Singapore Sparrows

Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: List of Scoring Elements

2011-08-27T21:45:00.010+08:00

This is a list of the various scoring elements used in Singapore Style mahjong, organised by value (i.e. by number of doubles).

1 double/一台
Seat Flower 正花/门花 zhènghuā/ménhuā
Animal 动物 dòngwù
All Chows (with bonus tiles) 臭平和 chòupínghú
Pung of Dragons 箭刻 jiànkè
Pung of Seat Wind 门风刻 ménfēngkè
Pung of Round Wind 圈风刻 quānfēngkè
Concealed Hand (self-drawn) 门清 ménqīng
Robbing the Kong 抢杠 qiǎnggàng
Winning with the Last Drawn Tile 海底捞月 hǎidǐlāoyuè
Winning with a Replacement tile (for kongs) 杠上开花 gàngshàngkāihuā
Winning with a Replacement tile (for bonus tiles) 花上自摸 huāshàngzìmō
Flower Set Bonus 花杠加台 huāgàng jiātái
Animal Set Bonus 动物杠加台 dòngwùgàng jiātái

2 doubles/两台
All Pungs 碰碰和/对对和 pèngpènghú/duìduìhú
Mixed Suit 混一色 hùnyīsè
Mixed Terminals and Honours 混幺九/混老头 hùnyāojiǔ/hùnlǎotóu
Little Four Winds/Little Four Blessings 小四喜 xiǎosìxǐ

3 doubles/三台
Little Three Dragons/Little Three Scholars 小三元 xiǎosānyuán

4 doubles/四台
All Chows (without any bonus tiles) 平和 pínghú
Pure Suit 清一色 qīngyīsè

Limit (5 doubles)/满贯 (五台)
Heavenly Win 天和 tiānhú
Earthly Win 地和 dìhú
Thirteen Orphans/Thirteen Wonders 十三幺 shísānyāo
Big Four Winds/Big Four Blessings (immediate) 大四喜 dàsìxǐ
Big Three Dragons/Big Three Scholars (immediate) 大三元 dàsānyuán
All Honours 字一色 zìyīsè
All Terminals 全幺九/清老头 quányāojiǔ/qīnglǎotóu
Four Concealed Pungs (self-drawn) 四暗刻/坎坎和 sì’ànkè/gàigàihú
All Kongs 杠杠和/十八罗汉 gànggànghú/shíbāluóhàn
Kong on Kong Win 杠上杠和 gàngshànggànghú
Flower Win/Robbing the Flower (immediate) 七抢一 qīqiǎngyī
Flower Win/Eight Immortals (immediate) 花和/八仙过海 huāhú/bāxiānguòhǎi

Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: Animals

2011-08-21T17:00:00.005+08:00

Animal
Chinese name: 动物 dòngwù
Value: 1 double
Description: When a player wins a hand, every animal tile in his possession will score 1 double. Animal tiles do not correspond to any player's seat, so any player can possess any animal to score doubles. Animals count towards the minimum requirement of 1 double for any win.

Comments: As there are four animal tiles used in Singapore Style mahjong but no correspondence between animal and players' seats, any player can get up to four animals and thus score up to five doubles from his Animals (see below for explanation of how to get five doubles).

Animal Set Bonus
Chinese name: 动物杠加台 dòngwùgàng jiātái (ad hoc term)
Value: 1 double
Description: When a player wins a hand, a complete set of animal tiles will score 1 double, in addition to the double individually scored for each Animal, for a total of five doubles.

Comments: This scoring element has no equivalent in other variants of mahjong, and there are thus no similar terms for such a scoring element. The flower equivalent is sometimes known as 一台花 yītáihuā, as used in Hong Kong Old Style (HKOS) scoring, but the use of this term is preferably avoided for Singapore Style mahjong to avoid confusion with the typical meaning of 'doubles' for 台. Since I used 花杠加台 huāgàng jiātái as the ad hoc term here in this blog, a logical extension to refer to a complete set of animal tiles would then be 动物杠加台 dòngwùgàng jiātái.

Related Posts
Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: Index
Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: Bonus Tiles
Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: Flowers

Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: Flowers

2011-08-21T15:30:00.004+08:00

Seat Flower
Chinese name(s): 正花 zhènghuā, 门花 ménhuā
Value: 1 double
Description: When a player wins a hand, every flower tile in his possession that corresponds to his seat will score 1 double. Flower tiles that do not correspond to the player's seat are not Seat Flowers and do not score any doubles. Seat Flowers count towards the minimum requirement of 1 double for any win.

Comments: As there are only eight proper flower tiles in Singapore Style mahjong (the other bonus tiles used are animal tiles, though often referred to as flowers as well), and only one tile in each set that corresponds to each player's seat, any player can at most obtain two doubles from his Seat Flowers.

Flower Set Bonus
Chinese name: 花杠加台 huāgàng jiātái (ad hoc term), 一台花 yītáihuā
Value: 1 double
Description: When a player wins a hand, a complete set of flower tiles (either all the red-numbered flowers, or all the blue-numbered flowers) will score 1 double, in addition to the double scored for the Seat Flower.

Comments: This scoring element is sometimes known as 一台花 yītáihuā, as used in Hong Kong Old Style (HKOS) scoring. In HKOS scoring, however, 一台花 is viewed to be worth 2 doubles (but then excludes the 1 double scored for the Seat Flower). I prefer to avoid using the term 一台花, and use an ad hoc term 花杠加台 huāgàng jiātái instead. Reasons for this include: a need to avoid confusion on when to count Seat Flower; a need to have consistency and a logical counterpart to the Animal Set Bonus (something not found in HKOS mahjong); and a need to avoid confusion by using the Chinese term 台 tái with different meanings. In Singapore Style, 台 refers to doubles, but in HKOS it refers only to a group (of flowers); to use 台 to refer to a group (of flowers) where it also refers to doubles can be confusing to players, so this should be avoided.

Related Posts
Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: Index
Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: Bonus Tiles
Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: Animals

Updated at 17:35, on 21st August 2011

Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: Scoring

2011-08-20T23:30:00.006+08:00

Scoring in mahjong is a crucial part of the flavours of the different regional variants. Since the gameplay (i.e. the mechanism of the game) is largely identical across variants of mahjong, the differentiation between variants lies in the different ways scoring is done, which in turn motivates different strategies and approaches to playing mahjong.

Scoring is fundamentally about assigning different values to different ways of winning, and the values are usually correlated to the difficulty of achieving such ways of winning. More difficult methods have higher value and less difficult methods have lower value. So, the mahjong player has to decide how he wants to win his hand, in accordance with the score he wants to achieve.

The scoring system of Singapore Style mahjong is largely inherited from Chinese Classical scoring. However, there have been many changes, the most significant one being the removal of calculating basic points from the possession of certain tile combinations and the replacement with a fixed base stake.

In Singapore Style mahjong, points can be won from opponents by winning a hand with one or more scoring elements or by achieving certain tile combinations. Scoring elements (番种 fānzhǒng) are the various tile combinations, patterns, and winning situations that can give value to a winning hand. This value is expressed in the form of doubles (台 tái or 番 fān). Each scoring element has a value, which can range from 1 double to 10 (or more) doubles. Many of the scoring elements can be combined, so the final value of a winning hand can be quite high!

This article will discuss the various concepts and practices of scoring:
1. payment system;
2. doubles;
3. base stake;
4. limits;
5. unlimited scoring.

Payment System
Mahjong is a four-player game, and whenever one player wins, three players will lose. However, the three losers do not necessarily pay the same number of points to the winner.

There are two kinds of situations for a player making a winning hand: the winning hand is completed by a tile discarded by another player (this is a win by discard); or the winning hand is completed by a tile picked by the player himself (this is a self-drawn win).

When a player wins with a tile discarded by one of his opponents, the two non-discarder losers pays the winner the amount of points for the score calculated from the value of the winning hand, and the discarder pays the winner that same amount of points doubled. The discarder has to pay more because he is responsible for his mistake and is penalised accordingly. The winner therefore wins an amount of points 4 times the calculated score.

When a player wins by self-draw, the losers all pay the winner the same amount of points, doubled from the score calculated from the value of the winning hand. The winner therefore wins an amount of points 6 times the calculated score. This rewards the winner for making a win that is not dependent on mistakes by the opponents.

Some groups of players in Singapore favour the 'shooter' system of payments. In this system, unlike the typical one where all three losers pay in every deal, the two non-discarder losers do not pay the winner and only the discarder pays, and this discarder pays on behalf of the other two losers. So, in effect, the discarder always pays four times the calculated score.

This system is supposed to emphasise defensive play. However, without an orderly discard system and sacred discard rules as found in riichi majan, defence is not easy, and the winning tile is less predictable. Discarding a winning tile for another player cannot be easily attributed to poor defensive skills, and the 'shooter pays' system can therefore penalise good players unnecessarily. The rule that the discarder has to pay for the other two losers also reduce the role of bao penalties (explained in another article), and therefore dilutes the flavour of Singapore Style mahjong. Based on these reasons, the 'shooter pays' system is not recommended for tournaments.

Doubles
Doubles are the way the value of a winning hand is expressed, and actually represents how the score and points for payment between winners and losers are calculated. The 'double' is the literal English translation of the Chinese word 番 fān, which means 'to double'.

In Singapore, it is very typical to hear players use the term 台 tái, which means 'platform', instead. 台 is more commonly used by players who speak Southern Min languages (i.e. Southern Chinese languages such as Hokkien [i.e. Xiamen/Quanzhou/Zhangzhou dialect-group], and Teochew), and which was probably borrowed from Taiwanese usage. The majority (some 60%) of Chinese Singaporeans are of Hokkien and Teochew descent and share a linguistic heritage with the Taiwanese, who also speak Southern Min languages (a mixture of Xiamen/Quanzhou/Zhangzhou dialects). (In Taiwanese 16-tile mahjong, however, tai are actually used to calculate scores in a different manner from fan.) Singaporean players who speak Yue (i.e. Cantonese) or Mandarin tend to use 番, following more common practice in Hong Kong and China.

Either way, both 番 and 台 are used in the same manner in Singapore Style mahjong: each double adds a multiply of 2 to the base (points) to arrive at the final score. The more doubles, the more times the base is multplied by 2.

For example, in a game where the base is set at 10 points, a winning hand with 4 doubles will earn 160 points. This score of 160 points is arrived through the following formula:

base × 2^(number of doubles)
= 10 × 2^4
= 10 × (2 × 2 × 2 × 2)
= 10 × 16
= 160

Basically, the base of 10 points is doubled 4 times to obtain 160 points. If the base of 10 points is just doubled once, the score is 20 points; if the base is doubled twice, the score becomes 40 points; and so on.

If a winning hand does not contain any double, the score for this hand is calculated to be exactly that of the base stake. So, if the base is set at 10 points, the score of a 0 double hand is simply 10 points. In Singapore Style mahjong, however, there is a minimum requirement for a winning hand to contain at least 1 double, so hands without any doubles (i.e. valueless hands) is considered to be illegal wins and are penalisable.

Base Stake
Since mahjong is typically played casually among friends for small stakes, the base for scoring can vary. It can be $0.05 (i.e. five cents), $0.30 (thirty cents), $1, $100, or even higher! Of course, any base stake of more than $1 can hardly be considered small stakes gambling.

Below are examples of how some bases are doubled. The first example of the 0.5/1 base is the most commonly used base because of the ease in calculating the scores.

**Score Table for Singapore Style Mahjong, Base of 0.5/1 Point**
Number of Doubles	Win by Discard	Win by Self-Draw
0	0.5	1
1	1	2
2	2	4
3	4	8
4	8	16
5	16	32
6	32	64
7	64	128
8	128	256
9	256	512
10	512	1024
11	1024	2048
12	2048	4096
13	4096	8192

A base of 0.5/1 point is quite common. 0.5/1 typically refers to a base of $0.50 (i.e. 50 cents) and $1. Two values are always quoted when referring to the base, the second value being doubled from the first. This doubling occurs because whenever a player wins a hand by self-draw, the score is doubled once as a bonus for the self-draw, this is not part of the normal doubling earned from scoring elements.

This 0.5/1 point base is considered to be the easiest to use because with the required minimum of 1 double to win in Singapore Style mahjong, scores will start on 1 and 2 points (for 1 double), then increased accordingly for more doubles. This base therefore uses basic and naturally round figures, and is convenient for players who play for small stakes.

In the score table above, notice that when the score consists of many doubles (particularly, when more than 6 doubles), the score becomes disproportionately high. This is because the doubling mechanism results in a geometric progression, and the increase in the score is exponential and low stakes gambling becomes unsustainable for friendly play. The result is that limits (typically 5 doubles) are imposed to prevent an unperceived unfairness in the scoring amongst players.

**Score Table for Singapore Style Mahjong, Base of 0.3/0.6 Points (Before Rounding Up)**
Number of Doubles	Win by Discard	Win by Self-Draw
0	0.3	0.6
1	0.6	1.2
2	1.2	2.4
3	2.4	4.8
4	4.8	9.6
5	9.6	19.2

A base of 0.3/0.6 points is also rather commonly used. The use of a fairly odd figure like 0.3 results in many non-round figures for scoring. Therefore, all the scores are rounded up to produce round figures.

**Score Table for Singapore Style Mahjong, Base of 0.3/0.6 Points (After Rounding Up)**
Number of Doubles	Win by Discard	Win by Self-Draw
0	0.5	1
1	1	2
2	2	3
3	3	5
4	5	10
5	10	20

With rounding up, all the scores are now round, and the effect of the rounding up results in figures that are easier to handle, particularly because such a base and its calculations are used in small stakes gambling. Values of $1, $2, $3, $5, $10, $20, and so on, are much easier to exchange amongst players when scoring winning hands, compared to awkward values like $1.20, $2.40, $4.80 etc. The strange effect of the unequal rounding up is that it is slightly more profitable to play for 2 to 3 doubles in a game with a 0.3/0.6 point base than in a game with a 0.5/1 point base.

In a tournament setting, a 0.5/1 point base is preferred, for the ease in calculation and handling, and it avoids distortions to the profit-value correlation that using a 0.3/0.6 points base causes.

Limits
In a scoring system based on exponential increment, winning hands with many doubles can score many thousands more points than hands with one or two doubles. This creates a situation where this unbalanced scoring leads to uncompetitiveness amongst players. For example, a player might be lucky and win a hand (on a discard) with 10 doubles. He therefore wins 2048 points. If his opponents only keep winning hands with only 1 or 2 doubles, earning at most 4 to 12 points each time, it is not possible for them to catch up to this lucky player, since high-scoring hands are not very easy to achieve. These opponents would therefore feel it is pointless to continue playing the game, since they are unlikely to catch up and recover their losses. In fact, it is quite likely that players in general would not want to play with a scoring system that does not have a reasonable cap on such high scores.

So, for such practical reasons of game balance and competitiveness, a limit is typically imposed in Singapore Style mahjong. This limit is the maximum number of doubles that will be counted during scoring, and any extra doubles beyond the limit are ignored during scoring. The payment between players will be capped to this limit. Limits are typically 5 or 6 doubles, depending on the agreement between players. A limit of 5 doubles is most common, for reasons of game balance and consistency of value of certain scoring elements (this would be elaborated in other articles).

If a player wins with a 10-double hand in a game with a 5-double limit, the losers only pay the winner the score for 5 doubles.

Unlimited Scoring
Some players feel that the use of limits reduces the values of some special hands (which are typically pereceived to be valued beyond 5 doubles). These include scoring elements like Big Four Winds, All Honours, Thirteen Orphans etc. High-scoring hands built on a combination of luck (doubles from bonus tiles) and hard work (doubles from scoring elements like Pure Suit and All Pungs) scoring beyond the limit are also not valued accordingly. So, some players do not play with limits, and these are usually players who play for rather high stakes, and if really high-scoring hands are won, the losers pay the price without complaint.

So using the exponential increment system of doubles can be quite damaging to the game balance. For players who want to make hands that score more than the limit and yet not deal with unreasonable losses, a compromise can be made by using bonuses for scores over the limit. For example, every extra double beyond the limit may earn an extra 10 points (regardless of wins by self-drawn or by discard), so high-scoring hands are still rewarded, but not in a game-breaking manner.

**Score Table for Singapore Style Mahjong, Base of 0.5/1 Point, 10-point Bonus Per Double Over Limit**
Number of Doubles	Win by Discard	Win by Self-Draw
0	0.5	1
1	1	2
2	2	4
3	4	8
4	8	16
5	16	32
6	26	42
7	36	52
8	46	62
9	56	72
10	66	82
11	76	92
12	86	102
13	96	112

Related Posts
Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: Index

Updated at 17:45, 21st August 2011

Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: Bonus Tiles

2011-08-19T01:00:00.005+08:00

In Singapore Style mahjong, two kinds of bonus tiles are used: flowers and animals.

Flower tiles are the tiles that usually have illustrations of flowers, or Chinese ornaments, or Chinese architecture etc., and that also have numbers on them. Each set of flower tiles comprise four members, so there would be a tile each numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4. Each set of flowers also usually represent a Chinese grouping of four related things. Typically, the sets of flowers would be the four seasons (四季 sìjì, the members of which are 春夏秋冬 chūnxiàqiūdōng) and the four noble plants (花中四君子 huāzhōngsìjūnzi, the members of which are 梅兰菊竹 méilánjúzhú). Sometimes, the mahjong set may contain other sets of flowers, such as the four occupations or the four arts. Usually, the Han characters for these members are also carved onto the tiles. The Chinese names for these flowers are not particularly important, the numbers are more important, being of particular use in the game.

In mahjong sets found in Singapore, the two sets of flowers are typically the four seasons and the four noble plants. Each set of flowers has its numbers coloured differently, typically one set's numbers in red, the other's in blue.

The Seasons

The Noble Plants

The other kind of bonus tiles used in Singapore Style mahjong, and which are more or less unique to this variant (and Malaysian variants), are the animal tiles. The animals typically used are the cat (猫 māo), the rat (老鼠 láoshǔ), the cockerel (公鸡 gōngjī), and the centipede (蜈蚣 wúgōng). Note that these animals come as two pairs with a predator–prey relationship: the cat and the rat, and the cockerel and the centipede. Also, these animal tiles do not have numbers, unlike the flower tiles. Sometimes, other pairs of numberless tiles are supposedly used as 'animals': rich man and pot of gold, fisherman and fish, boy and frog etc. Note that animal bonus tiles do not actually have to be depictions of real animals. Tom Sloper's mahjong website has some examples of more rarely seen flower (and animal) tiles (see page on mystery tiles).

