WEEKLY MAH-JONGG
By Tom Sloper

April 18, 2004

Column #158

Chinese Official Tournament Rules. The next big tournament takes place in Europe in 2005. Our intrepid players were practicing. Samantha got her tiles and pondered.

She decided to go for a Clean hand (the official rulebook calls this "half flush"). Her first throw was bold: 5D.

Her next pick was a throwaway, then she got S and threw 4D. Earl made a chow in bams. Then Samantha picked 3D and threw 8D. Waiyee threw R, but Samantha had been sleeping and missed it. Trying to hide her anger at herself, she picked and got 2C. She threw 9D and now her hand was clean. Her next pick was N.

Since her hand was clean, she had to ponder what to discard. There was a W on the floor, so that's what she threw. Her next pick was 3C, so she got rid of S.

Her next pick was another throwaway, and she collected her thoughts to make a plan. She vowed to call if R, N, or 6C went out - but not 2C or 3C. Noriko threw 6C. "Pung!"

Samantha had to make a decision what to throw. It wouldn't be an honor, that was for sure. She'd assumed she'd have to make chows in order to win, but now that plan was looking quite iffy. She had to sacrifice something, and settled on 1C.

Her next two picks were throwaways, and she was getting doubtful that she'd take the hand. But then Noriko threw the last R. "Pung!"

With that, she threw the 4C, and now she was waiting for either N or 2C... and again it was Noriko who came through, with the N this time. "Hu."

Samantha used her discards to tally her points.

Pung of dragons 2
Pung of wind 1
All Pungs 6
Clean (Half Flush) 6
Total 15

As she collected 23 from Noriko and 8 from the others, Samantha thought, "Europe, here I come!"


Click the entries in the header frame, above, to read other columns.

Read about the 2002 WCMJ.

Read about the 2003 CMOC.

The next big event is the 2005 ECMJ.


© 2004 Tom Sloper. All rights reserved.