Jenn's Corner #15: OEMC

August 12, 2007

Jenn's Corner #15: OEMC

I took my first trip to Europe, using the excuse that my sister was studying/interning in Italy and stopping in Copenhagen for the 2nd OEMC. This was the first tournament I ever attended that used the Chinese Official rules and also the first tournament I attended that offered no cash prizes for the winners. The organizers are all volunteering and this was amazing to me, coming from a
background where playing Mahjong for money is not only accepted, but considered to be the norm.

I knew this would be the first time that I would meet many people that I had been in contact with via e-mail for the past year (like Martin Rep and Tina Christensen) and some that I had heard of but never gathered the courage to contact (Tom Sloper) and some that I had met before for brief periods (Benjamin Boas). This was my first trip to a place I had never been where I knew no one. It took me forever to figure out how to get to my hotel and even longer to get over the fact that the internet wouldn't work and the place itself was much different (meaning worse) than the picture on the internet.

Somehow I found my way to the venue for registration. I waited outside and was greeted by the Taiwanese team! They had seen me on the news in Taiwan after my participation in the WSOM (Macau) and started speaking to me in Chinese (even though my interview had been in English). I took this opportunity to practice speaking a bit of Mandarin and make some very good friends from the place I used to live.

Although I wouldn’t be competing, I did have a package waiting for me as a companion. Walking in, I saw the legendary Tom Sloper. He was busy passing out his newly published book to those deserving but he managed to find time to greet me with, “So you’re the famous Jenn!” This coming from the famous Tom! I was surprised and very pleased that he knew who I was and we became fast friends. I also met the rest of Team USA and enjoyed my first Danish meal with some new friends from Austria and France. All I can say is why didn’t you tell me there was horseradish in it??

The famous Tom and the famous Jenn

One thing that surprised me in the opening comments was the emphasis that mahjong should not at all be associated with gambling. This is an opinion that I can never agree with. While I do not believe that all mahjong games must include gambling, I have a great appreciation for the fact that it is easy to incorporate a monetary incentive for winners. I have never considered gambling to be a bad thing and think of it as an important part of my life. To be quite honest, I get a little bit disappointed when people tell me that gambling is bad and should not be associated with the game I love since they are both such huge parts of my life, together and separately. I wonder if it would be something like telling a sommelier that alcohol is bad and not be allowed with meals? I guess I’d have to ask a sommelier... Can someone introduce me?

There were a few interesting occurrences, for instance, the player from Team Osaka that was caught with extra tiles in his lap. I have chosen not to comment extensively on this subject because it was not something I witnessed. I would, however, like to commend Mr. Oda, who continued playing on the 3rd day without a team for support and took 2nd place in the competition. Also, I was granted the honor to ring the gong on the final day. Very excited, I waited by the stage for my cue and when it was finally time, I rang it! But, oh no! I was too quiet! So this time, the gong was rung twice to commence the session. Everyone had a good laugh at my expense (including myself) and it made a great memory to tell all of you about.

The witch at the bonfire

Those feelings aside, I enjoyed the entire event. I met amazing people, got to see my first witch burned in the bonfire, learned how many friends I had not only with mahjong as a common interest, but poker as well. I do feel like this trip accomplished a lot and gave me a good understanding of what Mahjong is like outside of Japan and the US. I hope that I can keep in touch with everyone that I’ve met there and that some of you are reading this as well. I was incredibly impressed with the devotion and passion demonstrated by both the organizers and the participants.

In Garthe's Hands #14

August 2, 2007

In Garthe's Hands #14

A little tired of reading about hands that you can only dream about? Well before we finish our tour of Fantasy Island (That would be the group of Limit Hands), how about if we return to a hand you'll see almost every other hand or so, Peace. There's a disturbing lack of it in the world today. But at least we can click our tiles together and make a little of it at the Mahjong table. It's second only to Reach and maybe Value tiles, at least in my statistics, so it's definitely something to think about working into your game.

To review, Peace (Pinfu in Japanese) is one of the simplest hands with the most complications. At its simplest, it's just a hand made up of 4 runs and a pair. Then there are the requirements. First remember that the head must not be value tiles. So the dragons will never be part of a Peace hand, and you also won't be able to use the Prevailing Wind tile or your current seat Wind. Next, your wait must be to complete a run and it must be open ended. That means that 12 waiting for the 3, or 57 waiting for the 6 would be unacceptable whereas 23 waiting for the 1 or 4 would be OK; also, a wait such as 5543 waiting for the 5 or 2 would be OK even though you might think of the 543 run as already being complete if another 5 came. In fact, 5554 waiting for the 3, 4 or 6 would also be OK for Peace as long as the tile that completed the hand was the 3 or 6 so it completes the final run. Similary 3456 waiting for the 3 or 6 would NOT be acceptable because the final tile is not completing a run; it's completing the head.

Why these inane complications for a concept so simple you may ask? Well Jenn just revealed the answer to this mystery to me last week! Peace is the only hand in Reach Mahjong worth 20 base points. Alright, the thing is, EVERY hand in this game is worth 20 base points, but every other hand will get some base points added on for triples, bad waits, or using value tiles in the head. Requiring the hand to have no value tiles, a good wait, and the fact that there are no triples means that there will be no extra base points (except of course for Self Draw. This does seem like a point that some nit picker some where would have said precludes Peace from being self-drawn. The Japanese are nothing if not rule adherers. Any comment on this exception Jenn?) So lest you think these are just arbitrary obfuscations designed to confuse the newbies, think again!! I don't doubt Mahjong's desire to confuse the newbies, but there is some reason to the madness.

On to the next subject, putting your Peace hand together. There are a only a million and one combinations that could become your next Peace hand, but let's look at a situation that has come up a lot recently in my hands and that I used to play differently. Let's say I'm one away from ready with a hand like this:

and I draw the 4 of grands; what should I do? I think my first inclination a few years ago I think was to throw the 7 so I now have the two open-ended waits. This is the best option for giving me the most possible tiles to make my hand ready. Any of the 3456 of Grands or the 2345 of Bamboos all make my hand ready. There are certainly situations where this would be the best way to go, for example close to the end of a hand where I just want to get my hand to ready but I'm not necessarily going for the win. The problem is that 16 of the 28 tiles that make me ready complete a run and force me to discard a tile from the unfinished run; I'll be waiting for a single tile to complete my head and that's NOT Peaceful! But there is another way. I can now switch horses in midstream and make the two 7 grands my head and still have the two open-ended waits. I do lose the possibility of being ready on 12 tiles, but in exchange, I have the guarantee that I will at least have Peace in my hand if I draw something that makes me ready. In this situation, it also gives me a better chance of getting Simples too if draw the 6 of dots and exchange it with the 9. This dilemma comes up surprisingly often, fastest-to-ready versus good-wait, and always makes for spirited arguments between me and Jenn.

Instead of scoring examples, let's look at some hands and see if we can get some people's opinions on what they might discard if they were in the given situations. There won't always be clearly right answers here so maybe add a little explanation for why you chose that tile to discard and then we can all call each other crazy appropriately.

Round: South-4
Seat: North
Lucky Dragon: 1-Bamboos
We have the most points. It's the 6th draw of the hand




Round: East-1
Seat: East
Lucky Dragon: 8-Grands
Our turn as dealer on the 5th draw of the hand




Round: South-3
Seat: South
Lucky Dragon: North-Wind
3000 points out of 1st place on the 12th draw of the hand