The Animals

The flower tiles and the animal tiles are used for scoring, but in slightly different ways. The numbers on the flowers correspond to the four seats at the mahjong table, and so, each flower belongs to a different player. Because there are two sets of flowers used in Singapore Style mahjong, each player has two flowers that corresponds to his seat. During the game, if a player draws a flower that corresponds to his seat, then that flower would count towards his score; all other flowers are useless and do not count towards his score. Animals, on the other hand, do not have numbers, and thus may belong to any player. Therefore, any animal that a player draws would count towards his score. There are additional bonuses if any player completes a full set of bonus tiles. Specific details on scoring are found in the articles on the scoring of flowers and animals.

Note on terminology
Note that both flower and animal tiles are often referred to as just 花牌 huāpái ('flower tiles') in Chinese usage. This ignores the distinction Singapore Style mahjong makes between the flower tiles and the animal tiles, particularly in the way doubles are assigned and scored for these tiles. In this blog, I use the cover term 'bonus tiles' whenever I want to refer to both flower and animal tiles. A Chinese equivalent could be 积分牌 jīfēnpái (roughly meaning 'bonus point tiles')

Effect of Bonus Tiles on the Singapore Style Game
Singapore Style mahjong uses 12 bonus tiles, which is four more than the other common variants (such as Hong Kong Old Style, which uses eight flowers). With four additional bonus tiles, it becomes slightly easier to draw a bonus tile during the game. The general chance of drawing a bonus tile in the Hong Kong variant is about 5.6%, but it is about 8.1% in the Singapore variant. Moreover, the usefulness of the bonus tile to the player is also different between the variants: in the Hong Kong variant, only 2 out of 8 bonus tiles (25%) are useful to any player; in the Singapore variant, because all the animals are useful, any player can use 6 out of 12 bonus tiles (50%). This changes the way the game is played. In the Singapore variant, the element of luck becomes stronger, and it is easier to obtain high-scoring wins since the chances of getting a useful bonus tile is higher.

In general, the higher number of useful bonus tiles in Singapore Style mahjong has also affected the structure of the game, with changes in the scoring system: the requirement for a minimum of 1 double for winning; the adoption of bao penalties for enabling Limit hands based on exposed bonus tiles and pungs of honour tiles; and special scoring for All Chows (平和 pínghú), depending on the presence of bonus tiles.

Related Posts
Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: Index
Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: Flowers
Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: Animals

Updated at 17:00, 21st August 2011

Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong: Index

2011-08-18T15:00:00.007+08:00

This is the go-to page for all posts under the Rules of Singapore Style Mahjong, and will be updated/edited continuously until all of the planned material is published.

Game Generalities
Bonus Tiles
Scoring
        Payment System
        Doubles
        Base Stake
        Limits
        Unlimited Scoring
Dice
Bonus Tile Replacement
Instant Payouts
        Kongs
        Bonus Tile Pairings
Bao Penalties

Scoring Elements
Common
Flowers
Animals
Pungs of Honour Tiles
All Pungs
All Chows
Mixed Suit
Pure Suit

Special Winning Situations
Winning with the Last Drawn Tile
Winning with Replacement Tiles
Robbing the Kong

Rare Hands Based on Luck
Heavenly Hand
Earthly Hand
Humanly Hand
Flower Win
Winning with a Replacement Tile after Two Consecutive Kongs

Special Hands
Thirteen Orphans (also known as Thirteen Wonders)
Big Three Dragons (also known as Big Three Scholars)
Big Four Winds (also known as Big Four Blessings)
All Honours
All Terminals
All Green
Four Concealed Pungs
All Kongs

Other Scoring Elements
Concealed Hand
Small Three Dragons (also known as Small Three Scholars)
Small Four Winds (also known as Small Four Blessings)
Mixed Terminals and Honours

Endgame
Reserved Tiles (also known as the Dead Wall)
Fresh Tiles and Danger Scenario
Bao Penalties

Updated at 17:40, 21th August 2011

Tournaments and Singapore Style Mahjong Rules

2011-08-17T23:30:00.005+08:00

I had become quite involved in Singapore Style mahjong in the past two years, despite my desire to focus on Mahjong Competition Rules. This is mainly due to my involvement in teaching mahjong at community centres (CCs) and the main variant that most people want to learn and play here in Singapore is naturally Singapore Style.

Besides teaching mahjong, I was also roped in to help out as a referee at mahjong tournaments organised by Nee Soon South Community Club, one of the community centres I usually teach at. (Ever since the relaxation of the prohibition on playing mahjong in CCs (see this past post), many CCs are now organising tournaments for their divisions' residents to participate in, and Nee Soon South CC was no exception.) The task of being the referee necessitated a hard look at the tournament rules that I was supposed to uphold. Of course, I had previously written course materials for teaching mahjong, and I had already prepared quite a bit of material on Singapore Style mahjong, but tournament rules are a different matter altogether. Singapore Style mahjong has no official, standardised set of rules, but it has a common form that many groups of players more or less adhere to. There are, however, many little details that differ from group to group. To come up with a coherent set of tournament rules that has commonality with the form most people in Singapore play with was a difficult task. Even up till now, after almost one year and two tournaments, I am still working on perfecting the tournament rules.

Here, I am starting a series of posts that will describe most, if not all, of the elements of Singapore Style mahjong, from the essential features of Singapore Style and the kinds of scoring elements, to obscure rules and weird situations (and how such situations should be dealt with). Besides describing the various elements of Singapore Style mahjong, I will be analysing each element in depth and give reasoned explanations as to which form these elements should take, especially in a tournament setting. These rules are not meant to be definitive (and variations will be indicated accordingly in the articles), but a main feature would to assess their utility in tournaments. Rules solely for gambling would still be described accordingly, but not recommended. There is no stamp of official approval on these rules, since there is no association or sporting body to govern these local rules of mahjong. This series of articles will be a constantly evolving body of work: I will amend these articles whenever I get new ideas, input and feedback from others, or when I face new situations that give me new perspectives.

I welcome all feedback and comments!

Becoming a Better Technical Player, Part 2

2011-08-16T23:30:00.006+08:00

In the previous post (Becoming a Better Technical Player, Part 1), I had listed what I think are qualities and skills that lead to better technical play in mahjong (recapitulated below).

List of skills/qualities for technical success in Singapore Style mahjong:
1. a good knowledge and understanding of rules and scoring elements;
2. quick decision-making;
3. ability to create and manage flexible hands for optimum tile-matching;
4. a good memory (to recall opponents' tile discards and discard order);
5. knowledge and judgement of when to build high-scoring hands and when to run off with low-scoring hands;
6. ability and willingness to give up hands;
7. knowledge and judgement of which tiles are dangerous to discard.

I had also elaborated on the first three points, which I consider to be rather basic skills that should be developed right from the beginning. Of course, I do not mean only beginners should develop such skills, advanced players should too! Advanced players can re-evaluate themselves to see if they have deficiencies in their game, and start developing skills that they lack.

For this post, which continues from the previous, I will elaborate on the other four points in the list. These four skills are a little more advanced, and generally defence-oriented, and so are not skills beginners would normally be concerned about when they start learning the game. These skills would need to build on more fundamental skills that beginners are still trying to master.

4. A good memory to recall opponents' tile discards and discard order

In some variants of mahjong, such as MCR and riichi majan, players have to discard their tiles by placing them neatly in front of them in rows. This allows their opponents to see clearly which tiles the players did not want, and in the order these unwanted tiles were discarded. For such mahjong variants, there is a clear element of defence, and for riichi majan, there are strict rules about defensive play is rewarded and players with good defensive play are not penalised unnecessarily. In variants of mahjong that do not mandate orderly discards, Singapore Style mahjong being one of these variants, players simply discard their tiles all over the space in the centre of the table, often mixing the tiles as play goes on, to disguise their tracks as they go about building their high-scoring hands. Players would then have to keep track of the discards of their opponents by memorising the tiles and the order they were discarded, and using their deductive skills in tandem with this memorising of the tiles, hoping to fathom the intentions of their opponents.

So, a good memory is required for good play in terms of defence. In fact, a good memory would be useful for keeping track of what tiles each player discards himself! Very often, I have observed beginners discard some tiles, only to draw them again just a turn or two later, and inexplicable start to ponder about the usefulness of the newly drawn tile, even though this same tile was just discarded! Without major, obvious changes in the hands of the opponents, such discarded-and-redrawn tiles do not deserve so much (re)consideration!

I do not think it is necessary to really memorise exactly all the tiles discarded by the different opponents and the order in which they were discarded. Rather, it would be enough to have a general idea of the discard patterns, especially if such discard patterns are notable. For example, a player systematically discarding all his Character tiles then discarding all his Dot tiles would appear to be trying for a Pure or Mixed Suit. Or, a player may suddenly discard three identical tiles from one of the suits, which is rather unusual, and such a player's moves would have to be scrutinised more.

In Singapore Style mahjong, it is difficult to defend against opponents with low-scoring hands, since these hands are usually multi-suited and are usually chow-based, so their discards often do not give many clues. Additionally, low-scoring hands are not very damaging, so players may ignore defence to focus on completing their hands. High-scoring hands, however, require more effort from players. If players are working on high-scoring hands without the benefit of many bonus tiles, their options tend to be limited (it is usually Pure Suit, or Mixed Suit with various pungs of honour tiles) and their melds and discards would be rather telling. Careful players can then make good use of their memory and deductive skills to choose safe discards and not discard winning tiles for these high-scoring hands.

Memorising opponents' discards for the sake of defence is generally considered a more advanced skill, and beginners tend not to develop this skill. To become better at defence, I do think that beginners should learn to at least notice what other opponents are doing, in terms of their discard patterns.

5. Knowledge and judgement of when to build high-scoring hands and when to run off with low-scoring hands

How do mahjong players win against their opponents? If all players are equally matched, and the goal is to make a complete hand as fast as possible (as is the case for a game of basic mahjong without any scoring, known as 推倒和麻将 tuīdǎohú májiàng), it is most likely that every player will win roughly the same number of games, or around 25% of the time. A variant without scoring does not give higher scores to particular ways of winning, and any win is the same, so players would just go for the fastest and most efficient way of winning. But all major variants of mahjong assign different values to different ways of winning, giving different scoring elements different number of points or doubles or fan/han/tai, so players can choose how they want to win their hands. Usually, the more difficult it is to get a scoring element, the higher the score, so it is usually a balance between speed (to complete the hand) and value. Good mahjong players would try to get high-scoring hands and yet try to complete them as fast as possible too.

I have observed some experienced players when they play (Singapore Style mahjong), and I notice they tend to just go for a speedy win, regardless of what kind of tiles they get in the beginning. This is why such players lose in the long run. These players may be experienced and who have played mahjong for a long time. They know the proceedings of the game very well, and play fast and easily. Yet, they lose. Why? They always ignore good starting hands, and just play for a quick win, which is usually low-scoring.

Let me use a scenario to explain and illustrate this. We assume that these players are playing with other equally skilled players, so the winning rate can be assumed to be roughly 25% of the time. In 16 hands, a player only aiming for speedy wins (let us call him Player A) may win 4 hands, and since these speedy wins are low-scoring, Player A may win 16 points (for four 1-double hands on discards, on a 0.5 point base). Compare this to a player who plays shrewdly and capitalises on good starting hands whenever they appear (let us call this player Player B). For the sake of the example, we postulate that Player B may win one 1-double hand and one 5-double hand, on discards. So, Player B would win 76 points, which is much higher than Player A. Player A would in fact be losing over the 16 hands: if every player wins an equal number of time on the same kind of scores, no player actually wins many points; but Player A has to lose at least 16 points to Player B for that 5-double hand, so Player A does lose in the end.

Mahjong is a game with an element of chance: tiles are dealt randomly, and sometimes, a player would get a good starting hand, which has potential to score highly. No player is guaranteed a high-scoring win though (unless it is a Heavenly Hand, 天和 tiānhú), and the player has to be deliberate decisions to work towards a high-scoring hand or complete the hand in a different way but for a lower score. If a player does not develop the judgement of when a high-scoring hand should be aimed for and when it should not, it is unlikely that such a player will become a successful player, since this player will only keep losing to other players who obtain high-scoring wins.

The converse is also necessary: a player must know when to just aim for a low-scoring but quick win. He must be able to assess his hand and determine whether it has a chance to become a higher-scoring hand which may take a while to develop, or to just complete it as soon as possible with a low score, keeping in mind the actions and intentions of his opponents and their potentially high-scoring hands.

6. Ability and willingness to give up hands

This skill is a crucial part of defence. Defence in mahjong is about not letting the opponent win easily, especially for high-scoring hands. For low-scoring hands, it is usually inconsequential if a player does let his opponents win on his discards once in a while. If a player is working on a high-scoring hand, the returns are high if he does succeed with such a hand, and it would be worth the various dangerous discards to opponents who seem to be only working for low-scoring hands. If the player is only working on a low-scoring hand, but his opponent is perceived to be working on a high-scoring hand, then defence is needed instead of obstinate offence.

The start of defence is the ability to perceive danger, and this is carried out in two basic ways: observation of bonus tiles and melds by opponents; and observation and memorising of opponents' discards and tile discard order. The combination of these kinds of information should lead to the player judging whether it would be prudent to continue playing for a win, or to play for a draw instead. The player would need to judge the situation. Sometimes, it would be possible to continue playing for a win, as the player's hand may not contain any dangerous tile. At other times, the player have freshly drawn a dangerous tile that the opponent with the high-scoring hand may want or the player's hand may already contain dangerous tiles which are difficult to get rid of. So, the possible solutions are: to brave the danger and discard the dangerous tile for the opponent, hoping that the tile (and the ones after it) are not wanted for a win; or to give up trying to make a winning hand and keep all the dangerous tiles to prevent the opponent from winning, and hope for a draw.

What the player does in the end really depend on many factors: the potential winning value of his own hand, the potential winning value of his opponent's hand, the cost he would have to pay on discarding the winning tile to the opponent (for example, bao penalties affect the amount of points/money losers have to pay to winners in Singapore Style mahjong), the stage the game is in (it could be early in the game, or close to the endgame, where a draw is in sight), the amount of points the player has (he could be in the lead with a lot of points as buffer, so risky discards are affordable) etc. It would also depends on the player's mentality and playing approach: some players are naturally more prone to risk-taking, others are greedy and ambitious, yet others are cautious and disciplined. All these things would affect the decision-making, and consequently, the kind of defence a player has. For merely good technical skill, it is about the recognition of danger and the acknowledgement that defence through giving up the hand is a good direction to take.

7. Knowledge and judgement of which tiles are dangerous to discard

Besides knowing when an opponent is building a high-scoring hand, and that some tiles are now dangerous to discard, a good player would have to develop a sense of which specific tiles are dangerous. This skill ties in with good knowledge of rules and scoring elements, good memory and good deduction, and knowing when to give up.

High-scoring hands can come about in two basic ways: there are a lot of bonus tiles giving many doubles to the opponent; or the opponent is working very hard with his starting hand to build a high-scoring hand. For the first kind of high-scoring hands (found only in more luck-based variants, like Singapore Style, and not in variants like MCR), it is less easy to know or predict the dangerous tiles. All tiles can be considered dangerous, except tiles discarded by the opponent himself. Therefore, defensive play against such hands are to follow the opponent and discard the same tiles or similar tiles judged to be safe (for example, by using the '1-4-7' rule). Tiles discarded by other players and not taken by the opponent for a win are also considered safe for the turn before the opponent drawns a tile. So, good observation and memory of the tiles discarded are crucial for defence here.

For the second kind of high-scoring hands, where the opponent must work hard to make the high-scoring hand, it is usually more obvious, with the opponent making melds and discarding tiles in identifiable patterns. For Singapore Style mahjong, the number of scoring elements that lead to high scores are is small, so it is easy to predict the direction the opponent is going, so dangerous tiles are easier to identify.

So there, I have taken seven qualities/skills that I think good mahjong players possess (perhaps not all to the same degree), and explained them as best as I could. They are not the be-all and end-all of good mahjong play; I am sure there are many more specific qualities and skills that make players better.

Related Posts
Becoming a Better Technical Player, Part 1

Updated at 01:15, 21st August 2011

Becoming a Better Technical Player, Part 1

2011-08-15T23:30:00.001+08:00

It has really been quite a while since I have updated this blog (this is getting to be a regular bad habit; I promise to change!) and there has been a backlog of things I want to blog about, including my experience at the World Mahjong Championships in Utrecht, the Netherlands, last year. For now, however, I am going to discuss what it takes to do well in Singapore Style mahjong.

When I look at tracker statistics of this blog (not that there are that many people visiting this blog), I do notice that a fair number of visitors were motivated by a desire to play better mahjong (i.e. they use search engines with the search terms "better mahjong" or "mahjong tips" or the like). So far, in this blog, I had not really touched on what makes a good and successful mahjong player or what the best techniques in playing mahjong are. It would be really difficult to accurately articulate the qualities of all good and successful mahjong players, or to list and describe infallible winning techniques and strategies. Yet, I believe that there are some areas that can be discussed, in hope of identifying ideas that help people play better.

A few months back, I did get a query from a visitor to this blog on how to improve his play. Off the top of my head, I wrote back a reply with a list of points that I felt good players should have, and it is this list from that original reply this blog post would be expounding on.

Do note that this list of points for better play is based on Singapore Style mahjong, but most, if not all, points are applicable to all variants of mahjong. More defence-oriented variants like riichi majan would require additional skills that are not covered here, since Singapore Style mahjong is rather less defence-oriented.

List of skills/qualities for technical success in Singapore Style mahjong:
1. a good knowledge and understanding of rules and scoring elements;
2. quick decision-making;
3. ability to create and manage flexible hands for optimum tile-matching;
4. a good memory (to recall opponents' tile discards and discard order);
5. knowledge and judgement of when to build high-scoring hands and when to run off with low-scoring hands;
6. ability and willingness to give up hands;
7. knowledge and judgement of which tiles are dangerous to discard.

