This article first appeared in the Jan/Feb 2012 issue of World Gaming magazine.
World Gaming magazine’s mahjong pro, Jenn Barr, takes us back to the basics of the game to explain how to think in terms of how far our hand is from ready.
Many of you have been playing mahjong with family since childhood. When you’ve been playing a game that long, play becomes second nature and you may not understand the process that leads to your decisions. So let’s get back to one of the most universal and basic parts of the game that is the same no matter what mahjong rules you play.
In order to win hands in mahjong, you first must get your hand “ready”. This means that you only need one more tile to complete your hand.
Ready Hand (1-crak or East complete the hand):
The fundamentals of making a good “ready” hand is being able to read how many tiles your hand is away from being “ready”. “1-away” means you need one tile to get to “ready”; “2-away” means that you need two tiles to get to “ready” and so on.
When the hand above was 1-away, it looked like this:
The player drew the 8-bam and the hand was “ready”.
This hand is “3-away”:
Knowing how far your hand is from “ready” is important in determining whether your hand is worth going for or not. A hand that is “3 or 4-away” from “ready”, especially once you’re past the fifth or sixth discard, is going to be dangerous. At this point it is generally better to stop going for the hand.
The next step is to figure out how many tiles improve your hand. Having a “ready” hand is worthless if there are no more winning tiles in the deck. Since there are four of each tile, we count tiles that improve the hand by types. The first “ready” hand example will be complete with 1-crak or East, which is two types of tiles. Normally two types would mean eight tiles, but you’re already using four of these in your hand, leaving you with four winners.
The hand that was “1-away” could be improved to “ready” with 1-crak, 5-bam, 8-bam and East, which is four types. Since four of those 16 tiles are being used in the hand, there are four types and 12 tiles that improve your hand.
In the final example, 1-6-crak, 1-3-bam, 5-8-bam, 1-3-dot, 7-9-dot, East and South advance your hand to 2-away. That’s 21 types. 13 of these tiles are used in your hand, leaving you with 71 tiles that improve the hand, out of 84. In a 136 tile deck this means more than half of the deck will improve your hand which obviously gives you a great chance of improving.
We will have a chance to discuss the application of these skills in later issues of WGM. In the meantime learn how to count your outs and you will learn a new perspective on the game by rebuilding your skills from the basics. You’ll now be aware of which tiles help you and what discards will give you more outs. Keep these tips in mind when you play your next game and see how it changes the way you play.
Visit www.wgm8.com for previous issues featuring specific tips and articles about mahjong.
