Jenn's Corner #10

March 26, 2007

Jenn's Corner #10: Las Vegas

Here we are, back in Tokyo after our travels to our homeland. Since my last post, we have added a scoring section to the rules, and a report on JPML's first ever Women's League. Our next immediate goals (besides staying up to date on columns) is to get an interview with Michi Yuuki, JPML's first-ever Women's League Champion! Today, I want to let you all know how our trip “abroad" went.

American Style Mahjong Set

Because of tournaments we were committed to in Tokyo, Garthe and I arrived towards the end of the first day of Mahjong Madness's Las Vegas American-style Mahjong tournament at the Riviera. We had already been in contact with the organizer, so they knew we were coming, but somehow managed to get plenty of stares from the participants, who seemed a bit more unawares. This was a surprise to me. Apparently, Garthe and I do not fit the profile for Mahjong players anywhere in the world! I think I like that. It makes us and Mahjong stand out more as well.

We brought as an offering, a Japanese-style Mahjong set, which was given out on the second day as a door prize. After seeing this, many of the participants became very friendly and we talked for hours about Mahjong: American and Japanese as well. We heard what people thought of tournaments, what they thought of certain rules, and how long they had been playing (some for 50 years or more!). The most surprising thing was the perception of the rules in the East. When we would proudly mention that we play Japanese-style Mahjong, we got some amazing responses. One person was quoted as saying, “Oh. You guys don't have any rules, right?" How do you answer that? Well, yes, of course we have rules… How can you win a game that doesn't have rules? Or even better, how can you lose a game that doesn't have any rules? One of the biggest differences is that the American-style rules change every year while the Japanese-style rules have not changed for many years.

Our biggest treat, was watching some of the players after the tournament hours, playing in private games. Here we got to watch 2 of the only players in the competition that don't need to look at the scorecard while playing. We watched some big hands, exchanged words and contact info and got some in depth explanations of the rules. This helped for the final day, when we went to watch the 400 participants battle it out for the 18 cash prizes.

400 Competitors prepare for battle

We learned about the Charleston, a way for the players to collect useful tiles before the play actually begins. Each person exchanges 3 tiles with each other player a few times. We learned about Jokers, which cannot be used as single tiles or with pairs, but can be used (exclusively even) in groups of 3 tiles or more. We learned that scores are counted by each hand and not by each round as in other types of Mahjong. We learned that the opinion that something has to be at stake (e.g. money by gambling) for a high-skill game translates to as many American-style Mahjong players as it does to us. And we learned that many people who are interested in Mahjong, have interest in other types of Mahjong as well.

Garthe trying to figure out what the Green Dragon looks like

For me, this was a very encouraging trip. I have often had doubts of the potential popularity of Reach Mahjong because of the complicated rules, scoring
system, etc. But after watching this American-style tournament, I realized that, like languages, each interpretation of Mahjong has its own complications. With American-style, since the hands change each year, it creates a big challenge for players to memorize hands, giving those that can a huge edge. Most people end up using their cards while playing. With Reach Mahjong, the scoring is a bit complicated, but once it is memorized, it is memorized forever. There are no [significant] changes taking place. Beginning players could keep a score table at their side if needed in any tournaments or games that we would want to host in the future.

I hope that some of the great people we met are now visiting ReachMahjong.com and I would like to say thank you for taking such good care of us in Las Vegas. I hope someday to visit again.

After the tournament was over, we spent almost all of our time at the poker tables, learning how to play. We're getting better! Honestly, playing and learning about poker has also improved my Mahjong game. We are also meeting many poker players interested in adding Mahjong to their repertoire. We'll be back in Vegas the 2nd week of April, so if anyone is going to be in town, drop us an e-mail, maybe we could set up a Mahjong game somewhere!

In Garthe's Hands #9

March 20, 2007

In Garthe's Hands #9

Long time no hands!! I bet you all thought with the lack of new hands columns that I must have finally run out of new hands to throw at you. Not the case! Though it should be encouraging to know that we are at least half way through them all at this point. In fact, it should be even more encouraging to note that the 16 hands I've given you so far plus the two I'm going to give you today make up 3396 of the 3428 hands I've completed in 1544 games of Fight Club so far this year. That's more than 99%! So pay attention for at least this column too, and then you can ignore me in earnest for a few weeks. Without further ado, I introduce to you: One Suit Straight, and 3 Concealed Triples.