I use the term 'technical success' because these points are related to skills that can be acquired through experience and learning. Other traits for success may be personality-based, or be based on more intangible qualities, and these are less technical in nature, so I have not considered these.

Although I did mentioned that these skills can be acquired through learning, I do not mean that these skills can be taught in classes and absorbed immediately by the learners. Players will need to play mahjong regularly to train these skills, sometimes by deliberately experimenting with different strategies. I will explain how each skill can contribute to better playing with reference to examples where applicable.

1. A good knowledge and understanding of rules and scoring elements
In order to excel in the game of mahjong, a player must of course know what kind of game he is playing. He will need to know the ins and outs of the game, all the various rules (even the obscure and arcane ones, if there are such rules present), and the basic strategies for the game.

Some of this knowledge of the rules is to allow the player a consistent framework to build a strong offensive strategy. In Singapore Style mahjong, there are less than ten basic scoring elements, and a limit of 5 doubles. For a player to do well, he would need to score highly, and to do that, he would need to know which of the scoring elements he can use to get high scores. At the same time, with a limit, a player need not go overboard and try for a hand with 8 doubles when 5 will do, especially if it is more difficult and slower to win with the hand with 8 doubles. A good understanding of the rules would therefore enable the player to have a more realistic appreciation of the situation and play better accordingly.

2. Quick decision-making
Mahjong is a fast-moving game. At the table with three other skilled players, the game moves very fast (whether for Singapore Style, riichi majan, or MCR). There is always the pressure to keep up! A player will need to make quick decisions, decisions on which direction to take the hand, which scoring elements to aim for, which tiles to discard and which tiles to keep. The player will need to constantly analyse his hand, as well as those of his opponents, based on the tiles being discarded. The player may have a respite when it comes to his turn, and take a bit more time in thinking through his moves, but when it is not his turn, when his opponents are relentlessly playing fast and discarding tiles without much time spent in deliberate pondering, the player would still have to act fast. "Do I pung this? Do I chow that?" the player has to keep thinking about these questions and make decisions accordingly.

Therefore, quick decision-making is a skill that good players have to cultivate, through a lot of practice and experience. Good players are constantly thinking about everything in the game. In my mahjong classes, I noticed beginners mostly analyse and make decisions only when it is their turn. Unfortunately, this means that they are only using about 25% of the available time to think through moves and in making decisions, not to mention they tend to neglect analysing opponents' hands and motivations. This is a bad habit that continues for many players, and it becomes hard to overcome, so quick decision-making is a skill that should be practised right from the beginning.

3. Ability to create and manage flexible hands for optimum tile-matching
Mahjong is a game that has a definite goal: players must match tiles in their hands to get a complete hand in order to win. Yet, the path to the win is multitudinous, that is, there are many ways to reach that winning point. How is that achieved? Each tile that is drawn into a hand can offer many possibilities, some good, some bad. Some tiles when added to the mix give rise to many better possibilities, others are useless in advancing the hand towards completion. The good player will develop the ability to see combinations of tiles as useful in many ways. Beginners, on the other hand, tend to be very single-minded when looking at the tiles.

Consider the hand below:

When assessing any hand, a player must identify which sets are usable and thus contribute towards the end result (i.e. the complete hand). A beginner may group the tiles into the sets as such:

There are four sets identified, and it is likely that 8c (8 Character) would be discarded soon. So, for example, a 7b (7 Bamboo) is drawn, the beginner will probably proceed to discard 8c.

However, the more experienced and canny player would not discard 8c because he would recognise the utility of 8c. 8c can form part of the fifth set.

Even if 7b is drawn, 8c would not be discarded so readily by the good player. Consider the probability of completing a 5b-7b set against completing a 7c-8c set: 4 chances against 7 chances. If anything, the best discard at this point in time would be 5d!

So, good players can twist their minds and look at their tiles from many angles, to find the utility of their seemingly worthless tiles. Such flexibility can allow faster and more efficient hand-building, which then translates to more wins, and therefore success as a player.

These three skills are rather basic ones, and should be developed right from the beginning. I will touch upon the other four skills in Part 2.

Amazing Mahjong

2010-12-25T23:00:00.003+08:00

A Merry Christmas to all my readers!

I got a pleasant surprise when I was doing my Christmas shopping at the Kinokuniya bookstore at Ngee Ann City here in Singapore. There is a newly published book on Singapore Style mahjong, Amazing Mahjong by Celia Ching, published by Rank Books (a local publisher) in October 2010, and only recently available (around early December) from Kinokuniya. The book (pictured below) can be ordered online, so anyone across the world who wants to know Singapore Style rules in a book now has this option. Anyway, the book is also available in local bookstores like Kinokuniya, and interested mahjong enthusiasts in Singapore may want to look in these places for more convenient purchasing (and instant gratification).

Why am I so excited about the publication of such a book? As a mahjong enthusiast, mahjong teacher, and competitive player, I am always on the lookout for new resources on mahjong. As a Singaporean player of the local variant, i.e. 'Singapore Style', I am keen to see an authoritative guide on Singapore Style rules that all proponents of Singapore Style can rely on. So then, is it any good?

The author had worked in Shanghai, and had starting playing mahjong there, with friends from different countries. Having initially learnt mahjong in Singapore, she learnt Hong Kong Old Style (HKOS), Taiwanese, and Shanghainese mahjong variants from these friends. She had also learnt from reading books on mahjong by Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese authors. She hopes to fill the gaps in the mahjong literature by writing Amazing Mahjong, as there are few up-to-date books on mahjong in English, with information on the (new) Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR), and there is almost nothing on the Singapore Style.

The book is fairly comprehensive in its topics. It covers the basics of mahjong play (focusing on Singapore Style), scoring in Singapore Style (and comparisons with HKOS, Taiwanese, and MCR), payment schemes, penalties, strategy, specific techniques in discard selection, hand formation, calling positions etc., and tips on observing opponents and their hands. There are also some sections on the history of mahjong, the psychological aspect of mahjong playing, and comparison of practices across Asia.

I feel Amazing Mahjong does succeed as a guide on mahjong, especially with Singapore Style rules now properly available for readers to refer to, but fails as an up-to-date book on mahjong, hugely disappointing with regard to MCR. The book is relatively easy to read, there are many illustrations and diagrams in the book to guide the reader, and the sections on strategy and technique are definitely worth digesting. However, I am disappointed in a few areas: organisation and structure of the contents, level of detailedness for mahjong gameplay, choice of terminology, and general factual accuracy (particularly for MCR).

1. Organisation and structure of the contents
Since the book's aim is to bring out the special features of Singapore Style mahjong, I would have expected a focused section on Singapore Style mahjong. The author, however, had opted to structure the materials through the various aspects of the mahjong game, and make mention of the Singapore Style only when necessary. For example, in the section on hand patterns ('Winning Formations' in the author's words), hand patterns from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore variants are all listed, according to how high-scoring these patterns are. Where applicable, the author would state that a pattern would not be recognised in Singapore Style.

For the beginner interested to know all the important patterns used in Singapore Style, there is no easy way to learn such patterns without having to read about the patterns not used in Singapore Style. There is a list in another chapter, actually on MCR patterns, that compares the scoring of MCR patterns against the various Chinese styles (i.e. Singapore Style, HKOS, and Taiwanese). Here, the Singapore Style-specific patterns are clearly identified, but the explanation of such patterns have to be read in the chapter on 'winning formations'.

The rest of the book is equally uneven in its treatment of the various variants. In the chapters on strategy and playing techniques (i.e. on discard selection, taking of chows/pungs/kongs, call positions etc.), the contents are generally applicable to all variants (except MCR in several instances). This is because all the variants mentioned in this book (Singapore Style, HKOS, Taiwanese, Japanese, Shanghainese) are based on the same basic gameplay (unlike American mah-jongg). There are not many parts specific to Singapore Style mahjong.

Since one other aim of the book is to introduce MCR, I also expected a focused section on MCR rules and gameplay. As mentioned above, the author did not section the book into how different variants are played (except for a small chapter on differing practices across Asia), but through the various aspects of mahjong. Again, like for Singapore Style mahjong, the information on how to play MCR is scattered throughout the book, and often, it is not clear whether a particular point is relevant to MCR.

Despite this problem of organisation, there is a lot of good material to be read, and the beginner learning Singapore Style and/or MCR will just have to read through everything and pick out all the important information relevant to his needs.

2. Level of detailedness for mahjong gameplay
For beginners, who this book seems to be aimed at, learning mahjong is often a difficult endeavour, because there are just so many things to learn: recognising the tiles, setting up the tiles for play, the ritual of breaking the wall and taking tiles for play, choosing discards, flow of the game and mechanisms for taking discards, and learning what a winning mahjong hand is. The book has managed to cover most of these areas, but failed to explain exactly what a winning mahjong hand is. There is no explanation of what the structure of the hand is, what kind of sets it should contain, and no clear illustration of the grouping of the tiles into sets that form a winning hand. Interested gamers trying to learn mahjong from this book will definitely stumble at this point.

As a mahjong teacher, I usually cover hand structure in the very beginning, since beginning players need to be able to visualise the end result of the game. Even then, it can be tough for the beginners; after all, there are so many other things to learn just to play the game, much less win it. Without stating the goal of the game of mahjong (other than saying 'winning combination'), the book will confuse the beginner. What is a 'winning combination'? The beginner may think that he needs exactly the same hand as the winning combination shown in the book, and this is what I have encountered with several beginners when they learn MCR (since they have to learn so many patterns, and they think the example patterns are exactly what are called for to win).

So, beginners beware! Learning directly from the book may not be effective. Learning from a teacher combined with immediate hands-on play will probably be the best way to master mahjong.

3. Choice of terminology
Terminology has always been a bugbear for initiates into any field of endeavour. A beginner needs to learn many new terms, just to understand what is being taught. Terminology specific to any science, sport, art, or hobby is inevitable. It creates precision, accuracy, and conciseness in the language used. Terms may be used for very specific purposes. For example, when playing mahjong, calling out 'pung' is very different from 'hu'.

In Amazing Mahjong, I see problems in the choice of terminology in two areas: English terms and Chinese terms. It is definitely a plus point that Chinese terms (usually as Han characters, sometimes accompanied by Mandarin pinyin transliteration without the tone marks) are included. This gives the reader who is conversant with Han characters an idea of what the puzzling English terms may be referring to, even if the Chinese terms themselves are not totally accurate.

The issue I have with the problematic English terms is that these English terms are probably translated afresh, and without reference to established or familiar English terms used by other authors. This makes reading the book a little more difficult, especially for readers who may have read other mahjong books prior to this. Often, these newly coined English terms are puzzling, or they may create confusion where none existed before. Let us take a look at some of the problematic English terms.

Kind, which is used to refer to each different suit of numerical tiles (i.e. 筒 tŏng, 索 suŏ, 万 wàn). Typically, such suits are referred to as 'suits', especially since this draws parallels with the Anglo-American–French playing card suits. Most, if not all, other authors of mahjong books in English have used 'suits'. 'Kind' may be used confusingly in other contexts: e.g. 'three of a kind', which would refer to a triplet, or pung, and not actually three tiles from the same suit. In typical Chinese usage, a suit would be known as a 'colour' (花色 huāsè).

Suit, which is used to refer to a sequence of tiles in the same suit (this 'suit' has a different meaning from the subject here; the author uses kind instead). Other authors usually use 'chow', 'run', or 'sequence'. Note the potential confusion here where suit (the sequence) may be misinterpreted as 'suit' (the kind of numerical tiles).

Great Tri-Union, which refers to a specific hand pattern typically known as the 'Big Three Dragons' or 'Three Great Scholars' (大三元 dàsānyuán). Naturally, I was baffled by this term 'Tri-Union'. It bears no resemblance to the Chinese term (which can be literally translated as the 'Three Great Scholars'). When such a hand pattern is known as 'Big Three Dragons', it is derived from the English term for the dragon tiles (三元牌 sānyuánpái). In typical modern Chinese usage, the dragon tiles are known as 箭牌 (jiànpái), which translates to 'arrow tiles'. Such tiles are referred to as arrow tiles only when used individually, but the hand pattern involving all three sets of arrow tiles is still 大三元 and hence 'Big Three Dragons' or 'Three Great Scholars' are the most appropriate translations. The author uses the term 'arrow tiles' for the dragon tiles when describing the tiles in a mahjong set, but did not maintain consistency with a similar 'Three Big Arrows' (though this does sound odd), and creatively coined something so different.

I did mention some problems with the Chinese terminology as well. The Chinese terminology, though not problematic in the same way as the English terminology's, is not as accurate and standardised as it could be. This is with particular reference to established MCR terminology. For the reader reading only the English, this is not a crucial area of concern. I only have a quibble with the Chinese terminology only because I feel inaccurate usage of the Chinese terminology propagates the errors.

For example, the Chinese literature on mahjong is replete with the characters 胡 'beard/reckless' (or sometimes 湖 'lake') which is used to mean a win in mahjong; this is quite common in Taiwanese and Hong Kong publications, as far as I know. The correct term, seen in the Chinese version of the MCR rulebook, is 和 'union/harmony'. All three are pronounced as hú in the game of mahjong, but 胡 and 湖 were initially used to represent the call (derived from the original [Shanghainese] pronunciation of 和) because they sound phonetically correct, but not so historically, demonstrated by the meanings of the Han characters.

So, the author uses 胡 to mean a win in mahjong, instead of the more correct 和. First, this is surprising, considering she claimed to have been read Chinese and Japanese authors, who are unlikely to use 胡! Second, because the author has used 胡 instead of 和, this means that she has to change all instances of 和 that appear in hand pattern names used in MCR! So, for example, 抢杠和 (Robbing the Kong) becomes 抢杠胡, and 碰碰和 (All Pungs) becomes 碰碰胡; at the same time, there is some inconsistency where 无番和 (Chicken Hand) is left unchanged.

A point unrelated to inaccurate Chinese terminology is the glaring omission of the term 台 tái, a term most probably of Taiwanese origin (they use this term to refer to points during scoring), and very commonly used in Singapore Style mahjong as a substitute for the term 番 fān (which means 'double'). Some 60% of Singaporeans are Hokkien or Teochew, speaking Southern Min languages. When playing mahjong, Singaporean mahjong players of Hokkien or Teochew descent speaking their native Chinese languages almost always use the word 台, pronounced as [tai²⁴] or [t^hai⁵⁵] respectively. They do not use 番 which is used more exclusively by the Cantonese players. Although the Cantonese are rather avid mahjong players, I do not find mahjong playing to be more exclusive to the Cantonese, and there are many mahjong players in Singapore who are not Cantonese and do not speak Cantonese. Hence, the languages spoken are different, and the choice of terms used different as well. After all, the majority of Singaporeans are Hokkien or Teochew, suggesting that the majority of mahjong players would use the term 台 and its associated pronunciations. The omission of a mention of 台 and an explanation of the use of this term misleads the Singaporean reader with regard to the actual practices and realities of Singapore Style mahjong.

4. General factual accuracy
As one of the goals of this book is to introduce MCR in English to mahjong enthusiasts in Singapore and other parts of Asia, it is rather unfortunate that the book is actually rather skimpy on how MCR is played, and there are many factual errors pertaining to the information on MCR.

Let us start with a look at the name for the official variant promulgated in China as used in the book: China National Mahjong Competition (CNMC). It is odd that the author chose to use CNMC, which is different from the commonly accepted name(s) used around the world by enthusiasts of this Chinese official ruleset. In English, this Chinese official ruleset has been known as Chinese Official (CO) since 2001 (the new ruleset being established only after 1998), and in 2006, a definitive rulebook (the 'Green Book') used for international competition 《麻将竞赛规则》 was published. The Chinese title can be and is literally translated as Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR) and it is this name that is commonly used now. Since Amazing Mahjong is just published, it is unfortunate that the author chose to ignore the long-established and standard practice of using MCR to refer to the official ruleset.

Note that CNMC is not particularly wrong, but just inaccurate. This is especially so considering that MCR is meant for international competition, not just as a national standard in China. It may be that there are some Chinese authors of mahjong books who prefer the term 国标麻将 (guóbiāo májiàng, 'national standard mahjong') over 国际麻将 (guójì májiàng, 'international mahjong'), and Ching has followed such a practice. Note the small but crucial difference between the second characters of both terms. Of course, the World Mahjong Organisation itself uses 国际麻将 ('international mahjong') and Mahjong Competition Rules. For the sake of consistency and standardisation, I would follow suit and use MCR myself, and thus also would have preferred Ching to use a term more recognisable to enthusiasts worldwide. It is of little use to introduce MCR to Singaporean readers and mahjong players, only for them to be confused when it comes to searching for additional resources online or when interacting with international players of MCR, all because of a fundamental error in the name.

Besides an incorrect name, Ching also included some other errors in the sections on MCR, some rather fundamental in nature. The most glaring problem, as any experienced MCR player can see, is in the scoring of winning hands and payment scheme. First, the explanation on scoring is basic and does not address the important principles (e.g. the non-repeat principle, and account-once principle). Following that, the author is plainly wrong in her explanation of payment between players. For example, she states that any player who discarded the winning tile has to pay double the points for the winning hand; this error is compounded by the fact she omitted the calculation for the basic 8 points every losing player must pay, so self-drawn wins can be worth less than wins on discards. Hence, if a winning hand on discard was worth 9 points, the winner receives a total of 34 points (discarder pays 18 points [wrong], and other losing players pay 8 points each); for the same hand won on self-drawn, the winner receives a total of 27 points (all losing players play only 9 points [very wrong]). I suspect that either Ching does not have a good working/playing knowledge of MCR or she learnt a casual version from her friends/informants. Either way, these mistakes does a great disservice for the promotion of MCR: beginners are just going to learn the wrong things.

I feel that the information on MCR was poorly researched. There are now more resources on MCR available, and I am sure this is so especially for materials in Chinese. Even if the author has just used and followed the MCR Green Book (either Chinese or English version, both available online), her information would be accurate enough. In her list of the MCR 'winning formations', Ching does not even use the commonly accepted English names of all the scoring elements. Instead, she chose some rather personal translations, some in accordance to terms she uses elsewhere in the book, others based on what she feels are closer to the Chinese meanings. For example, she uses 'Dragon' to refer to a straight (in Chinese, a straight is indeed 龙 lóng, 'dragon'), but 'Two Dragons' to refer to Terminal Chows patterns (in Chinese, the relevant term is 双龙会 shuānglónghuì, better translated as 'meeting of two dragons'). In general, her choices are idiosyncratic, somewhat lacking consistency, unwieldy, and definitely not familiar to well-read mahjong enthusiasts.

