Gemma's Journal #9

April 3, 2007

Gemma's Journal #9

Here it is, the first part of the series of entries on scoring that I've been putting off writing! This will probably go quite slowly for those already acquainted with the art of scoring in Japanese Mahjong. As you know, though, my entries have always been aimed for beginners by a complete beginner. I'm expecting that I'll make lots of mistakes over the next few weeks so I'll be expecting you experienced ones out there to be correcting me and cheering all the newbies on!

Scoring... once you've finally managed to commit all the hands to memory (I have to admit having a card in front of you with the hands on like they do in America does sound a little appealing from a beginners point of view!) scoring really is a bit of a kick in the teeth! I'm not going to lie but you're going to have to get memorising some more. There are a lot of points handed out for different things, I think it looks quite daunting but we can make it together! Good Luck everyone!

There are two kinds of points in Mahjong.

Hand points - the points associated with hands that Garthe has been introducing to us:



Base points - the points that you gather in other ways for having sets, certain waits, etc.



Base points is where I want to begin explaining. So how do you obtain these base points?

Mahjong

First things first, you get 20 points for going out. You then get an additional 10 points if you Mahjong off someone else's discard if your hand is concealed, to make 30 points. If you draw the winning tile yourself (concealed or not) you get 2 points, for 22.

Sets

32 points for a concealed quad of 1 , 9 or honor tiles

16 points for a concealed quad of 2 - 8



16 points for an open quad of 1-9 or honor tiles

8 points for an open quad of 2-8



8 points for a closed set of 1-9 or honor tiles

4 points for a closed set of 2-8



4 points for an open set of 1-9 or honor tiles

2 points for an open set of 2-8

Head

Head made of value tiles is 2 points

Anything else... 0 points!

Wait

Double sided wait = 0 points

Waiting to complete a set, e.g. 44 88 = 0 points

Middle wait e.g. 57 = 2 points

End wait e.g. 12 = 2 points

Waiting for the head = 2 points

It's not too horrific! I mean, sure, you have to memorise a lot, but at least they're all even! Imagine if it had been multiples of three! (you wouldn't think I had an A-level in Maths!)

Best way to memorise it though is, as always, practice! So with that here are some more puzzles for you. I want you to try and count up the base points. Perhaps I'll post up some more, later in the week, if I can get enough replies.

Self-Drawn

River Win (taken from another's discard)

East-Round

East Seat

River Win (taken from another's discard

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

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