One Suit Straight (Full Straight): 1-2 Hand Points

One Suit Straight is called Ikkitsuukan in Japanese but it usually gets shortened to just “Ittsu”. It is three consecutive runs all in the same suit, plus another group which can be a triple or run, and a head, of any suit or Honor tile. Put another away, this hand must have a 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 all in the same suit. Concealed it's worth two points but stealing tiles will knock it down to one point. Like 3 Colored Runs or the Outside hands, this hand will generally be more useful when worked in with other hands, in this case, especially Peace, Reach, Concealed Self Draw and Full or Half Flush. Also like those hands, though unusual, there will be times when stealing tiles is advantageous, most likely when there are some lucky dragons in the hand but no hand point to be able to win with them. Also like 3 Colored Runs, it is often a bit of a crapshoot achieving the hand as usually, the wait will be for the final tile to finish the straight, and after reaching, one may have to win on the tile that does not complete the straight. Another thing that I find strange about this hand is the number of times I come to a crossroads where I must decide whether I'm going to go for this or 3 Colored Runs. An oddity I wonder if anyone else has ever noticed?

Three Concealed Triples: 2 Hand Points

Our other hand for today is 3 concealed triples. It's called Sananko in Japanese and if you remember the limit hand I introduced you to a few weeks ago, 4 Concealed Triples, the concept behind this hand shouldn't be too difficult; it's just one less triple. Just remember, like its big brother, the tiles that make up the triples must all be self drawn. That's the only limitation regarding stealing, so if a tile for the other group or the head (pair) come from another player, the hand is still worth the same 2 hand points, concealed or not. It's an unusual hand, but seems to come up in some interesting situations. First of all, it's one of the saving graces when going for 4 Concealed Triples but another player throws the winning tile before it can self drawn. In such a situation, the hand will at least contain All Triples and 3 Concealed Triples for 4 points making it still a hand worth going out on even though it wasn't the coveted Limit Hand. Another situation I find it useful is when I don't have any hand points in my hand but I do already have 2 triples and my wait is two pairs waiting for one to become a triple. If I Reach on this hand and someone throws my winner, I'll only have the Reach Hand point. If however, I manage to draw my own tile, suddenly I have Reach, Self Concealed Draw, and 3 Concealed Triples for a total of 4 points and another nice hand. These are the two major situations this hand will be useful, the others often being a bit of a boondoggle I find. One final point, when there are already 3 triples in the hand and the final group is a going to be a run, there are those who might reach and there might be a good argument for it, like it's the final hand and one only needs that number of points to win the game. However, in most situations, most players (well, us dreamers anyway) would prefer to wait for one of the tiles in the incomplete run to pair up so that the hand would be ready for 4 Concealed Triples. Dream dream dream.

So how about a few examples:

One Suit Straight ex.1

West was the lucky dragon so with the unconcealed One Suit Straight this would be 3900/5800 points

One Suit Straight ex.2

Let's say the player Reached and drew his tile himself and ① was the Lucky Dragon. Then the hand would be Reach, Peace, Concealed Self Draw, One Suit Straight and one Lucky Dragon for 12000/18000 points! As an aside, can anyone take a stab at what the winning tiles would be for this hand?

3 Concealed Triples ex.1

Let's say the player reached and somebody threw his winner (remember, if he had drawn it, he'd have hit 4 concealed triples, a limit hand!!) He gets Reach, Red Dragon, 4 triples, and 3 Concealed triples for 12000/18000 points.

3 Concealed Triples ex.2

Assume he reached and drew the 8 himself. He'd have Reach, Concealed Self Draw, and 3 concealed triples for 8000/12000 points.

So now that I've basically told you there's hardly any reason to read my column for the next few hands I bet you're wondering how I'm going to entice you to keep coming back? Great writing!! It goes without saying! Also, I too am interested in your comments, laments, and random stories regarding bad beats or people being catapulted over swimming pools into the adjoining neighbor's yard. Send any of the above to my e-mail.