One non-MCR error I detected so far is in the description and explanation for Seven Pairs (七对子 qīduìzi). The author states that the equivalent of Seven Pairs is popular in Taiwanese mahjong, and the winning pattern (呖咕呖咕 lìgūlìgū) requires eight and a half pairs since Taiwanese mahjong is a 16-tile variant. This is an error because the winning hand is not actually composed of eight and a half pairs. What is half a pair? Without knowing better, a beginner may think that half a pair can be any single tile. In fact, the winning pattern requires seven pairs and a triplet. The error is probably because of the alternative Chinese name for this scoring pattern in Taiwanese mahjong, 八对半 bāduìbàn, which does translate directly to 'eight and a half pairs'. Although Seven Pairs is a special type of pattern that violates the typical hand structure for winning hands, it is still based on pairs and thus requires 7 pairs in 13-tile mahjong variants. As an equivalent scoring element in 16-tile mahjong, 7 pairs are still required, leaving 3 tiles, which should logically be a 3-tile set (more likely to be a triplet than a sequence) and not another pair and a single tile. The author did not really go into much detail in her explanation of Seven Pairs used in Taiwanese play, but the careless description is misleading enough.

Conclusions
With the errors and omissions, the information on MCR is not very useful. Any serious mahjong enthusiast who wishes to learn MCR would probably be better served reading the MCR Green Book directly (and it is available online). For beginners who wish to learn MCR and need a guide book (and not a rulebook like the MCR Green Book), they can perhaps look for The Red Dragon and the West Wind by Tom Sloper, which has half a book devoted to introducing and explaining MCR, and the book is pitched at beginners.

Amazing Mahjong is still useful as a reference book for the Singapore Style rules, and the strategy and technique sections make it one of the more useful books for more experienced players hoping to improve their skills. Most of the advice and tips on better play are applicable to most variants, save MCR. Why is this so? For MCR, due to a relatively high minimum score and many scoring elements, winning in MCR requires good planning and the ability to craft combinations of scoring elements to meet the requirement for a win. This often precludes a flexibility in tile use, and techniques in discard selection and wait positions applicable to Singapore Style or HKOS are not the same in MCR. So, this book is probably not too useful for enthusiasts hoping to learn techniques to improve their MCR play.

Despite the flaws, the book is still a good resource. Hopefully, some of the problems (especially the factual errors) are corrected for the next edition. So, I would still recommend Amazing Mahjong to those interested in improving their mahjong play.

[Editor: Updated at 22:45, 31st December 2010]

Endgame Penalties and a Problem in Definition

2010-08-07T20:00:00.003+08:00

As you readers may know, this blog is devoted to mahjong in Singapore with a focus on Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR), but there is the occasional post on Singapore Style mahjong. The reason why I am so interested in MCR is that MCR is a mahjong variant that is more skill-based, and less affected by luck. However, there are few players who play MCR in Singapore, and I play 'live' MCR with other players rather infrequently. On the other hand, I get to play Singapore Style mahjong somewhat more often, with some regular opponents.

The problem with Singapore Style mahjong is that there are no standardised rules. There is no national association that has codified and promulgated a set of official rules for Singapore Style, and players here just get by with house rules through common agreement. Unfortunately, that has led to a rather messy situation where many players do not really know some common rules, or just play them rather differently. Also, sometimes, some commonly accepted rules are illogical, or inconsistent with some other rules. This may be due to players mixing and matching rules without really understanding how some of the rules came about in the first place, or whether there is any historical precedents for such rules.

One particular situation had arisen recently when I played with my regular Singapore Style mahjong group. This was a disagreement regarding bao (包 bāo) rules in the endgame. So, anyway, before I go into details about the disagreement, I will first have to explain what these bao rules are. It is a little complicated though, due to the various conflicting house rules.

Bao rules in the Endgame
In the endgame, where very few tiles are left for play, bao rules (specifically bao qing/sheng* rules) come into effect. Bao rules refer to rules that make the discarder loser pay for the other losers as a form of penalty for taking risks in discarding dangerous tiles. This is also known as 'insurance penalties' or 'liability'.

After a player takes a tile leaving seven playable tiles (this excludes the 15 tiles that cannot be used at the replacement end of the wall), the bao qing/bao sheng situation occurs. At this point in the game, with so few tiles left, it is particularly risky to discard tiles to opponents to win on. If all the playable tiles have been drawn and there is no winner, a draw is declared, and a new hand begins. For players with no good chance to win, a draw would be a good result. Hence, for someone to win at this stage, there are bao penalties under certain conditions.

So, when a careless or risk-taking player discards a fresh tile (a tile that has not been discarded before), he is discarding what is known as a qing tile (青 qīng). Fresh tiles are the riskiest tiles to discard because they have not been discarded before, and at the endgame, it is most likely that players would want such fresh tiles to win on. In such a danger scenario, a player who discards a fresh tile to let an opponent win has to pay for the other players, that is to say, he 'covers' (the meaning of bao) for them. The player who takes such a risk, or who makes such a careless mistake, has to take responsibility for the dangerous move of discarding a fresh tile for an opponent to win on.

* Note: Some players refer to fresh tiles as live tiles (the corresponding Chinese character is sheng 生 shēng). The meanings are more or less the same.

Kongs and Wins during the Endgame
The bao qing situation actually covers two separate scenarios: bao gang (包杠 bāogàng), and bao hu (包和 bāohú). Bao gang is a penalty rule for a discarder to pay for all when the discarded tile leads to a kong by an opponent. This rule only operates if the players agree to instant payouts for kongs, which most players would usually do. Bao hu is the penalty rule for letting an opponent win on a fresh tile.

For bao gang, the danger situation begins when there are seven playable tiles left. A player who discards any tile that is taken for a kong will have to pay the bao penalty. For bao hu, the danger situation only begins when there are five playable tiles left (i.e. two tiles after the bao gang situation begins). A player who discards a fresh tile for an opponent to win will have to pay the bao penalty. Both situations will operate through the last five tiles, except the very last tile, since the last tile is never discarded in Singapore Style mahjong.

A slight confusion may arise because there are two competing ways of using the bao rules in the endgame. Some players use the rules in the sequence described above: bao gang when seven tiles are left, and bao hu when five tiles are left. Some other players reverse the sequence of the two bao qing situations: bao hu when seven tiles are left, and bao gang when five tiles are left.

Personally, I prefer the first sequence (bao gang, then bao hu), because it makes more sense to penalise players for discarding tiles for kongs when more tiles are left, because bao gang is a cheaper penalty than bao hu. Players can still afford to take more risks in the initial stages of the endgame (with seven playable tiles left), and less so in the later stages of the endgame (with five or less playable tiles left).

These endgame bao rules are fairly restricted to Singapore Style mahjong. Other variants that have bao rules tend to restrict those only to situations such as Great Three Dragons (大三元), Great Four Winds (大四喜), and Pure Suit (清一色). So, it is not possible to use other variants for comparison when trying to handle these situations. It comes down to mutual agreement on the house rules before playing.

The Disagreement and a Tricky Problem
The whole chunk of text above is merely an explanation of how bao rules work in the endgame. The disagreement I had recently while playing with my regular mahjong group has to do with how fresh tiles are defined.

It was a relatively tough hand, with my friend JN and myself trying for high-scoring hands. JN has a potential five-double hand while my own is a four-double (maybe five-double) hand. So, the hand entered the endgame stage, and I had to make a discard. Out of five tiles left in my hand (the rest had been exposed to make melds), I had three possible tiles to discard, that could keep my hand intact for a win. All three tiles were high-risk tiles, but one less so than the other two. So, I picked the least high-risk (or so I thought) for the discard. To my dismay, it just so happened to be the one tile that JN won on, and that I had to pay for all since it was a bao hu scenario. Of course I argued that it was not really a bao hu, but since JN and another player said it was so (it is a democratic process when it comes to house rule agreements!), I paid up and our game continued.

Later, I discussed this whole issue with JN. Now, JN is a dear friend of mine who has been playing mahjong for as long as I have (and most probably even longer!). We started playing together some eighteen years ago, and are still playing together! Anyway, he has a lot of experience which he honed by playing with his mother, aunts, and neighbours. So, his stance on the issue was based on commonly accepted practice. On my side, I argued that my own commonly accepted practice is different. Of course, I may be wrong, because this particular issue is not commonly encountered. However, I am also partially informed by my knowledge of mahjong theory and practice across various variants.

Back to the disagreement and the issue and problem underlying it. When I was deciding which tile to discard, two of the tiles were totally fresh (no appearance on the table), while the other was less fresh (one of them appeared as part of a chow meld of my hand). To JN, all three tiles are fresh, because they do not appear in the discard pool (牌池 páichí). Tiles are considered fresh even if they have been made use in melded chows and pungs! Of course, this is illogical to me. The very definition of 'fresh' or 'live' tile (青牌, 生牌) is that such a tile had not been discarded (or exposed) before.

Let us look at one such definition (below), from 麻将玩法大全 (Májiang Wánfǎ Dàquán), a compedium and guidebook on mahjong terms, scoring patterns, and rules, published in China in 2007.

生牌：没有亮明，较生疏的牌。
A rough translation: "Live tile: not previously exposed, unfamiliar tile."

A strict definition of 'fresh' or 'live' tile would thus be: a tile that has not been previously discarded. A less strict definition would be: a tile that was not previously exposed (not necessarily discarded). JN's definition is problematic in that the tile could have been previously discarded, but has been used in a melded chow or pung, and disappears from the discard pool, it is considered fresh during the bao hu scenario. This just goes against any general understanding of 'fresh' or 'live', and the definition also suffers from inconsistency (as used generally, and then particularly for the endgame).

Such a problematic definition and subsequent role in the bao rules can lead to logically inconsistent situations. For example, if Player A discards a 9 Bamboo for Player B to make a pung, then in the endgame, Player C discards a 9 Bamboo for Player D to win, Player C is considered liable for the bao hu penalty, despite there being three 9 Bamboo tiles already exposed (of which one was a previous discard!). Or, if Player B draws a 9 Bamboo late in the game and decides to promote his pung of 9 Bamboos into a kong with his fourth 9 Bamboo during the endgame, and Player D wins the tile by Robbing the Kong, the fourth 9 Bamboo is also considered a fresh discard!

Obviously, the definition of 'fresh'/'live' here is problematic when used for the endgame scenarios in Singapore Style mahjong. JN's approach may work as practice (everyone just has to accept it when playing), but raises general problems of what exactly is 'fresh'/'live', and also leads to somewhat bizarre situations. Consider an extreme example: the endgame is underway (say, six playable tiles left), and Player A discards a 1 Character (it has not been exposed prior to this), and Player B takes it for a pung and discards a tile. Immediately after, Player C draws a tile (leaving five playable tiles, triggering the start of the bao hu scenario), which happens to be 1 Character and discards it, which Player B takes for a win! Despite it being the second 1 Character to be discarded in a row (although interrupted by the pung), this tile is considered a fresh tile by JN's definition, and the player who discarded it is liable for the bao penalty. To me, it makes no sense to treat tiles in such situations as fresh!

Which Approach to Take?
I can understand partly why the exposed tiles in melded sets are not considered to be fresh. This has to do with how tiles are discarded in Singapore Style mahjong. Tiles are discarded haphazardly into the discard pool, not discarded orderly into rows in front of each player (as is the practice for Japanese riichi mahjong and MCR). This also means that players do not mark which tiles they take from other players to make melds. So, it is not easy to tell which tiles had been earlier discarded and are therefore no longer fresh.

JN and other players like him use the approach of only looking at tiles within the discard pool and not from the melded sets to determine if any discarded tile is fresh. This results in 'false positives', players who are penalised when they should not be.

I and other players like me use the opposite approach of looking at all exposed tiles, whether within the discard pool or in melded sets, to determine if any discarded tile is fresh. This can result in 'false negatives', players who are not penalised when they should be, depending how 'live' is defined (exposed or only discarded?).

Either way, there is no one definitive answer. Ultimately, in Singapore Style mahjong, the house rules, including the bao rules, have to be agreed on before the playing commences. I can only advocate a more sensible way of dealing with this issue (which this post attempts to address), and choosing the particular definition of 'fresh/'live' and its role in the bao rules.

Animal Tiles and Their Use

2010-02-17T00:45:00.002+08:00

Recently, there was a little discussion on the use of animal bonus tiles in Singapore Style mahjong in the rec.games.mahjong newsgroup.

One poster had asked about how animal bonus tiles were used, and I had responded with what I know about animal bonus tiles. Some of this was described in an earlier post Mahjong, Singapore Style.

To the best of my knowledge, animal tiles (comprising of cat, rat, cockerel, and centipede) are special bonus tiles found predominantly in Singapore Style mahjong. Each animal tile gives the player one double/fan/tai. Additionally, a pairing of either cat and rat or cockerel and centipede (i.e. predator and its prey; this is known as a ‘bite’ or yǎo locally) results in an instant payout. Not every player in Singapore uses the instant payout rules though.

Interestingly, Strauser and Evans [1] describes a different way of using the predator and prey tiles whereby a player exposing a predator tile after its corresponding prey tile has been exposed can capture that prey tile, resulting in two fan for the player exposing the predator tile, and none for the player who earlier exposed the prey tile.

The even more interesting thing was that a fellow poster from Singapore stated that he plays Singapore Style mahjong (with various groups of people) with the use of prey-capturing! This was certainly surprising to me, in a way. I have been trying to survey the rules for Singapore Style mahjong for some years. The previous posts I wrote to describe Singapore Style mahjong are almost two years old! Every Internet source I read did not mention this prey-capturing rule, and I had also never encountered such rules when playing with various groups of people for some twenty years. So, is this rule authentically Singapore Style?

I am not particularly convinced yet, partly because all available documentation (no matter how unofficial, given that Singapore Style mahjong is not a standardised variant of mahjong) had not mentioned this particular way of using animal tiles. For example, the Wikipedia article on Singaporean Mahjong scoring rules does not mention this at all.

Yes, I do believe that there are many groups of people out there in Singapore (and all over the world) playing Singapore Style mahjong that would include variant/house rules. For all I know, this could be one of those variant rules that is quite popular, but for some reason or another, I have yet to encounter it at live play with any group.

I would appreciate any leads on this from you readers out there! Send me a comment if you do play with this rule in Singapore Style mahjong.

Notes:
1. Kitty Strauser and Lucille Evans, 1964, “Mah Jong, Anyone? A Manual of Modern Play”, Tuttle Publishing. A more up-to-date and revised version with additional material by Tom Sloper was published in 2006 as “Mah Jong, Anyone?: A Manual of Western Play”.

Mind Games in the News

2010-02-16T23:45:00.003+08:00

It has been a while since I updated this blog and I really apologise for the long absence!

Previously, I had wrote about Mahjong and Mental Wellness as well as Mahjong Classes in Singapore, all because the People's Association (PA) was interested in promoting mental wellness by initiating courses in mind games such as mahjong.

Due to my work with the PA, I did a little interview with 938LIVE (the former NewsRadio 938) on the topic of mind games, where I contributed some of my views. This was quite a while back, in October 2009!

Essentially, the news article sought to bring together the views of mind game players like myself and a medical practitioner (from the Institute of Mental Health) on mind games and their supposed benefits.

You can read the news article Brain-stimulating activities keep dementia at bay or hear the podcast version (Mind Games in mp3 format).

Mahjong and Mental Wellness

2009-12-01T23:45:00.274+08:00

In an earlier post, I had written about the new mahjong courses being offered by the People's Association (PA). Actually, I had not fully explained why mahjong is now part of the many courses available in the community clubs and centres (CCs) under the PA. The PA has put together a programme of workshops, courses, and talks under the theme of 'Wellness for Everyone' (see the PA media advisory, designed around on three 'wellness pillars': Eating Well, Being Active, and Thinking Positive). So, under the area of mental wellness, mahjong is one of the intellectual games where courses are being offered (the other games include contract bridge, weiqi, Scrabble, Othello, and Sudoku).

For this collaboration with the PA in offering mahjong courses, I had to do a little research on how to sell the benefits of mahjong. After all, the mahjong courses are offered under a wellness-themed programme, so the connection has to be wellness-related, and I would have to rely on this to convince the CCs to engage me to conduct the courses. I had long been interested in the research on mahjong and its presumed benefits. After all, we have been hearing about how mahjong can help prevent dementia in the elderly (a somewhat poorly qualified claim due to simplification of language). So, are such claims true? Well, with this question in mind, I looked for research articles dealing with this issue.

What I found was interesting: mahjong does seem to have some benefits in the prevention of dementia in the elderly. However, the findings of such research are rather complex. The playing of mahjong belongs to a class of leisure activities known as cognitive activities (including reading, playing musical instruments, painting, etc.); there are other classes of activities studied, namely physical activities and social activities. In general, participation in cognitive leisure activities, and not physical activities, is shown to be associated with a reduced risk of dementia [1]. However, a causal relationship cannot be easily determined due to the nature of the studies. That is to say, it is not possible to say whether participation in such cognitive activities lead to a lower incidence of dementia or participants who do not get dementia prefer to participate in cognitive activities such as the playing of board games.

Studies of leisure activities and dementia in the elderly usually use the playing of board or card games as a particular activity, with no single game specified. A study done on a large group of elderly Chinese in Chongqing, China, did show that specific cognitive activities (playing board games and reading) were associated with a reduced risk of cognitive impairment (i.e. dementia) [2]. For the board game component, it was recognised that mahjong is responsible for the bulk of the experimental score, and the majority of participants played it. Again, the problem in establishing the causal relationship is encountered here, but this Chinese study showed clearly that mahjong does have a connection in a reduced risk of dementia.

A different kind of study was conducted in Hong Kong, to explore the effect of mahjong as therapy for people with dementia [3]. The researchers got senior citizens in nursing homes to play either two or four times a week for sixteen weeks. They found this activity to produce improvements in all cognitive tests used. Interestingly, the effects lasted even after the mahjong therapy has stopped for a month.
Now, research on dementia and the prevention of dementia is still ongoing, and there are no firm conclusions as yet on the whys and hows of dementia, much less on the curing or prevention of dementia. We do have some indications of what may seem to help prevent dementia. Mahjong and other board games (or intellectual games) are just a part of these possible methods of preventing dementia.

