November 9, 2007
In Garthe's Hands #16
I return this week to more hands that it may be a while before you ever get to see in the field. You may wonder why you should even bother remembering such hands if the possibility of finishing them is really so small. Indeed, they may not get finished often, but they will still have an impact, even when they aren't finished. The reason is that they tend to be nearly impossible to finished concealed; after a couple bumps, everyone already has a pretty good idea of where the hand is headed and will be very careful with tiles that are likely to finish the hand. I give to you All Terminals and its little brother All Terminals and Honors.
Let's begin with the Limit hand, All Terminals. That's right, limit means it's another hand that will get you the most points possible if you can finish it. The name says it all: the hand is entirely made up of terminals, meaning, 1's and 9's. Because there are only 6 of these types of tiles, a 1 and a 9 in each of the three suits, this hand can only be finished as 4 triples plus the head. Because of the extreme unlikelihood of being able to draw 13 of the 24 available tiles yourself, bumping tiles is allowed. However, bumping twice will make everyone pretty suspcious, and after a third bump, you're not likely to see anyone dropping a 1 or 9 for the rest of the hand. I have seen this hand finished a total of once and it wasn't even at the same table I was playing but the one behind me. I may have seen it ready once also so it is indeed another in the Extremely Rare category.
Because All 1's and 9's is so difficult, it's nice that it has a slightly easier version too: All Terminals and Honors. It's as easy to figure out from it's name as it's big brother, it's entirely made up of 1's, 9's and honor tiles. It will also generally be in the all triples shape though because there are is a total of 13 types of tiles to use, 7 Pairs will also be a possibility. This hand is actually only worth 2 points but because it will also always contain at least one other 2 point hand (All pairs or All triples) it is essentially worth 4 points. It is similar to Little Dragons in this respect. This hand is also fairly rare for similar reasons. Generally at least 2 triples will need to be bumped and as soon as that happens, everyone becomes much more careful with the remaining 1's 9's and honor tiles. But it can become a monster if a couple of the groups are Value tiles, one of the groups is Lucky dragons, it's a half flush, or all of the above. Try giving it a shot when any of those situations are near, or if the Limit hand seems to have become impossible.
Here are some examples:
All Terminals
Limit hand so it's 16000 points from each player if the dealer won, 8000/16000 if drawn by a non-dealer
All Terminals and Honors
We have Red and White dragons, Half flush, All triples and All Terminals and Honors for a total of 24000 if the dealer won, or 16000 if it was won by a non-dealer
And one question:
1-dots was the lucky dragon (dora). The dealer drew the winning tile himself. It's the first hand of the east round. How many points did he get?