Gemma's Journal #8

March 15, 2007

Gemma's Journal #8

A note from Jenn: This entry was supposed to be up a few days ago, but while in Vegas I had some technical difficulties. Stay tuned for more on-time updates!

Hey everyone again. I've just come back from Japan so I'm going to postpone my entry on scoring another week to tell you my experiences of playing and watching Mahjong in Japan. (Convenient yet good excuse! I'm getting there, I promise, especially now with the good emails I've received offering good sites and tips to use. Thank you!)

Mahjong parlours seemed, in the most part to be small, often smoky, ill-ventilated affairs, which I guess was how I had expected. But they were far quieter than I had imagined. Mostly limited to the sound of clicking tiles and concentration!

All the tables were automatic and quite frightening to the uninitiated. It took me a little while to get used to all the buttons and what they did; although it does speed up the process so much. I really appreciated not having to build the wall manually and not having to count the bones (They're counted automatically for you by magnets). So now I've decided that my new aim is to have one in my house (I have to get a house big enough for one first!).

The first time I played was with Jenn and Garthe so that was a nice gentle introduction and allowed me to get to grips with the whirring table, with all its fancy buttons, etc. Despite this though, I still felt unprepared when I played with Masayuki Katayama (author of obaka miiko), another professional and Jenn. I was so tense! You should have seen my hands shake! The game moved so much faster than I'm used it and it took all my mental processing power just to not knock the tiles everywhere! A complete departure from the slower games I had played with other beginners or the faceless Internet games. Saying that, I do think the speed of Ron2 helped me to think quicker, yet I still found it difficult to organise my tiles and work out what my waits were. (My mind has become lazy with Ron2 figuring everything out for me!) Everyone was so kind and patient with me though and I settled into it slowly. Although I didn't win I played to the best of my abilities so I was really happy - managing to pull off a Half Flush and All Triples. I was pretty pleased with myself! Hopefully Jenn wasn't too embarrassed by me either!

Other than playing Mahjong, Jenn also took me to watch several professionals. I'd not really given much thought to watching people play before and I certainly hadn't considered Mahjong to be a spectator sport but I'm completely converted after my trip. Watching professionals play really allows you to see new things that you wouldn't have even considered before. I really feel that it has helped me improve my understanding of the game. One of the games that I watched from the Mahjong Champions League was particularly exciting. I was sat behind JPML's Hiro Yamai (Jenn wrote about him earlier so if you missed her column go and check it out here!) There were some really tense moments. One hand Yamai got really lucky and had in his hand 3 white dragons, 2 red dragons and 1 green dragon. He bumped the first red dragon that came out and then pulled a second green dragon. I think I was more nervous than he was! The final green dragon was discarded and Yamai won the 3 Big Dragons limit hand in only a few discards leaving him an easy win after that.

Apart from exciting moments like that it was a great learning experience. I can see where I've been having a lot of problems in playing Mahjong and where I could think of other alternatives to my style of play. I would highly recommend watching just as much as playing to improve. I'll certainly be watching the proz play on Ron2 more now!

So overall I had an amazing trip! Lots of Mahjong playing and learning. Jenn found time to look after me so well even though she's such a busy person. (She's really not kidding when she says she's always doing something Mahjong related!) Thank you so much for a great week Jenn! You're an amazing teacher! (If you edit that out I'll be angry!)

As soon as I got back I was playing Mahjong again, newly enthused from my trip. As I wrote about in my last column I'm trying to teach some of my school friends here in Taipei Mahjong to share the joys and broaden our English speaking community. It's also helping me quite a lot I feel. After recommending watching more Mahjong I'd also recommend teaching more Mahjong to improve your abilities. Sometimes a complete beginners question can really make you think too! So everyone should get their friends addicted too and we can bring even more Mahjong friends to our site!

On a final, slightly random, note teaching has made me hate the Peace Hand more. It's one of the first hands in the book I was reading but for beginners I still think it's one of the more difficult to understand and remember. I recall being quite frustrated by it in the beginning when I thought I had it and then realised my wait was incorrect just as I tried to Mahjong.