So, playing mahjong is a good activity for mental wellness. The benefits of mahjong are real, as can be seen from research. I know some people may think, 'But why promote mahjong in particular? Why not other intellectual games?', a response prompted by the unsavoury reputation mahjong has, due to a long-time association with gambling. To this line of thinking, I can only offer this: other games are indeed being offered too at CCs, and mahjong is not being promoted at the expense of the other games. Rather, it is the familiarity of mahjong that would probably appeal to people (in Singapore, at least). There is a particular relevant quote by Mr Lim Boon Heng, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and deputy chairman of the PA: 'if there are things they are naturally interested in, and if we can use them, why not? In our context, mahjong is one of those things' with reference to stimulating senior citizens' mental activity (see the context of the quote in this archived ST article in PDF format). [The concern about gambling is somewhat unjustified and deserves some discussion, but that is another subject matter for another post.]

Notes:
1. Joe Verghese et al., 2003, Leisure activities and the risk of dementia in the elderly, New England Journal of Medicine, 348: 2508–2516.
2. J.Y.J. Wang et al., 2006, Leisure activity and risk of cognitive impairment: the Chongqing aging study, Neurology, 66: 911–913.
3. Cheng Sheung-Tak et al., 2003, An exploratory study of the effect of mahjong on the cognitive functioning of persons with dementia, International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 21: 611–617.

Mahjong Classes in Singapore

2009-11-20T02:00:00.042+08:00

The landscape of mahjong in Singapore is changing with some recent developments. The People's Association (PA) is leading the charge in bringing mahjong to the masses (see CNA report on mahjong classes offered by the PA). For some time, community centres and clubs (CCs) under the PA have been reluctant to allow the playing of mahjong on their premises, because of a law against gambling in public, and because of objections by residents on the basis that allowing mahjong on CC premises is tacit approval of gambling (see a 2008 Straits Times report on the CCs' view on mahjong). Of course, this had changed somewhat, and the rule against playing of mahjong on CC premises has in fact been relaxed sometime earlier last year. Still, few CCs want to risk running into trouble with the law and would rather not have mahjong at all. This is despite some benefits of mahjong for the general community, particularly in the form of good exercise for the brain, with special respect to combating dementia in the aged.

All that said, there are some developments nonetheless. As the first report by CNA had reported, there are mahjong courses being offered in selected CCs now. All this had been initiated by staff from the PA. Community centres and clubs offer all sorts of classes and courses for the public, and there has been a recent effort to expand the courses for mind sports, and mahjong has been added to this list of mind sports (which also includes games like chess, xiangqi, weiqi/go, contract bridge, and scrabble etc.). This is not surprising. No one can deny that mahjong is an intellectual game where some element of skill is required. Without the motivation of gambling, mahjong can still be played and enjoyed. Mahjong is also a very familiar game to Singaporeans. Most, if not all, of the local Chinese have seen this game being played, and know people who play it. Members of the other ethnic groups here know about it to some extent. Mahjong is played at void decks during Chinese funeral wakes, in holiday chalets during school vacations, and at homes during the Chinese New Year. The familiarity of mahjong to Singaporeans is probably an important factor in promoting it as a mental game for active ageing (one of the PA's social campaigns).

So, mahjong can be played as a game for active ageing, to improve cognitive skills and combat dementia, and for socialising, all of which are very desirable ends as far as the PA is concerned. So, mahjong classes are now officially being offered by the CCs which are more willing to allow mahjong playing on their premises. The first two courses (with sixteen vacancies each) have certainly been popular enough that all places were taken, and more courses are being offered now.

Where am I leading you readers in all of this? Well, besides informing you of the developments that are taking place in Singapore, I am also taking the opportunity to announce that I am one of the two current trainers involved in these new mahjong courses! This very blog had attracted the attention of some PA staff, and I had been in discussions with the PA to design and offer some mahjong courses for the Singaporean public. But the current courses being run now are by the other trainer (they take the form of a series of four 1.5-hour lessons) while my proposed courses are one-session workshops of three hours in three areas: basic mahjong (for total beginners); Singapore Style; and Mahjong Competition Rules. You can search for the details of the various courses on the onePA website.

As this blog shows, I am a mahjong enthusiast interested in the recently developed Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR) and in competitions utilising these rules. Therefore, I am taking this opportunity to introduce it to more Singaporeans through the proposed workshop on MCR and to build up a player base for MCR. There could be MCR tournaments here once there are enough players willing to play competitively. So, hopefully, there will be participants for this workshop.

So, there are now opportunities to learn how to play mahjong in a more structured way here in Singapore. And no, we are not teaching participants how to cheat or do fancy tricks in our courses! Participants will learn how to play mahjong as an enjoyable and rewarding intellectual game. Do check out and participate in the courses if you are interested!

Drama in the Mahjong Time–EMA Saga

2009-11-11T00:45:00.003+08:00

The whole Mahjong Time saga is turning out to be quite dramatic. In a report that was deleted just hours after being published by Mahjong News, the two main actors in this little turbulent episode, President of Mahjong Time, Slava Novozhenya, and President of the European Mahjong Association (EMA) and the Dutch Mahjong Association, Robert Rijnders, claimed that the breakdown in communication between the two presidents because of unhappiness over inappropriate responses (to work proposals and correspondence) led to the unfortunate cancellation of partnerships between Mahjong Time and the EMA. It was earlier speculated that Mahjong Time may be in some form of trouble, perhaps financial (see Mahjong News' earlier report). But Mr. Novozhenya insists that Mahjong Time is not having financial problems in an official response (see Comment 8 under the Mahjong News' article MahjongTime does a lot more than just making money). The original report was deleted for reasons explained in a replacement article.

Well, it does seem that this saga may just be a small hiccup for the developing international mahjong scene. If what Mr. Novozhenya says is true, then perhaps international online tournaments for MCR will continue. With the bad blood between Mahjong Time and EMA now, however, there will be some uncertainty with regard to the status of tournaments being hosted by Mahjong Time, the only online mahjong platform suitable for tournament play.

For now, there is an unofficial European ranking for online tournaments, following the successful alternative German Mahjong Open that was organised in place of the official one cancelled by Mahjong Time "for technical reasons". An emerging view is that such do-it-yourself tournaments may be the way to go, but these are only possible on gaming platforms that have features that allow for DIY tournaments, which is apparently only Mahjong Time, ironically.

It does seem that we still have to adopt a wait-and-see approach for now, to see how all the various parties resolve these problems. It could be that there will be no more proper online tournaments; or if there will still be such tournaments, they may be hosted by other platforms (for example, the new Mahjong Logic), or they may be small-scale and organised with sanction and without technical assistance from a host gaming platform, such as the just-concluded alternative German Mahjong Open was.

[Editor: Updated at 03:30, 11th November 2009]

Mahjong Time in Trouble?

2009-11-07T23:30:00.004+08:00

The world's only online portal for MCR mahjong, Mahjong Time, seems to be in trouble (see Mahjong News' report). The Second German Mahjong Open (GMO), an online tournament that was to be hosted by Mahjong Time was cancelled just two days ago, before its scheduled occurrence this weekend. This was supposedly due to technical difficulties on Mahjong Time's side. This has led the European Mahjong Association (EMA), the Dutch Mahjong Association, and the German national mahjong association DJML to cancel their partnerships with Mahjong Time, although this cancellation is not the main cause, but the final straw that broke the camel's back. Apparently, EMA and the other mahjong organisations were disappointed by Mahjong Time's inability to keep promises.

Many regular players and registered participants for the GMO tournament were left disappointed, although an alternative tournament is being organised by Janco Onnink, a Dutch player who was supposed to play in the cancelled GMO. Since EMA cancelled its partnership with Mahjong Time, this probably means there will not be any sanctioned online tournaments for the time being, not with Mahjong Time. So, there will be fewer chances for players around the world to participate in MCR tournaments (albeit the online ones).

More troubling is the implication that Mahjong Time may be in some sort of trouble, perhaps financial. This raises a question of whether online mahjong play is profitable for companies like Mahjong Time. If not, does this mean that online MCR play may come to an end? There are many portals offering online mahjong play but none offer the MCR variant in English, a crucial element in allowing international participation. There will be alternatives and solutions eventually though; already, there is a new mahjong software (offering MCR as one of the variants) developed by Mahjong Logic that would be licensed out to a few portals once some legal requirements are cleared. The question is whether Mahjong Logic will be able to take over the role of Mahjong Time, at least in the minds of the faithful users of Mahjong Time.

I had introduced Mahjong Time to several friends in my semi-regular play group as an alternative to live MCR play (something that is quite difficult to achieve these days, with all our conflicting schedules). AJ and JT were particularly keen to play more on Mahjong Time. I wonder how this development would affect all of us. Hopefully, Mahjong Time will resolve its problems.

Blog Update

2009-07-03T23:30:00.005+08:00

It has been quite a while since my last post — some sixteen months in fact! I am guilty of being too busy with too many things in my life, thus leading to the neglect of this blog. Mahjong, however, does remain an important and essential part: I continue to play mahjong, if infrequently, and continue to keep track of mahjong news (for example, the Mahjong News website is a good source of news on developments in Europe!). However, I just have not kept up with the blogging.

Now, I am trying to make more time for this blog just so this blog does not die a long, slow death by neglect! I will not be able to blog much on my Mahjong Competition Rules play sessions, since I rarely get to play mahjong with my MCR group. However, to make up for lack of opportunities to play MCR with people in the flesh, I have been spending a little bit more time on MahjongTime. Yes, I got myself a subscription! So, more online mahjong, less "real-life" mahjong. I will have to be content with that, as long as there is mahjong for me to play!

So, what is in store for this blog then, for the future? I will continue to post my thoughts on mahjong in general, with little bits of history, culture, analysis and other things thrown in. If I get to play some proper MCR games with my MCR group, I might also post some interesting titbits gleaned from these sessions.

Online MCR Tournaments

2008-03-09T18:00:00.004+08:00

With my MCR (Mahjong Competition Rules) group failing miserably to play regularly (or rather, it is really half-dead), my thoughts turn to whether online play would be a more sustainable way of playing MCR mahjong in a place like Singapore where it is really difficult to find interested players (whether for casual fun or for competition).

There are several online mahjong servers, but few offer MCR, most notably Mahjong Time. Mahjong Time has teamed up with the European Mahjong Association (EMA) to offer online tournaments, such as the Open European Mahjong Championship–Online (OEMC-Online) and several national online championships such as the recent Online Hungarian Mahjong Championship (OHMC). Incidentally, Mahjong Time is also teaming up with World Mahjong Limited to bring the US$1,000,000 World Series of Mahjong (WSoM) online, offering the Zung Jung ruleset to online players and organising some online qualifying events for the finals in Macau in September this year.

Online mahjong may not have the atmosphere and authentic feel that some mahjong players like, but it does offer the convenience of playing whenever one feels like playing, without having to find three other players for a game. Moreover, it offers the intrepid mahjong player a chance to play variants not usually played with friends. It is thus the case with MCR mahjong. In Singapore, it is not a common variant, with most Singaporeans playing Singapore Style, or less commonly, Hong Kong Old Style, Taiwanese mahjong, or Malaysian mahjong. Since MCR mahjong has so many patterns to learn, it is also daunting for beginners. It would come as no surprise that the take-up rate is probably quite low. Online mahjong may perhaps then offer interested players a chance to learn, play, and advance in skill, variants not common in their home regions.

As I looked at the recent reports on OHMC [1], I was surprised to find ranked third in the tournament, a Singaporean player! No doubt, there are Singaporean players interested in playing MCR mahjong. However, since it would be difficult to find like-minded players to play face-to-face/offline games, online mahjong is a solution. This is probably the same for fans of other mahjong variants, most notably riichi maajan. There are at least two well-known Japanese servers providing quality online riichi maajan: Ron2 and Tenhou.

Singaporeans are not the only ones not able to find opponents and friends to play in face-to-face environments. The winner of OHMC, JulJul (her online moniker), also could not find friends to play 'real' games with her, and she had to turn to the Internet, since MCR mahjong is not commonly played in the United States. One participant of OHMC is from India, a country where mahjong is probably not very common either, much less the MCR variant!

Considering this, I am most tempted to give Mahjong Time a try, especially with regard to the online tournaments! If I am not able to compete in real offline tournaments, at least I could try competing in online ones. The pioneering success of my Singaporean compatriot is certainly inspiring!

Notes:
1. Mahjong News had a brief report on the results of the online tournament, as well as an interview with the OHMC champion. The Online Ranking System (MORSE) on the same website revealed the nationalities of the participants of the online tournaments organised so far.

Singapore Style Mahjong: Pinghu

2008-03-02T23:00:00.009+08:00

I had earlier discussed some features of Singapore Style mahjong in the previous post Mahjong, Singapore Style, namely, the use of animal tiles and immediate payouts in some situations. A third feature I consider to be important in Singapore Style mahjong is the pinghu hand (平和 Mandarin: pínghú, Cantonese: pengwoo, Japanese: pinfu). This pinghu hand is somewhat different from pinghu hands in other variants, such as Japanese riichi maajan and Cantonese/Hong Kong Old Style mahjong (HKOS), and this feature of Singapore Style mahjong will be discussed in some detail in this post, with reference to the other variants, and with some speculation on the development of this hand.

This hand is a difficult hand to learn for beginners to Singapore Style mahjong, despite its usefulness in the Singaporean game. The English name of All Sequences, or All Chows, suggests all that is needed to complete this hand is complete of four three-tile sequences and a matching pair. However, this is not the case, and the English name is just a convenient term to describe the general application of this hand. There are certain conditions required before the hand can counted as a pinghu hand in Singapore Style mahjong.

Making a pinghu hand in Singapore Style mahjong
Basically, the hand is composed of four three-tile sets of sequences or runs (顺子 Mandarin: shùnzĭ). Such sequences can be exposed or concealed; there is no requirement to have all sequences concealed like in Japanese riichi maajan. In order to declare a win with the pinghu hand, there are two main conditions: the hand has to have a multiple wait, and the eyes have to be tiles that are not a potential double.

The multiple wait refers to the number of different tiles that the hand is waiting for. This multiple wait has to be for tiles from the same suit, and can only be for two or three different tiles due to the nature of this hand. If the hand is only waiting for a unique tile (that is, only one tile can complete the hand, whether this is a closed wait, an edge wait, or a single wait), and the player wins on a discard, the hand would not be counted as pinghu. The exception to this is if the winning tile is self-drawn. However, this is not applicable to a situation where the player has a hand where he had melded four sequences leaving a concealed single tile, since this clearly does not allow a multiple wait. The reason why a player can win a self-drawn pinghu when waiting for a single tile, and not when he has only one tile left in the concealed portion of his hand, is that there are no specific rules about checking the winning tile, to see if it completes a unique wait or a multiple wait.

The eyes are the remaining pair in the hand, and have to be tiles that are not potential doubles. If these tiles can be melded as a pung, this pung should not give the player a double; this typically means that among the Honour tiles, only tiles of winds that are not the seat wind or the round wind can be used as the eyes in the pinghu hand.

Given that the pinghu hand has to be completed in a particular way, players of Singapore Style mahjong have to learn the rules correctly, although many beginners do not learn the pinghu hand correctly. These players are then most like to commit fouls when playing, a supposed one-double pinghu hand turning out to be a no-double chicken hand (the Singaporean game is usually played with a one-double minimum for winning), often an expensive mistake since the errant player has to pay the other players as a penalty.

Origin of the Singapore Style pinghu (with some speculation)
The pinghu hand is not simply a hand that has four sequences and any pair. There are certain conditions required while making the hand for it to be considered as pinghu and not any chicken hand. The Chinese term for this hand, 平和 (Mandarin: pínghé but usually pronounced as pínghú; literally a "flat or even" win), seems to indicate that this hand is very ordinary and has no value. This may seem strange to Singaporean players since the pinghu hand is worth at least one double in Singapore Style mahjong! However, we have to look at the history of mahjong development.

The style of play which predominated at the turn of the 20th century is known as Chinese Classical, and the point-scoring is more complicated than in most modern variants. Essentially, points were awarded pungs, kongs and bonus tiles (flowers etc.) as well as to pairs of certain tiles, as well as for declaring a win, or winning with a unique wait, and this counts as the basic score. Doubles are used to progressively multiply the basic score to obtain the final score. Riichi maajan retains this scoring of basic points (fu in riichi maajan) to some extent whereas variants such as HKOS and Singapore Style removed the need for such point-scoring, keeping only the doubling.

Thus, in Chinese Classical mahjong, a 'No-Score' hand can score one double for pinghu. This hand does not have any pungs or kongs, or pairs that can score basic points. This can be viewed as some form of consolation, since there are hardly any basic points to double (except for points scored for winning, and for points for bonus tiles, and a few other situations), unlike hands with pungs and kongs. The pinghu hand in Singapore Style mahjong can be analysed as a development of this Chinese Classical pinghu hand. This is the reason why the eyes cannot have tiles that are a potential double, since in Chinese Classical, such pairs (of tiles such as Dragons, Round Wind, and/or Seat Wind) score basic points.

Why the hand has to have a multiple wait is more of a mystery. According to Millington's description [1], his pinghu hand allows single waits ("filling the only place"). Of course, this may not be a standardised way to play a pinghu hand. Perhaps some players have a different view of what 'no-score' means, and this could mean points for 'filling the only place' should have been excluded as well and players therefore did not allow single waits for pinghu. In riichi maajan, this is taken even further: the winning tile cannot be for completing a pair, even if there is a multiple wait. Thus, in a sequence of 1d-2d-3d-4d, 1d and 4d can be valid waits for Singapore Style pinghu, but not for riichi maajan, as this counted as a single wait (nobetan "stretched single"). Completing the pair ("fishing the eyes") does earn some basic points according to Millington, and is considered a different situation from 'filling the only place'. The Singapore Style pinghu hand is likely to be a development from Chinese Classical, but in a way that is not exactly faithful to Millington's version.

