
Players are designated by wind direction.  "East Wind" (the player sitting on the east side of the table) begins play by rolling both dice and then pushing her part of the wall out, diagonally, into the middle space.  She pulls back the same number of stacks as indicated by the dice. This is "breaking the wall."  Starting with the end of her wall that extends into the middle of the table, East Wind pulls back the number of stacks as indicated by the dice. In the picture above, the dice dictate that East will retract seven stacks (14 total tiles). These will be the last tiles drawn in the game. Drawing from the wall proceeds clock-wise. The dice aren't used again until the next round begins.

East picks the first two stacks (4 tiles) and places them in front of her. The rotation of play in Mah Jongg is counter-clockwise, so the player to East's right goes next, choosing the next two stacks of tiles and placing them in front of her.  Tile selection continues this way until each player has 6 stacks (12 tiles), still face down. When all the tiles in East's wall have been drawn, the person to her left will push out her wall diagonally, so drawing can continue around the table.

Because East Wind will begin play by discarding, she needs to start with 14 tiles, so she selects the first and third tile from the wall, and each successive player takes one additional tile to add to her rack. All players maintain 13 tiles on their racks throughout the game. A winning Mah Jongg hand consists of 14 tiles, so, the winner will be the person who draws or claims a final tile that completes her hand.

The Charleston
As far as I can tell, it is impossible to stack the wall in a way that benefits any one particular player. There are several built-in precautions against cheating that take place before play begins: the initial drawback of tiles dictated by the dice, the drawing of 4 tiles at a time to fill the racks, and, finally, an exchange of tiles called the Charleston. Younger players may not know that the Charleston was a popular dance in the 1920s, characterized by steps and gestures to the left and right.
     After each player has had a chance to assess her hand (strategies for doing this are discussed in Part III of the tutorial), she will choose 3 tiles to pass to the person on her right. The tiles are passed face down, and a player may not look at the tiles passed to her until she has selected and passed 3 of her own tiles to the person on her right. After the pass to the right, a second set of three tiles are chosen to pass to the player opposite. After this pass, a third set of tiles is passed to the player on the left. A final exchange of tiles, called the Courtesy, is negotiated with the player sitting opposite. Opposite players may agree to pass 3, 2, 1, or no tiles during the Courtesy.
     When the Charleston is complete, East Wind discards one of her 14 tiles. She places the tile face up and announces it clearly, saying, "Three Dot," "Green Dragon," "North Wind," "Flower," etc.
Play has begun.

American Mah Jongg Tutorial, Part I - Game Sets & Tiles

Mah Jongg is played by choosing and discarding tiles, until a player has assembled a winning combination of tiles, at which time, "Mah Jongg" is declared, and that round of the game ends. As far as I know, there is no limit to the number of rounds; Mah Jongg could go on for days, I expect, with the players pausing only to eat and nap.

Mah Jongg appears to be of Chinese origin, and the game became popular in the U.S. in the 1920s and '30s.  Lately, it seems to be experiencing a renewal in popularity.  For example, I've noticed that old Mah Jongg sets are selling on Ebay for increasingly higher prices.

Some early versions of Mah Jongg were played with cards, but most sets contain tiles made of ivory, bone, wood, bakelite, or other synthetic materials.  Each player has a rack to hold the tiles; the racks are often made of the same material as the tiles.  

My set comes in a faux crocodile skin case.  When I take it to someone's house to play, I feel like I'm carrying my briefcase to a meeting.

There's something about playing with the old Mah Jongg sets that satisfies the visual and tactile senses.  The tiles are often the color of butter or butterscotch; they are worn and smooth; the designs on old tiles often have interesting detail.

The exact number of tiles used varies, depending on whether one is playing traditional Chinese Mah Jongg or American Mah Jongg.  The version of American Mah Jongg I play requires 152 tiles and a pair of dice.

As with a deck of playing cards, Mah Jongg tiles are sorted into suits.  Three suits are numbered from 1 to 9, with 4 tiles of each number in the suit.

Bamboos (Bams)

Notice that the "1" Bam is represented by a bird.  This tile is sometimes referred to as the "Bird-Bam."

Characters (Craks)

Circles or Dots

There are two smaller suits: the Winds (North, East, West, and South) and the Dragons (Red, Green, and White).  There are four tiles of each wind and each dragon.

Winds                                                   

 

Dragons

Each dragon color is associated with one of the three major suits: the Red Dragons with the Craks, the Green Dragons with the Bams, and the White Dragons with the Dots.

American Mah Jongg also contains eight flower tiles, but the numbers on the Flowers have no significance.

Flowers

Older sets were originally designed for Chinese Mah Jongg, but American Mah Jongg is played differently, so old tile sets are often modified to accommodate American rules and procedures.  One difference is that American Mah Jongg uses Jokers, so spare tiles were often made into Jokers by painting the tops of them with red nail polish.

Jokers

Here are my Jokers, fresh from a new coat of fingernail polish.  I stood in the cosmetics aisle at Albertson's for quite a while, choosing the correct red for my set.  Of course, the color had to match the red kitchen.