On that note my puzzle-esque thing today is probably quite easy for experienced players but for beginners perhaps…

Is that still a peace hand? Why?


If anyone has any questions on my trip that they want to hear a beginner's point of view feel free to post them up! I'll reply asap!


And as usual every week I love to get emails and now that I'm home I have lots of time! So email me!

Jenn's Corner #9

March 6, 2007

Jenn's Corner #9

A few too many days have passed since the last column and I have to apologize. I was planning on having this up on March 3rd and here it is, already early morning on the 6th. Last week was extremely busy with Gemma visiting Tokyo (that means lots of real-mahjong sessions), Garthe playing in Champion's League, add in another mini-tournament on Sunday and finally preparations for Garthe and my trip to Las Vegas!!

Garthe and I are here to watch one of Amercan Mahjong's biggest tournaments run by Mahjong Madness at the Riviera every year. While neither of us know how to play American Mahjong (yet), we are going to experiment a bit while we're here and hopefully get to know some of the people on this side of the ocean that love this game. People seem really friendly so far and we'll let you know how everything works out.

With the tournament season in full swing, I want to take a few minutes to talk about tournaments. Even within Reach Mahjong, there are so many variations that I think it is worth an entire column. Our other goals this week are to provide a full report of the first ever Japan Professional Mahjong League Women's League Finals and also get the scoring system up on the website (I know people have been waiting). That combined with playing poker everyday and we will have our hands full for the week!

Now, tournament time. Let's start with the fun ones! Small, just for fun tournaments in Reach Mahjong usually finish in one day. One (not so small) popular one is SNPM's Pair Match, held every January. Each participant chooses someone to be paired up with and the couple's score is combined to decide placement and prizes. The tournament only lasts 1 day and each player plays 4 games. This is a fun type of tournament because it only takes a day and the atmosphere is usually very friendly and attracts players of all skill level and background. Many Mahjong Parlors also choose to host similar tournaments for singles. Garthe and I spent this past Sunday, March 6th participating in a tournament like this that attracted about 25 players.

Garthe was good enough to get 2nd place and a prize too!

The fellow handing Garthe the prize is the assistant manager of this particular Mahjong Parlor and also a fellow JPML member, Shintarou Kamimura.


When the tournaments start to get more serious, the time period is much longer. Most Professional tournaments will hold a 1-2 day qualifying match, followed by the main tournament, preliminaries, semi-finals and then the final table, taking anywhere from 3 to 8 days for just one tournament. Regular leagues usually hold 5 days of 4 games each before final tournaments spread out over a few months.

There are a few ways to cut people out before the final table to get your final 4 (or 5 if one player will rotate out). The simplest way is by total points. Everyone plays at a different table for 4 games and at the end, the top 50% or so pass the qualifier. At the main tournament, everyone starts over at zero (and in many tournaments in Tokyo, certain players are seeded in). The top 16 or so move on to the semi-finals. At the semi-finals, everyone starts at zero again and the top 4 move to the final table. Often times the defending champion will join the top 16 players in the semi-finals by default.


The other option is to keep each person at the same table for 4 games and advance the top 2 players from each table according to the total score of the 4 games.


Both ways require endurance, high skill, a strong understanding of the game and a bit of luck as well.

The other options are rules. JPML offers 2 types of rules for tournaments. A-Rules are considered to be one of the purest forms of the game, only offering one Drag (Lucky Dragon) and no bonuses for luck-hands like Hidden Drags, Quad Drags, First-Round Wins after Reaching or Red 5's. The B-Rules add a bit of spice by adding Hidden Drags, Quad Drags and First-Round Wins after Reaching, but still leave out the red 5's.

The tournament we played on Sunday had an extra twist by using a Tournament-Hand. The Tournament-Hand this day was 7-Pairs with 2 Drags. Anyone winning on this hand gets an extra 10 points to their total score. I won on it twice!

Tournaments only really need 5-8 people, so if you can get some friends together, give it a try! Garthe and I have a dream of hosting a Reach Mahjong tournament for all to join someday...


We'll keep working hard, so everyone keep reading!!