Interestingly, the Singapore Style pinghu hand differs from other pinghu hands. In Chinese Classical mahjong, the pinghu hand is awarded one double. The pinghu hand is also awarded one double in riichi maajan and in HKOS. The Singapore Style pinghu scores one double only if the player has bonus tiles, and four if there are no bonus tiles (both flowers and animals). Given that the usual limit in Singapore Style mahjong is five doubles, a four-double pinghu hand is thus quite high-scoring. However, it is usually not easy to win a pinghu hand without drawing a bonus tile, and since there are twelve such bonus tiles in Singapore Style mahjong, the chances of drawing a bonus tile are higher.

As the structure of the pinghu hand in modern play has some precedents in Chinese Classical mahjong, the scoring for pinghu in Singapore Style mahjong could perhaps be attributed to the 'no-score' principle as well. The 'no-score' of the pinghu hand in Chinese Classical only encompasses points for pungs, kongs, and pairs of certain tiles; points for self-draw, "filling the only place", "fishing the eyes", "drawing the final tile", and bonus tiles, are allowed. The pinghu in Singapore Style mahjong seems to have gone one extra step: disallowing bonus tiles, thus reducing the basic points (that would have been counted in Chinese Classical), and in turn allow this hand to score more doubles.

Four-double pinghu and its consequence on play
The pinghu hand is generally easy to make, and a pinghu-based strategy is rather viable in Singapore Style mahjong. Players usually assess their hands at the start, to see if their hands has a good chance for a four-double pinghu, provided they do not already have drawn bonus tiles. If they did not draw any bonus tiles, and quite a few have already been exposed by the other players, they have a good chance at completing the pinghu without any bonus tiles. Once such a decision is made, players may break up pairs of Honour tiles with potential for doubles (such as Dragon tiles) and give up the chance to obtain doubles through making pungs of such tiles, since there is a more valuable hand if they pursue the four-double pinghu.

Even if they did draw a bonus tile, there is a good chance that the bonus tile carries some double (one-third of bonus tiles are animal tiles, which are worth one double for any player). This is why pinghu hands are quite common in the Singaporean game.

Players pursuing four-double pinghu are considered dangerous, and players sitting above them may play defensively, by discarding carefully to prevent chows (there is no restriction of exposed chows in Singapore Style, unlike in Japanese riichi maajan), that is, until the four-double pinghu player draws a bonus tile which reduces the danger immediately (a four-double hand to a one- or two-double hand).

The pinghu hand can be seen as a basic hand, yet it is one of the more difficult hands to learn for beginners. In the typical Singaporean game, where there is a one-double minimum for winning, the pinghu hand is commonly used to obtain the minimum, especially for players who dislike to depend on luck to obtain doubles through drawing bonus tiles. Moreover, the high score of pinghu when a player has no bonus tiles is an incentive to attempt this hand, despite the possibility of drawing a bonus tile later in the game that will reduce the score.

I hope that I have thrown some light on the pinghu hand in the context of Singapore Style mahjong through this discussion. Does this pique your interest in Singapore Style mahjong?

Notes:
1. A.D. Millington, 1993, The Complete Book of Mah-Jongg, Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Mahjong, Singapore Style

2008-02-24T22:15:00.004+08:00

For the past few months, I have not been able to organise MCR mahjong sessions due to the lack of available players. Yes, the player pool is small. Still, I managed to play some mahjong during the Chinese New Year, albeit in the Singapore Style. So, this presents me an opportunity to write a little about the Singapore variant of mahjong.

There are many varieties of mahjong in Asia, each with their own local flavours and developments. Singapore, despite being a small city-state, has its own variety. There are enough techno-savvy mahjong enthusiasts of Singapore-styled mahjong to have a Wikipedia article on its scoring, Singaporean Mahjong scoring rules! Despite being quite similar to Hong Kong Old Style (HKOS) mahjong (also known as Cantonese mahjong), Singapore Style mahjong has some salient differences: the use of four animal tiles; immediate payouts for kongs, flower/animals tile pairings and some special limit hands; and a high-scoring All Chows (All Sequences) hand. There are some other differences, but these are minor details. However, since there is no central authority governing the rules of Singapore Style mahjong, some of these features discussed here may not actually be played by some groups who profess to play Singapore Style mahjong, and these groups may include rules more consistent with HKOS mahjong.

Animal Tiles
People observing a game of Singapore Style mahjong would be immediately struck by the presence of the animal tiles. These animal tiles are the cat (猫 māo), rat (老鼠 láoshŭ), cockerel (公鸡 gōngjī), and centipede (蜈蚣 wúgōng). Animal tiles are used in the same way as flower and season tiles, that is, as bonus tiles. Each animal tile obtained counts as a tai (台 Mandarin: tái) [1], and a set of all four counts as five tai, with each animal tile counting as one tai and one bonus tai given for having a full set of bonus tiles. This means that it is easy to get tai (doubles) in the Singapore variant. Often, players with poor hands and no doubles in sight would hope to obtain an animal tile, and thus able to win, albeit with a minimal score.

The animal tiles are divided into prey (rat and centipede), and predators (cat and cockerel). The situation when a prey tile and its corresponding predator tile comes together is called a bite or biting (咬 Mandarin: yăo, Hokkien POJ: kā, 'to bite'). If a player obtains a corresponding pair of prey and predator, he can collect some payment from all the other players. Strauser and Evans (1964) [2] describes a different way of using animal tiles — players with predator tiles can capture prey tiles exposed by other players. This rule as described by Strauser and Evans is not used in Singapore Style mahjong.

Immediate Payouts
Singapore Style mahjong, like many other mahjong variants, is used for small-stakes gambling, and there are immediate payouts for some situations when they occur in the game. These situations include special combination of bonus tiles (such as flower pairings, animal bitings, bonus tile kongs), kongs of suit and honour tiles, and some special limit hands. Players need not win a hand in order to collect payment, and depending on the stakes decided at the table/house, such payouts can be more profitable than hands with low scores (i.e. few tai/doubles). Typically, immediate payouts for pairings/bites/kongs is set at 2× the rate of one tai.

Singapore Style mahjong usually use flower tiles in two sets. Usually, this is depicted by numbers in two colours (red and blue) or as words (the Four Noble Plants, 梅兰菊竹 méi lán jú zhú; and the Four Seasons, 春夏秋冬 chūn xià qiū dōng), often with both numbers (one set in Arabic numerals, the other in Chinese characters) and the words for the flowers and seasons. Each player will have flower tiles corresponding to his seat. A player obtaining both is said to get a flower pairing. This is colloquially known as kau'in (from Malay kahwin 'wedding'); sometimes, players say yao or ka ('bite' in Mandarin and Hokkien respectively) instead, following the practice for animal tiles.

For animal tiles, bites occur when a player obtains a corresponding pair of prey and predator (explained above).

Kongs are situations when a player obtains four of a kind, whether for normal suit and honour tiles, or for bonus tiles. Thus a player can get payment for collecting all four tiles of a flower or animal set, in addition to the bonus double for such a lucky feat.

All flower pairings, bites, and kongs can come as exposed or concealed. The payment earned for a concealed pairing/bite/kong is double that for an exposed one. Flower pairings and bites are considered concealed when a player obtains such tile combinations in his starting hand, before any replacement of tiles; and considered exposed in all other situations. Flower and animal kongs are always considered concealed, since it is statistically difficult to obtain all four in the set in a starting hand.

Besides bonus tile combinations and kongs, there are two situations where immediate payment occurs: for the special limit hands of Big Three Dragons (大三元 dà sān yuán, often translated as Three Great Scholars) and Big Four Winds (大四喜 dà sì xĭ, often translated as Four Great Blessings).

Any player obtaining the triplet combinations defining these two special hands can declare a win, which is scores the limit (usually set at five or six doubles), without having to have the rest of the hand complete. The uncompleted portion has to be kept concealed though, since there is an option to complete the hand for a higher-scoring win (provided the players agree to play above the set limit of five or six doubles). Although this is a common rule, it is by no means universally applied in Singapore, and some players prefer that the hand is completed in order to claim the win.

The Dead Wall
Besides the use of the animal tiles, immediate payouts, and the special All Chows hand (more on this in another post), there are some other differences in the details of the rules of the gameplay. One such difference is the number of tiles in the dead wall.

The dead wall is the portion of the walls where replacements for kongs and bonus tiles are obtained. In the Chinese Classical rules, exactly sixteen tiles is counted and separate from the live wall. This dead wall is not replenishable, and used only for replacement of kongs. However, in HKOS mahjong and Singapore Style mahjong, the dead wall is replenished whenever a player draws replacement tiles after declaring flowers and kongs, such that a certain number of tiles is kept in the dead wall. For HKOS, there are fourteen tiles in the dead wall, but for Singapore Style, there are fifteen tiles (seven and a half stacks) in the dead wall.

The one extra tile in the dead wall for Singapore Style mahjong could be attributed to the inclusion of the four animal tiles, which are not found in HKOS. Thus, an increased number of playable tiles could have led to a larger dead wall, to keep the random and surprise factor more proportionate.

Do note that the actual rationale for the dead wall in the original game is not known at all, and the mahjong variants found today have different number of tiles in the dead wall (if the dead wall is played). As mentioned earlier, in Chinese Classical mahjong, exactly sixteen tiles are reserved for kong replacements only, which is the total possible number of kongs in a hand of mahjong (four per player), rare but possible! In Japanese riichi maajan, fourteen tiles are set aside for the dead wall, but there are no flowers to replace, and there is no replenishment of tiles. Moreover, only four kongs per hand are allowed, which results in a draw unless the four kongs are made by the same player. (Edit: There is indeed replenishment of the dead wall after kongs are made! Many thanks to Tina Christensen for the correction.) In other variants, there is no dead wall, and play continues until all the tiles have been drawn. The variety of rules regarding the dead wall, or the lack of a dead wall, show that the function of the dead wall is not conserved amongst the descendant variants of mahjong. There is also no consistent explanation for the function of the dead wall by authors of mahjong books.

So, in this post, two features of Singapore Style mahjong have been discussed. The All Chows hand, pinghu (平和 Mandarin: pínghú), as played in the Singaporean game, will be discussed in the next post. Hopefully, this post has not been too dry and boring!

Notes:
1. Tai is the common term for 'double', used in Singapore Style mahjong, and probably derives from Taiwanese mahjong, although the actual usage in Taiwanese mahjong is different from that in Singapore Style mahjong. The general Chinese and Cantonese equivalent is fan (番 Mandarin: fān).
2. Kitty Strauser and Lucille Evans, 1964, "Mah Jong, Anyone? A Manual of Modern Play", Tuttle Publishing. A more up-to-date and revised version with additional material by Tom Sloper was published in 2006 as "Mah Jong, Anyone?: A Manual of Western Play".

World Mahjong Championship 2007

2007-12-31T23:30:00.000+08:00

The 'first' World Mahjong Championship (WMC) was held earlier this year in Chengdu, China, and featured the best players of MCR in the world, bringing together mahjong enthusiasts from America, China, Europe, and Japan.

The WMC was meant to be the culmination of a World Series of Mahjong, coordinated by the World Mahjong Organisation. However, there was very little news (in English) about this World Series of Mahjong (not to be confused with the other World Series of Mahjong held in Macau, with a prize purse of US$1 million). Of the five proposed stops in this World Series of Mahjong, I could only find coverage of the European stop, that is the Open European Mahjong Championship, in Denmark. The proposed American tournament was apparently cancelled, as there is a lack of interest in MCR in the United States, where American mah-jongg is the most popular form of mahjong (although some would argue American mah-jongg is not mahjong at all, not anymore!) amongst the non-Asian players living in the United States, while the Asian players there are probably more familiar with Hong Kong style mahjong or Japanese riichi mājan.

World Series of Mahjong aside, this WMC was to feature the best from the various mahjong-playing 'areas': China; Japan; Europe; and America and others. The best players from each area were to be chosen via qualifying tournaments organised by their national associations. Of course, not all areas could send their best players: due to the lack of interest in MCR in America, there is thus only a small contingent from the United States. Instead, the player quota for 'Area D' (i.e. America and others) was filled up by extra teams from the other three areas. The players from the same area would not play against each other during the tournament. Instead, each table would comprise a player from each of the four areas. Players therefore meet a whole variety of opponents, including all the formidable players from China and Japan (who indeed dominate the top end of the WMC 2007 standings).

This tournament was billed as the "first" World Mahjong Championship, but there was actually an earlier First World Mahjong Championship held in 2002, in Tokyo, Japan. This was before the founding of the World Mahjong Organisation in 2006; the 2002 tournament was jointly organised by the Takeshobo Mahjong Museum, the Japanese Mahjong Organising Committee (JMOC) and the city council of Ningbo. However, since the first actual world championship in Tokyo was more of an ad hoc event, and this tournament in Chengdu marks the start of a regular world championship, the WMO and JMOC had agreed to call this tournament the real 'First World Mahjong Championship'.

There are differences between the two tournaments, of course. In the course of time since the 2002 World Championship, there has been some changes to the mahjong ruleset. The WMO issued the updated official rules in 2006, and this new ruleset is called 'Mahjong Competition Rules' (MCR) in the English edition (the previous English edition is called 'Competition Mahjong Official International Rulebook', often abbreviated as OIRB). The tournament format has also become more structured, with the division of players into four areas, and is more international in outlook. The 2002 tournament had 100 participants of which 24 represented four non-Asian countries. This year's WMC saw the participation of 55 players from ten European countries and the United States. It really does seem more of a world championship with the increased participation of players from the rest of the world (apart from the host country and birthplace of mahjong, China, as well as traditional mahjong powerhouse Japan).

The WMC 2007 has a tournament system where all players get to play against opponents from other 'areas' for eight ju 局 (game/session). The top 16 players after the completion of the eight ju then go on to compete for one final ju, where they are drawn to face each other Swiss-style (i.e. the top four players face each other at one table for the final ju, the next four at another table and so on).

Each ju lasts for two hours, or the sixteen hands of a complete game, whichever is faster. As this Chengdu tournament utilised automatic mahjong tables, the players probably saved some time in not having to shuffle and stack the tiles, and the chances of cheating by manipulating the tiles while shuffling are also reduced.

After the first eight ju, the sixteen finalists included five Japanese players, and one European player from the Netherlands. This meant that there were ten Chinese players. This showed the dominance the Chinese (as well as the Japanese, to a smaller extent) had on mahjong. Laurent Mahé, a French player, had narrowly missed out on the final, being ranked at 17th with 20 table points, just one point off the next higher-ranked player. (Laurent Mahé can, however, boast of having set a tournament record of the highest-scoring hand of +303, after self-drawing a Thirteen Orphans hand. Also, a special prize was awarded to any 88-point fan made.)

At Table 1 (where the top four players were drawn to play each other), the Japanese player Imaeda Minoru 今枝実 was in the lead with 29 table points out of 32 possible after eight ju, while his three Chinese opponents all had 28 table points. However, he was outplayed, and third-ranked Li Li 李立 (pinyin: Lĭ Lì) won the game with a convincing +256. Imaeda Minoru only managed to obtain 1 table point with a score of -76 giving him third place. His overall ranking was thus also third place, just edged out of second place by Zhang Zhangfei 张章飞 (pinyin: Zhāng Zhāngfēi). At Table 2, ranked fifth with 26 table points, Zhang Zhangfei managed to win at his table during the last ju and earn 4 table points to tie with Imaeda Minoru, each with a final 30 tables points, but he had a better competition point score of +1143 to Imaeda Minoru's +752.

So, the final individual standings: Li Li in first place, Zhang Zhangfei in second, and Imaeda Minoru in third. Désirée Heemskerk, the only European in the final, managed to improve her ranking from 12th to 10th. The full final results can be found here on the China Majiang website 中国麻将网.

The team results: China Shanxi Jiexiu team 中国山西介休队 in first place, China Shanghai Zhangjiang team 中国上海张江队 in second place, and the Japan Mahjong Sport Association Osaka team 日本麻將體育協會大阪隊 in third place. The winning team was really strong, with three of its members in the top sixteen (after eight ju): in 2nd, 4th, and 15th places. The second-placed team also had three team members in the top sixteen: in 5th, 6th, and 16th places.

News, information and photographs of WMC 2007 can be found at the following websites: Mahjong Danmark (photos), Sloperama's Mah-Jong Zone (photos), and Mahjong News (photos).

To mahjong enthusiasts, WMC 2007 is truly exciting in some ways. Mahjong may not be a very well-regarded game (perhaps due to its negative image as a gambling game, especially in Asia), and is probably not very exciting to watch (unlike many sports). However, it is a source of great pleasure for many people who play the game. It is a fascinating game, with its elements of randomness and strategy. It is certainly not an easy game, especially in rule-heavy variants like MCR and Japanese riichi mahjong. WMC 2007 affirms that mahjong can be played seriously and legitimately as a sport, especially since it does not have a hefty registration fee to justify a big prize structure like the Macau World Series of Mahjong (this was discussed in an earlier post).

No doubt most Singaporeans who play mahjong now, play it with small-stake gambling in mind. Yet, moving on to play mahjong at a gambling-free competitive level is not so big a leap. I believe MCR as a ruleset is interesting and complex enough to entice players to play without the excitement of gambling. With a goal like a world championship to work towards, it can be possible to build a culture of mahjong-playing Singaporeans aiming to be the best, yet not losing the pleasure in playing a intellectually stimulating and mentally rewarding game.

With the next WMC planned for 2010, there is time for preparation. Who knows, there might just be a Singaporean team participating at WMC 2010!

Mahjong Magic (A Straits Times Article)

2007-12-25T23:45:00.000+08:00

This Straits Times (ST) article appeared almost a month back, on December 2nd 2007. As some of you may have noticed, the writer of the article, Sandra Leong, left a comment on an earlier post. Following that, JT and I decided to do an interview with Sandra because we were intrigued by the direction the proposed ST article could take. Although the interview and the newspaper article came at a bad time, I am glad that we participated in the writing of this article.

The article Mahjong Magic explores the state of mahjong in Singapore now. Mahjong is predominantly regarded as a gambling activity and is thus banned from being played in public places. Alas, due to this, mahjong tournaments (of whatever variant/style) are also banned. Even mahjong using Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR) would be suspect. Mahjong is thus typically played in the privacy of one's home, and is a highly popular pastime among the Chinese, whether for small stakes or for more high-stake hardcore gambling.

