Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Jenn's Corner #16

October 3, 2007




Jenn's Corner #16



Note: There was information that I forgot to add to the final 2 problems in Garthe's last column. I've fixed the problem, so please take a look and write your answers in the comment section.



Now for MY column.

I've spent a large amount of my time lately playing and watching a lot of poker. I have already mentioned how much I think learning poker has helped my mahjong game. Everyday I spend watching tournaments, playing live or online and discussing poker, I find more similarities to the two games. One thing that many poker players have learned is that playing a variety of poker games helps you notice things in your main game that you would never notice before. For example, playing Omaha instead of Texas Hold'em. The same holds true in mahjong.



Besides the A-Rule and B-Rule variations in JPML, the commonly used cash-game rules (similar to JPML's B-Rules) there are also a variety of 3-player and 2-player games.



The easiest way to play a 3-player game is to use the MFC 3-player rules because the Hand Points are all the same as the 4-player game. Take out the numbers 2-8 of the Grands (cracks), making the deck 108 tiles instead of 136. Declaring Chow is not allowed in the 3-player version. If the Drag (dora) Indicator is 1-Grands, then the Drag (dora) will be 9-Grands. Other than that everything will play the same. For self-drawn wins, the score will be split in half by the other 2 players. Hands won on a discard will be pad by the discarder as usual.

The 3-Colored Runs hand will be impossible and since 1/3 of the simples (2-8 tiles) are gone, Inside Hands won't happen as much. You'll find yourself going for bigger hands and lots of Flushes and Half-Flushes. The swings will be much larger than in A-Rule games because people will be going for big hands most of the time. There will be lots of limit hands too.



Slimming down the deck like this is great for looking closer at your game and tendencies. There are less tiles, so less to think about. Try it out and you might find holes in your 4-player game. You'll definitely find yourself playing differently than you did before.



There are other versions of 3-player mahjong. My favorite includes using the White Dragons as jokers. That game is great for training yourself in difficult waits and planning ahead in your hands.



Join in and tell us what your favorite Mahjong variations are. I can't wait to try some of them out!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't like poker very much at all. I think that it is for two reasons:

1) I am not a very patient person. In poker, it seems you spend most of your time waiting. You can't improve your hand in poker like you can in mahjong; you just have to wait for a good hand to come to you. I hate this.

2) Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't poker strategy basically revolve around bluffing? I mean, trying to out-think people who are trying to out-think you... I'd rather play janken.

Poker blufffing: convince your opponent that your hand is better than it really is.
Mahjong "bluffing": convince your opponent that your hand is worse than it really is.

Archon_Wing said...

themooon:
No, bluffing is just one aspect of poker. Playing your hand for what it's worth (or playing straight out)is more challenging then it sounds because the status of your hand can change with upcoming cards. Bluffing is a situational thing and is based on the opponent.

I sometimes play omaha with my friends for laughs since nobody really knows what they are doing. Maybe passing out 4 cards is too tiring of a task. ;0

Once in a while, we try adding the Charleston to a few games, which is something from American mahjong where you pass tiles at the start to another player. Obviously this leads to bigger hands and people more frequently attempting the 13 terminals [since a lot of people pass their terminals and honors which are usually the most useless] but of course some may keep them for metagame reasons. :P It's not meant to be taken seriously but it's a good distraction from the routine.

Anonymous said...

In theory, at least, in poker you can calculate exact probabilities based on what you can see. However, your opponents' betting patterns might contradict what you calculate, or are they bluffing...
I am guessing that trying to outwit your opponent janken-style has at least some role to play here.

Benjamin said...

I like playing Japanese Mahjong with one tile short of the regular hand, so 12 tile-hands winning off the 13th tile. You treat it as a regular 13-tile hand with an "invisible" joker in it, which you can change at any time. This make you think a lot more about which possible draws can improve your hand.

Unknown said...

themoon,
There are times in poker where you are trying to make your opponent think that your hand is weaker than it actually is, and I find many players in Mahjong that try to make their opponents think their hand is bigger than it actually is (half-flush bluffs, etc.).

archon_wing,
That sounds fun! I've started to think lately that I'd love to start a regular game, Tom Sloper-style, similar to HORSE in poker. There are 3 standardized Mahjong rule-sets in the world that have regular tournaments: Reach, American and Chinese Official. So it would be called RAC or RACO or something. Each game or each hand would use a different rule-set. Add Three-Player and you get RACT.

Benjamin,
I did read that in a book somewhere. It's so fun but the waits get so hard! It's a great, great training game. Similar to the White-Dragon-Wild game I mentioned too (although that one is 3-player)

Thanks guys! Keep up the stories. I love it!

Anonymous said...