There has been a renewed interest in mahjong, and this may be attributed to the buzz created by the Integrated Resorts (IRs) slated to open in 2009. The building of the IRs marks the relaxation of gambling restrictions in the form of legalised casinos in Singapore (well-known for its clean and boring image). No doubt, the recent World Series of Mahjong held in Macau contributed to the buzz. Since this increased interest is due to the gambling aspect of mahjong, it is unlikely to improve the image of mahjong as a serious game.

However, there are positive developments as well. There is a greater interest in mahjong not as a tool for gambling but as a tool for mental stimulation, especially among the elderly, with support from medical research. There is a possibility that mahjong will be allowed to be played publicly (in community centres, for example) as a means to let senior citizens keep mentally active (see Mind Games to While Time Away in an NTUC article on wellness). Across different demographics, interest in mahjong is rising. Non-Chinese are learning how to play this interesting game; more young people are picking up because of the mental challenges, association with gambling notwithstanding; and we (JT and I) represent those who are taking it as a serious mindsport. Mahjong is good for things other than gambling after all, and there are people who recognise this!

Anyway, the ST article was basically a chance for us to advertise MCR in Singapore. We are passionate about mahjong, and we want to show the rest of Singaporeans how fun and challenging mahjong can be, without the stigma of gambling. Well, we are still trying to assess the impact of the article on this particular aspect, but JT is already a little miffed that people apparently did not read the article carefully or at all, judging from their uninformed comments. She had written about her thoughts and reactions in Mahjong Article on ST Life and Further Reactions on the ST Article on her blog JT's Life Snippets.

Although we have received some rather snide and uninformed comments, there are some perhaps positive outcomes. There have been some tentative requests to know about the game, and we are most glad to share more about MCR. It will be good to spread the MCR ruleset as an alternative to the local variant ("Singapore Style"), and to meet fellow mahjong enthusiasts and make some new friends in the process. The long-term impact is harder to gauge, but at least we have moved one step, albeit a tiny one, closer towards our goals of seeing mahjong tournaments and serious participation in mahjong as a mental sport in Singapore.

December Update

2007-12-23T23:40:00.000+08:00

Some interesting things have happened since the previous blog entry, such as the World Mahjong Championships in Chengdu and the ST article on mahjong, and I will be trying to catch up with posts on these things. Work had been tiring and hectic, and had left me little time for blogging, but this will be rectified.

On the playing front, things have been a little slow as well. We had few games in the past two months, due to players having scheduling problems, but hopefully, the new year will bring some better opportunities for playing.

*Player Standings* (current as of 23 Dec 2007)
Player Name	Table Points	Contest Points	Games Played
EP	71	+2415	28
JT	69.5	+2687	27
WJ	22	-1296	18
AJ	21	-877	16
KP	11	-209	8
AW	6.5	-831	8
SJ	2	-1319	8
EL	0	-570	3

Rankings Update for October 2007

2007-10-28T02:00:00.000+08:00

It has been a while since this blog has been updated. However, that does not mean there has been no activity. Mahjong is still being played. In fact, we have one new member in our little group! Welcome, SJ!

*Current Standings* (current as of 27 Oct 2007)
Player Name	Table Points	Contest Points	Games Played
EP	62	+2259	24
JT	57.5	+2028	23
WJ	22	-956	16
AJ	16	-807	13
KP	11	-209	8
AW	6.5	-831	8
EL	0	-570	3
SJ	0	-914	5

Life Snippets of a Mahjong Player

2007-09-17T20:30:00.000+08:00

JT has set up her own blog JT's Life Snippets to blog about her mahjong play in MCR and other snippets of her life! She has already posted some blogs about her recent big wins and analysed her approach.

As JT's blog focuses on the details (especially of her own winning hands), it is most complementary to this blog, which is more of an overview of the MCR games we play. Like Benjamin Boas' blog, JT's blog will help fill the gap in viewpoints and information on mahjong playing (albeit MCR), with some serious analysis of hand development and defence.

Here's wishing JT all the best in her blogging and mahjong playing (as well as the analysis that follows)!

Big Wins Continued

2007-08-31T22:30:00.000+08:00

After all the excitement in the preceding few weeks, it seems as if the streak of high-scoring hands was continuing, as there were two big wins in the 25th August session. Still, there were no major changes to the rankings, as everyone remains firmly in their positions. While JT obtained 6 table points from two games to advance her position, EP also took 6 table points to stay tantalisingly ahead!

*Current Standings* (current as of 25 Aug 2007)
Player Name	Table Points	Contest Points	Games Played
EP	41	+1585	16
JT	36.5	+1451	15
AJ	15	-699	12
WJ	14	-1179	12
KP	9	-8	5
AW	3.5	-580	5
EL	0	-570	3

Session Report for 25 August 2007

The first game was full of interesting starting hands. For EP, these most unlikely hands turned into winning ones. From many unpromising-looking hands, he managed to fashion several winning hands to win the first game. AJ was most unfortunate, for not only did she almost not win any hand, she discarded the winning tiles six times, four of which went to EP, letting EP amass so many contest points!

One of the more interesting hands won by EP happened early in Game 1. He was basically attempting to make an All Fives hand, but it seemed that hand was going to end in a draw. On the very last tile, WJ discarded a 2d (2 Dot) which appeared to be a safe discard, especially since it was the last 2d. EP took one look and quickly claimed it for a Last Tile Claim win coupled to a Last Tile. Together with a few other fan, it turned out to be a sizeable 19-point hand! No All Fives, but still a good win!

The lesson: the last tile discard is always a potential winning tile for ready hands, since the Last Tile Claim fan has enough points for any ready hand to win, whatever the composition of that hand. So, it would be best to scrutinise the discards to see which tile is really safe. In this case, 2d was not truly safe. Although there were three 2d tiles already discarded, the tiles adjacent to 2d were not all discarded, meaning that there were players still holding onto nearby dot tiles (most probably as sequences). EP did and indeed won with the 2d, which completed a sequence of 2d-3d-4d.

Besides interesting starting hands, the kinds of hands won were also interesting to observe. For example, there was a string of Lower Four hands won by three different players. There was also a string of Pure Straight hands, but this is not as surprising as the players are all rather oriented towards chow-based hands.

The second game started out well for WJ, who won three of the first five hands. The sixth hand, South 2, was a turning-point, for JT. JT had received a very good starting hand.

The fan was obvious: go for Triple Pung of the nines, and All Terminals and Honours was also possible. However, the hand was very drawn-out. JT managed to draw a GD, and melded that when one was discarded. Almost to the end of the hand, she had not managed to meld any other sets, but she was actually ready. On JT's right was WJ, striving to make a Melded Hand. She had come to a point when she was ready, with a single concealed tile, with the rest melded on the table. When she had to discard one of the two tiles after drawing, she decided to discard the 9d as she figured she had more chance of winning with the other tile. 9d had not been discarded at all, so she figured someone else was keeping all the others (which was true). JT melded the 9d for a melded kong, then drew a replacement tile, which turned out to be a winning tile for her. The results: All Terminals and Honours, Triple Pung, Out with Replacement Tile and a few others for a total of 64 points. It was heavy damage, considering this was a self-drawn win. With this, JT overtook everyone else comfortably by collecting 216 points, and she maintained the lead all the way to the end of the game.

For this hand, WJ's Melded Hand basically left her with little defensive alternatives. As JT's hand was mainly concealed, it was hard to predict the dangerous tiles to discard, although the lack of discards of the nines was a good clue. Discarding a terminal tile so late in the hand was therefore very dangerous! WJ admitted she did not read the discards carefully, and it was a painful lesson for her, since she was in the lead initially. If JT had directly won with the 9d discard, she still would not have made such a big gain, but it turned out to be an Out with Replacement Tile win instead.

As a consolation, WJ managed to win with a hand including an All Terminals and Honours fan, worth a total of 38 points, in the very last hand (North 4), but was not able to get enough points to get 2nd place. WJ at least managed to take back 2 table points for this session, while AJ had none at all!

**Results of Game 1, 25 August 2007**
Player Name	Table Points	Contest Points	Wins (SD)	Discards
EP	4	+331	9 (2)	2
JT	2	+109	4 (2)	1
WJ	1	-153	2 (0)	3
AJ	0	-287	1 (0)	6

**Results of Game 2, 25 August 2007**
Player Name	Table Points	Contest Points	Wins (SD)	Discards
JT	4	+191	4 (2)	4
EP	2	+68	5 (1)	2
WJ	1	-67	5 (0)	4
AJ	0	-192	2 (0)	3

Big Wins Galore!

2007-08-24T23:45:00.000+08:00

Everyone seems to be doing well at the mahjong table recently, more or less. JT obtained her highest ever score in a single game, +567 points, although EP holds the group record of +596. We have also seen a few high scoring hands (details below). With such interesting hands, some discussion about strategy had surfaced, and we all learnt more as we played.

*Current Standings* (current as of 18 Aug 2007)
Player Name	Table Points	Contest Points	Games Played
EP	35	+1186	14
JT	30.5	+1151	13
AJ	15	-220	10
WJ	12	-959	10
KP	9	-8	5
AW	3.5	-580	5
EL	0	-570	3

Session Report for 04 August 2007

It has been a while since KP and AW played. With KP and AW, the overall game strategy changes. There are usually very few chow-based hands due to KP's playing style (he favours pung-based and semi-pure hands). With pungs happening everywhere, chow-based hands get affected, and players (especially players who favour chow-based hands like JT) are sometimes forced to abandon such hands.

In fact, for this game, there were fewer chow-based winning hands compared to other occasions. There were only four hands with All Chows, and none with Mixed Triple Chows or Mixed Shifted Chows, although there were five hands with Pure Straight, one Pure Shifted Chows and one Mixed Straight. The fact that there are chow-based hands not in combination with All Chows showed that pungs were made very often to complete hands.

KP was rather unlucky in this game as he did not win many hands. He was also Robbed of a Win in one hand, because JT happened to be sitting above him. JT herself was Robbed by EP in a later hand. Such was the turn of fortune.

Early in the game, AW managed to make a beautiful hand, consisting of Three Concealed Pungs, Mixed Shifted Pungs, All Pungs, All Simples, Concealed Hand and a Double Pung, worth a total of 36 points. Had AW drawn the winning tile herself, she would have gotten Four Concealed Pungs. Because of her wait, her hand was potentially worth a Triple Pung (instead of the Mixed Shifted Pungs).

Just a couple of hands later, EP managed to win with an All Terminals and Honours hand, courtesy of JT's discard. EP had melded pungs of 1D, WW and EW when JT discarded a WD (rather uneasily, seeing EP's threatening melds on the table). AW soon followed with a discard of WD, and then she threw out NW, which EP prompted melded. So, on the table, there was four melded pungs indicating a possible All Terminals and Honours hand, as well as a possible Melded Hand. Unluckily for JT, she thought WD was safe because there were already two discards on the table, so she discarded WD, only for EP to win with that very discard. The crucial point was the melding of NW which made EP's hand ready with a single wait (a cunning or desperate WD, depending on your viewpoint), which JT did not realise. Sadly for EP, the hand was undervalued because he forgot to count in Big Three Winds. Nonetheless, he made enough points to obtain 4 table points for this game.

**Results of Game 1, 04 August 2007**
Player Name	Table Points	Contest Points	Wins (SD)	Discards
EP	4	+210	5 (2)	3
AW	2	-24	3 (1)	1
JT	1	-53	4 (2)	3
KP	0	-133	2 (1)	1

Session Report for 18 August 2007

This was an exciting session, where many high-scoring hands were attempted, and several hands were drawn-out affairs, almost ending in draws. Ultimately, JT emerged most triumphant, with an emphatic win of +567 points in Game 1. Although she did not do as well in Game 2, the results of Game 2 is not consequential as it was incomplete, with only 12 hands played due to lack of time.

Interestingly, this session also saw many self-drawn wins — 14 hands out of a total of 27 winning hands were self-drawn! JT made 5 self-drawn wins out of a total of 8 wins in Game 1 alone, which contributed greatly to her high score. The other players were simply no match for her in Game 1. In Game 2, all the hands in the entire West round were won with self-drawn tiles (two each by EP and JT).

Now, to the high-scoring hands made in this session. The first was made by JT in the middle of the West round. By this point in time, JT was already leading with +282 points to the second-placed EP's +31. JT managed to self-draw a winning tile to obtain Four Pure Shifted Pungs with Full Flush and a few other small fan to win some 255 points from the rest of the players, putting her in an unstoppable lead!

The second high-scoring hand was made by WJ in Game 2. Earlier in Game 1, WJ had a potential Little Three Dragons, having two tiles each of RD and GD. For some reason, she discarded WD when she drew it, even though no dragons had been discarded at this time. So, later, WJ melded RD. EP then gave her the GD, as there was already no danger that she would win with a Little Three Dragons since she discarded the WD herself. Unfortunately for WJ, she drew WD again, and saw the wasted Little Three Dragons. The consensus during the discussion after the hand was that WD should have been kept in hand, since no dragons had been discarded yet, meaning there was a good chance of completing a Three Dragons fan, Big or Little.

Well, WJ had a second chance in Game 2! Again, she got a starting hand with two pairs of dragons. She had a complete triplet of RD and she melded a kong with it. Up to this point, there was no other indication that she was attempting another Three Dragons fan, although there were no other dragons discarded at all. WJ continued to meld a WW and then a bamboo sequence. After some time, WJ managed to self-draw a WD to complete a Little Three Dragons! Having missed one earlier, WJ refused to let go of her single WD this time round (she had a concealed triplet of GD). This winning hand was worth some 79 points for the basic score, and she jumped into the lead with the 261 points she collected from the other players.

Unfortunately, the next few hands saw her lose ground, and she dropped to second place overall. It is a pity this game was not completed and thus did not count towards the group rankings. All in all, there was plenty of excitement and fun this session. Big wins sure are fun!

**Results of Game 1, 18 August 2007**
Player Name	Table Points	Contest Points	Wins (SD)	Discards
JT	4	+567	8 (5)	1
EP	2	-137	3 (1)	3
AJ	1	-161	3 (2)	3
WJ	0	-269	1 (0)	0

**Results of Game 2, 18 August 2007**
Player Name	Table Points	Contest Points	Wins (SD)	Discards
EP	(4)	+167	5 (2)	0
WJ	(2)	+141	3 (2)	3
JT	(1)	-108	3 (2)	2
AJ	(0)	-200	1 (0)	1

Terminology Troubles

2007-08-08T23:20:00.000+08:00

Reach Mahjong Columns' Garthe was writing about the Japanese mahjong hand pinfu (平和 Mandarin pínghé, usually pronounced pínghú, at least here in Singapore) when the use of the term Peace was questioned by Tina Christensen of Mahjong Denmark. The Chinese term 平和 means "peace" but few people would think of it as peace literally. Tina's comment basically released an avalanche of opinions regarding the creation and use of new (but non-standard) terms in English. It also prompted this blog entry about terminology.

Mahjong terminology has always been a thorny issue for mahjong players, new or veteran. Most casual players really just want to play mahjong and not care about whether the terms they use are accurate, or what they really mean.

For experienced players teaching new players mahjong, which terminology should they use? If the new player does not have any background in Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese or other major dialects) or Japanese, does it make sense to use terminology of Chinese/Japanese origin?

The good folks at Reach Mahjong Columns have taken the approach of using new English terms as substitutes for the original Sino-Japanese and Japanese terminology. An example would be bump instead of pung (碰 Mandarin pèng, Japanese pon).

Now, pung (like chow and kong) are considered standard mahjong terms in English. Standard in the sense that many mahjong books published have used these spellings (for example, Millington's The Complete Book of Mah-Jongg, 1977), and these terms should be quite familiar to most mahjong players all over the world. Also, these 'standard' terms still bear resemblance to their Asian counterparts, and when playing with Asian mahjong players, there would be little confusion over the use of these terms during actual play.

However, are new terms like bump a good idea? It is hard to say. On one hand, new players may find it easier to learn the game without having to learn new terms in a different language. On the other hand, once these new terms are learnt, players may be resistant to unlearn them and learn the 'correct' original terms. This poses the problem of communicability in a globalised environment. It is no longer so difficult to find websites about obscure topics. Websites about different variants of mahjong are now available. If all sorts of different terms are invented for common concepts in mahjong, will there be confusion where none should exist in the first place?

Rankings Update

2007-08-03T20:00:00.000+08:00

Results at the mahjong table have been a little unpredictable of late. Despite JT's open declaration to overtake EP in the rankings, she has been unable to replicate her previous form and win enough table points to beat EP and take top spot. On the other hand, WJ, who has been doing poorly of late, managed to win the last two games to climb up to fourth place.

*Current Standings* (current as of 28 Jul 2007)
Player Name	Table Points	Contest Points	Games Played
EP	29	+1113	12
JT	25.5	+637	11
AJ	14	-59	9
WJ	12	-690	9
KP	9	+125	4
AW	1.5	-556	4
EL	0	-570	3

Session Report for 28 July 2007
The first game was a close fight. The players all seemed to be evenly-matched, with no one getting a clear lead on the rest. In the beginning of the 4th round, it seems as if EP was going to win the game, as he had a 79 point lead on the second-placed WJ. However, WJ managed to surge to the top by taking the last three hands.

AJ, who did rather poorly in the first game, led most of the way in the second game, with a very strong lead of 266 points by the middle of the 3rd round. WJ managed to win three of the next five hands to overtake AJ, to obtain her second 1st placing for the day! EL had replaced EP for the second game and did not do very well, not managing to win a single hand.

Results of Game 1, 28 July 2007
Player Name	Table Points	Contest Points	Wins (SD)	Discards
WJ	4	+129	6 (1)	0
EP	2	+48	4 (2)	5
JT	1	-55	4 (0)	2
AJ	0	-122	1 (1)	4

Results of Game 2, 28 July 2007
Player Name	Table Points	Contest Points	Wins (SD)	Discards
WJ	4	+134	5 (1)	5
AJ	2	+103	6 (1)	3
JT	1	-37	4 (0)	3
EL	0	-200	0 (0)	1

International Cultures of Mahjong

2007-07-19T23:50:00.000+08:00

Besides the various websites and pages on mahjong I have mentioned in earlier posts, there is one other website I should highlight: International Cultures of Mahjong. This is a blog by Benjamin Boas, a researcher of mahjong culture (hence the title of his blog). Currently on a Fulbright Fellowship, he will be studying the mahjong culture of Japan. This sounds like an ideal job for a mahjong enthusiast, and Ben is certainly one!