Jenn, I would love to see you as the opponent in a 2-player mahjong game. (Perhaps you could make it a training game of some sort?) I say this because you are so photogenic.

That having been said:
I don't understand why you would want to, in mahjong, try to make your opponent think your hand is better than it is, unless you are trying to pull him into "defense mode" so that he is no longer trying (or no longer trying so hard) to win the hand.

As for mixing rule sets in mahjong, I was wondering about it as a sort of handicapping: for example, if I were playing against Jenn, I might want to handicap her by having her play kuitan nashi while I play kuitan ari.

Unknown said...

themoon,

Actually, when I am teaching, I do use a handicap. I allow the new players to win on any complete hand, even if they have a Missed Win (furiten) and even if they have no Hand Points (yaku) until they get better at the rules. Slowly I make them use all the rules and they become quite strong players because they build this confidence. Look at Gem! She's great! My students tend to pass me quickly ;-) And I am so proud of them.

When you get into high level Reach Mahjong, players have created elaborate defense games. It is definitely possible to push a player off of his hand by showing strength, even if it is a bluff. A simple example would be, showing trips or quads of the Lucky Dragon (dora) even though the rest of your hand is not even close to being made. This often forces opponents to either fold their hand (oriru) or go for a quick cheap hand when they would have otherwise gotten more points.

Every point you keep your opponent from getting is like getting points for yourself.

Anonymous said...

I assume that by "fold" you mean "give up on trying to win, and play so as to minimize the probability and/or size of others' win(s)".

Seriously, Jenn, why don't you make a training game?

Anonymous said...

What a pisser. I tried to respond here a few days ago but somehow my post didn't make it up, and now all my points have been made. Well, let's see if I can beat a dead horse differently.

Bluffing is indeed a large part of poker though certainly not the only part. Like Archon points out, the strengths of your and your oppontents' hands can change as more cards come out on the table. So even though you may have the winning hand on the flop, you need to be prepared for the possibility of someone playing to win as more cards come out. Or be prepared to do the same yourself.

Also on the subject of bluffing, you can only bluff strong players. Weak players don't know when they might be losing and thus won't know you're telling them (lying to them, actually) to get them to fold their hands. Your lie falls on deaf ears and you may end up losing to middle pair or even ace high when you were so obviously betting as if you had made your flush.

For the same reason bluffing is present but also difficult in mahjong. You hit the nail on the head, moon, when you said it was to try to get other players to start playing defense. Jenn pointed out one kind of bluff, bumping or quadding the lucky dragon to make people think you have a strong hand when in fact you're no where near finishing it. I don't tend to use this much because I'm almost always trying to finish my hand especially if I have all the dragons. My typical bluff is to Reach with nothing else in my hand, a cheapie. This will cause many players to start playing defense if they are still 1 or 2 tiles away from ready, even if they have a potentially strong hand. The bluff for Half or Full Flush can also be effective, and is also easily finishable as players are only playing defense in the suit that you've been stealing so far. Once again, however, these bluffs won't be very effective if your opponents don't know how to look for danger signs from you so remember to choose your victims carefully.

Actually, this will be the subject of a column one of these days, but I think one of the big weaknesses for a lot of pros is the desire to play defense so well. It's the point of pride for many a pro that his throw-the-winning-tile percentage is so low. Thing is, that guy's overall winning percentage tends to be correspondingly low. Don't get me wrong, defense is important. But there are very few at the top level who make defense the central part of their game.

Anonymous said...

My typical bluff is to Reach with nothing else in my hand, a cheapie. This will cause many players to start playing defense if they are still 1 or 2 tiles away from ready, even if they have a potentially strong hand.

This doesn't work so well on me. It often happens that other players reach when I need 2 or 3 more tiles to finish my hand, and I still win. But then again, I'm only a middling player myself.

Are mahjong players really that easy to scare? If I have at least a few yaku, I won't let your reach distract me much.

Maybe it's psychological. I play online, so I can't be fooled by body language, etc.


"Also on the subject of bluffing, you can only bluff strong players."

So their "strength" might, in fact, be a weakness.

Anonymous said...

Good point, a player's strength does often become his weakness. Like you, I also used to not be scared of other players' reaches, just continuing to put my hand together and throwing caution to the wind. I still have too much confidence in my ability to make and finish hands which often makes it difficult for me to fold in situations where I really ought to. However, I did have to rethink my strategy after playing in Mahjong parlors against people who play stronger and took my money as I discarded freely into one reach after another. Playing online is a great way to learn and practice, but it's similar to playing poker online for play money. It doesn't hurt to lose, so people just go for it all the time. When they get to the money tables, those players are going to have to tighten up their play or probably lose a fair amount of money and learn it the hard way.