Mainly a riichi mahjong player, Ben has made his first foray into Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR), with the recent Open European Mahjong Championship (OEMC) 2007, and in fact emerged the second runner-up in his very first MCR tournament!

Ben's blog, like this blog, is quite new, but it already has some interesting entries as well as comments on various aspects of mahjong, especially on his participation and experiences at OEMC 2007 as well as some controversies over some rules used in the tournament.

Although the posts on some rules of the MCR ruleset may sound boring and dry, they are actually actually not. Ben's posts highlight the fact that cultural differences affect perspectives on mahjong and its rules. Thus, players of different nationalities would react differently to certain rules, practices and conventions, their mahjong cultural backgrounds playing a considerable part in such reactions.

As there are few websites and/or blogs out there on MCR, Ben's blog certainly fills in a gap. Since Ben is a globe-trotting researcher/competitor as well as a riichi mahjong player, there should be a lot of interesting posts on all things mahjong that we can look forward to.

World-Class Mahjong

2007-07-11T19:20:00.000+08:00

World-Class Mahjong with World Champion Mai Hatsune (世界チャンピオン初音舞の世界に勝つ—麻雀国際公式ルール戦術本) is a book on the concepts and strategies in Chinese Official mahjong (COMJ) and is published by Hatsune Mai and Kajimoto Takunori. Hatsune Mai is the winner of the World Championship in Mahjong held in Tokyo, Japan, in 2002.

This book is the first and only book with an emphasis on COMJ strategy so far but it is in the Japanese language, which means many players around the world are unable to read it for its contents. Hence, an English translation of the content on strategy was made by Ryan Morris and is available online for everyone to read (link above).

This website on COMJ strategy will be most useful to beginners to COMJ. Due to the 8-point minimum for a win, beginners often have difficulties completing their hands. There are many helpful pointers on what to do when playing COMJ. There are detailed explanations of how to complete hands for a particular fan, such as Mixed Triple Chows or Mixed Shifted Chows; and advice on when to go for a higher-scoring fan like Pure Straight.

This website is definitely a good starting point for beginners, but even more experienced mahjong players can make use of the strategies, especially if they are not used to a pattern-oriented game like COMJ. For example, most Singaporeans are used to playing Singapore Style mahjong, which makes use of much fewer special hands and hand combinations than COMJ, and are thus unfamiliar with the various sequence-based combinations found in COMJ. Winning hands may be missed because of the player's failure to recognise valid winning combinations!

So, start reading!

Player Rankings

2007-07-10T09:30:00.000+08:00

The player ranking for our group is finally complete! I will probably update the current standings after every session, together with the session results.

There may be some problems with the way the ranking is constructed, due to a lack of an established system to calculate long-term performance in Chinese Official mahjong (COMJ). Since we are more or less casual players, there is also no real need to have a complicated system.

I have opted to use table points as an overall indicator of performance, rather than contest points (the points earned within the game). This is because each game of COMJ is self-contained, having only 16 hands, with seat rotation every round. Players also aim for a specific table rank to earn the corresponding table points, which necessitates some form of strategy for each game, dependent on who the players are. That means table points are more important than contest points because earning the most table points (i.e. 4 table points) is the most important goal. Having a large positive score but not taking the top position at the table is not helpful in the long run.

Although the players may not play the same number of games, I have decided against averaging the table point totals by the number of games played by each player. This is because I view the current standings as a combined measure of performance and experience. This is akin to the way masterpoints are awarded for contract bridge duplicates.

However, this is not set in stone, and the way the player ranking is calculated may change.

*Current Standings* (current as of 10 Jul 2007)
Player Name	Table Points	Contest Points	Games Played
EP	21	+856	9
JT	17.5	+460	7
AJ	11	-41	6
KP	9	+125	4
WJ	3	-742	5
AW	1.5	-556	4
EL	0	-102	1

Mahjong on the Internet

2007-07-07T23:45:00.000+08:00

Information about mahjong is so easily available now on the Internet. Anyone who wants to learn mahjong can find a lot of materials online, although not every major style or variant is well represented.

For a good general website on mahjong, there is Sloperama's Mah-Jong Zone, run by Tom Sloper, a game designer and mahjong teacher/writer. In fact, Tom Sloper has just published a book on mahjong, The Red Dragon and the West Wind, which is on both Chinese Official/Mahjong Competition Rules (the Red Dragon) and American Mah-jongg (the West Wind). There are FAQs on every aspect of mahjong; a column with tips on strategy and practice questions on scoring; and a bulletin board for readers with questions. It is a very good resource, with lots of information and links.

Mahjong News is a European-centric website with frequent updates on mahjong tournaments and developments in Europe. For example, the European ranking list of Chinese Official mahjong players can be found here.

The much talked-about Mahjong Competition Rules (which is actually the most recent version of the Chinese Official ruleset) can be downloaded in PDF form from the World Mahjong Organisation's website. Recent tournaments such as OEMC 2007 follow this version where some early problems and inconsistencies were corrected.

Alan Kwan's webpage has some articles on mahjong playing and mathematical analyses of tile combinations used in (various variants of) mahjong. Alan Kwan is the designer of the Zung Jung system which was used in the recent Macau World Series of Mahjong competition.

For riichi mahjong, the most common form of mahjong played in Japan, there were little information on the rules and strategy in English, but two recent websites are remedying this. Reach Mahjong Columns is a blog written by English-speakers to get more non-Japanese to play riichi mahjong. Two of the three contributors are young Americans who are professional mahjong players in Japan. There are some interesting tidbits about the professional mahjong leagues and tournaments in Japan, and plenty of information and tips on playing riichi mahjong. Yakitori Online is a new portal devoted to riichi mahjong, including a forum for mahjong enthusiasts to discuss strategy and other mahjong-related issues.

It does seem that the riichi scene world-wide is getting more exciting. There will be a European riichi mahjong tournament held next year, due to much interest from Dutch and Danish players. Too bad riichi mahjong is almost unknown in Singapore, save for arcade and computer games from Japan. It would be certainly difficult to get a proper Japanese mahjong set with the red dora tiles in Singapore!

Last but not least, for Singapore Style mahjong, there is a good Wikipedia article on Singaporean Mahjong scoring rules. All the well-known patterns and special hands are found here, as well as descriptions of special situations and danger scenarios.

OEMC 2007

2007-06-23T03:00:00.000+08:00

After last weekend's World Series of Mahjong (WSoM), there is another mahjong tournament to watch out for, and that is the Open European Mahjong Championship (OEMC) 2007, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, this weekend.

In contrast to the WSoM, the OEMC is a more modest affair. There are no big cash prizes, and the registration fee is only €170. Now, this is only about one-twentieth of the WSoM's registration fee of US$5000! All contestants get to play eight sessions, making the most of their registration fees! This is unlike WSoM's knockout format where only the best half of the field progresses to the next round.

There are 136 registered players representing twenty countries: sixteen are European countries; the others are China (including Hong Kong), Chinese Taipei (i.e. Taiwan), Japan and the U.S. For a regional tournament, the OEMC has more diversity than the WSoM in Macau where the contestants come from only eight countries, which are China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, Denmark, the U.K. and the U.S.

As for the ruleset, the OEMC uses the Mahjong Competition Rules, the official ruleset of the World Mahjong Organisation (WMO).

Coincidentally enough, the WMO is also organising a "World Series of Mahjong" which will culminate in the first World Mahjong Championship, to be held end of this year in Sichuan, China. The similarity of the name "World Series of Mahjong" will no doubt cause some confusion to many people. The WMO's World Series of Mahjong has five tournaments which includes the OEMC, while the recent WSoM held in Macau was organised by World Mahjong Limited and consisted only of the one event.

World Series of Mahjong

2007-06-21T02:05:00.000+08:00

The first World Series of Mahjong (WSoM) competition was held at the Wynn Macau, a resort in Macau. This is promised to be an annual event, similar to the World Series of Poker which is hugely popular in the U.S. While there have already been some international mahjong competitions held, this new event is different that it offers a total cash prize of US$1,000,000!

However, to participate in the WSoM, one has to pay a registration fee of $5000! For most international tournaments, the entry fees are much lower. The prizes are, of course, much less attractive at such tournaments. The high entry fee has appeared to keep some European players away from participating. This has apparently not deterred Asian players from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Japan and elsewhere though.

The ruleset of this WSoM is not based on any of the usual variants, but it is a tournament version of Zung Jung (romanised Cantonese for 中庸, Zhōng Yōng, meaning "Middle Way"). Zung Jung was designed by Alan Kwan for international tournament play, like Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR). However, Zung Jung in general has fewer 'patterns' (44 in total) compared to MCR (81 fan). Zung Jung emphasises logical patterns and thus contain much fewer irregular patterns that arose from regional variants. In contrast, MCR has more irregular hands than Zung Jung while having the same logically-consistent patterns as Zung Jung. There are also many differences in point values. One significant difference about Zung Jung is that there is no reward for self-drawing a winning tile.

So, yet another mahjong ruleset. I was really curious about the results of this tournament, but it is really difficult to find any news of this, on the Internet or in the mainstream media of Singapore. Lianhe Zaobao and the Straits Times did carry some news articles on this, but I am not able to get my hands on a copy of the Chinese newspaper yet, while the ST article focused only the Taiwanese finalist, Yu Hsiao-Ping, who is the daughter of two entertainers. Alan Kwan (who designed the Zung Jung system and also officiated at WSoM as the head judge) wrote some reports on this at BoardGameGeek (Mah-Jongg » Forum Index » Sessions).

Anyway, Alan Kwan's reports are comprehensive (although the names of the two of the four finalists differed in the ST article). There were apparently many players unfamiliar with the system participating in the WSoM tournament. Despite this, the tournament was rather successful. After eight rounds (of which seven were elimination rounds) and two full days of mahjong-playing, Hui Chung Lai of Hong Kong won this inaugural event (and $500,000) and was crowned the first world champion of the WSOM.

As there was television coverage of this tournament, hopefully the TV show will be broadcasted in Singapore when it is ready, so that we can see what a mahjong tournament is like! Reading and writing about this mahjong tournament has made me even more eager to participate in an international tournament, although the $5000 registration fee will definitely put me off WSoM.

A Quick Introduction to MCR

2007-06-14T01:05:00.000+08:00

In terms of gameplay, Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR) is generally similar to other most varieties of mahjong, in that it uses all three usual suits (bamboos, characters and dots; respectively 索万筒 in Chinese), and the honours tiles consisting of the wind tiles (风牌) and the dragon tiles (三元牌, also known as 箭牌), as well as the usual eight flower tiles, although the flower tiles are less important in MCR compared to some other variants. The main differences between MCR and other variants lie in the scoring and some rules.

Points are calculated using simple addition
Winning hands in MCR are scored in points, where various patterns or score elements achieved are awarded different amounts of points and added up together in a simple sum. In most mahjong variants, particularly more traditional variants (Singapore Style, Chinese Classical, Hong Kong Old Style, Japanese etc.), winning hands are calculated based on doubles or fan (番) achieved. Base points are calculated, then doubled for each doubles scored. Hence, if a winning hand earns five doubles, the base points are multiplied 32 times (i.e. base × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2). Basically, points calculated using doubles increase in a geometric progression, compared to MCR's arithmetric progression, which is much simpler to perform. But this does not mean that high-scoring hands are not possible. They still are; difficult-to-do hands like Thirteen Orphans (十三幺, sometimes better known as the Thirteen Wonders) are inherently worth more points.

8-point mininum in order to win
The conditions for making a winning hand are rather different in MCR. Technically, in most traditional variants of mahjong, as long as the hand has four completed sets of three (either as sequences or groups of idential tiles) and a matching pair, it can win. However, several variants have implemented some minimum requirement for a win. For example, in Singapore Style mahjong, most players prefer to have a one-double minimum. In Hong Kong Old Style (HKOS), some people have a 3-fan minimum.

In MCR, the minimum number of points that would allow a player to hu (胡), to win, is 8 points, which is calculated from a variety of score elements. In MCR, there are 81 patterns/score elements (called fan 番, but without the meaning of doubling here) each with a point value ranging from 1 to 88. This may seem like a lot for the beginner to learn, but many of these are related to each other, so it is not a hopeless task!

Each game has only 16 hands
In MCR, the dealer does not remain dealer even if he wins or if there is a draw. The dealership passes on to the next player. Thus, a full game of four rounds has only 16 hands.

Since scores are tabulated after each game, and scores are not carried over to the next game , players have to think strategically throughout the game to try to earn enough points (relative to each other) in order to obtain a good position. In competitions, table points are awarded to each player at a table: the player with the most points get 4 table points, the player in second place gets 2 table points, the third-placed gets 1 table point, and the last player gets 0.

Flower tiles do not count towards the 8-point minimum
Flowers in MCR are special bonus tiles. For the 8-point minimum required to win, flower tiles are not counted. Instead, flowers are treated as bonus tiles, which contribute one point each after the 8-point minimum is reached. This is meant to reduce the effect of luck.

In addition, flower tiles can be discarded when the going gets tough. In dangerous situations, freshly drawn flowers may be discarded as a safe discard (no one is able to win off a flower!), instead of having to get a replacement tile which may be a tile that some player is waiting for in order to win with a high-scoring hand.

Discards are lined up in an orderly manner
Unlike in Singapore Style and HKOS mahjong, where tiles are haphazardly discarded in the centre of the table, discards in MCR are made orderly. Each player will line up his discards in rows of six, such that everyone can see clearly all the tiles and the order in which they were discarded. This increases the analytical element of mahjong, where players can play defensively by reading the discards of opponents and taking precautions in discarding dangerous tiles.

No tile discard is sacred!
Actually, this refers to the Sacred Discard rules in Japanese mahjong, where players are not allowed to win on tiles they had previously discarded and other details pertaining to discards. In Singapore Style and other similar variants, there are rules that prohibit players from making actions pertaining to fresh discards within one turn, or illegal chows. In MCR, such actions are actually permitted.

In MCR, players have more freedom to chow, pung and win on tiles. A player can discard a tile, then make a pung or win on the exact same tile discarded immediately by the next player! Of course, one would wonder why a player would do that in the first place, but this is evidence of the subtleties of gameplay that can occur in MCR. For example, the player who wins on the tile he just discarded could be trying to win off a particular opponent. Or he may not have enough points (i.e. the 8-point minimum) to win unless he wins off an opponent's discard (a few situations are possible: winning hands that require Last Tile, Melded Hand, Last Tile Claim).

There is no Dead Wall
The Dead Wall refers to the stack of tiles that are not used towards the end of a hand. For example, Singapore Style mahjong typically keeps 15 tiles in the Dead Wall, while most other variants have a Dead Wall of 14 tiles. In MCR, all tiles are used, so players have a chance to win right up to the last tile. If no one wins off the last discard, the hand ends in a draw.

The player to draw the very last tile has to discard a tile too, unless the player can make a Kong, which then leads to a situation where he is supposed to draw a replacement tile, which is not possible since there are no more tiles left to draw upon. It would seem logical that he cannot make both a Kong, not draw a replacement tile and still discard a tile. So, in such a case, discarding a tile is not necessary. In the case of drawing a flower, a player can also display the flower in order to draw a replacement tile (of which is not possible, a situation identical to that of a Kong, as mentioned earlier). However, it would be much easier to just discard this flower, since it is always a safe discard!

So, these are the bare bones of the Mahjong Competition Rules! These rules are rather different from the other variants, are they not? There are some more things to talk about, such as how scores are calculated, but I will leave those for another post.

The Game Begins

2007-06-13T00:15:00.000+08:00

This blog is created to report on the activities of my mahjong group playing Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR, also known as Chinese Official) as well as discuss matters on mahjong (especially Singapore Style mahjong) that may come to mind. Disclaimer: I am not an expert on mahjong, just an enthusiast.

The reason why my mahjong group and this blog are more focused on MCR/CO mahjong (we usually call it COMJ for convenience) is that this variant is more international and is also rather interesting and challenging. There are many tournaments using this ruleset, although none in Singapore as far as I know. If there are going to be tournaments to be held in Singapore using this ruleset, I am sure I (and some members of my group) will participate for sure! Besides this competitive aspect (a good reason for this variant to be called Mahjong Competition Rules), it is also rather challenging in an intellectual way, and downplays the effect of luck. Thus the gambling is also not such an important factor for enjoying this variant of mahjong.

So, some people may be wondering: what exactly is MCR or COMJ? Well, MCR is the ruleset designed for international competition, such that players from different major mahjong traditions/styles in different countries like Japan, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, can meet and play. Of course, this new version does not resemble any of the major styles, but it does incorporate most of the traditional hands as well as many patterns from the various traditions. There are also rules that are meant to reduce the element of luck and promote defensive and deductive play. There are criticisms of this new ruleset, but mahjong players should judge for themselves whether this ruleset is worth playing.

Sadly, this new ruleset is not well known at all in Singapore, but I suppose the local Singapore Style and other regional styles (Taiwanese 16-tile, Hong Kong Old Style, Malaysian Style) are too well-entrenched. Who knows, but my little group may be the only mahjong players in Singapore playing COMJ, but I certainly hope this is not the case!

For the competitive element of COMJ, we keep track of the points (both in-game points and table points), just to see which players are doing well, and which players who are not doing so well. Updates and reports will be posted on this blog.

So, hopefully this blog can help spread the ruleset to others here in Singapore, and there may even be MCR tournaments held here in future! We all have to start somewhere.

Number of Doubles	Win by Discard	Win by Self-Draw
0	0.5	1
1	1	2
2	2	4
3	4	8
4	8	16
5	16	32
6	26	42
7	36	52
8	46	62
9	56	72
10	66	82
11	76	92
12	86	102
13	96	112

Number of Doubles	Win by Discard	Win by Self-Draw
0	0.5	1
1	1	2
2	2	4
3	4	8
4	8	16
5	16	32
6	26	42
7	36	52
8	46	62
9	56	72
10	66	82
11	76	92
12	86	102
13	96	112

Number of Doubles	Win by Discard	Win by Self-Draw
0	0.5	1
1	1	2
2	2	4
3	4	8
4	8	16
5	16	32
6	26	42
7	36	52
8	46	62
9	56	72
10	66	82
11	76	92
12	86	102
13	96	112