Monday, December 30, 2013

2013 Wrap-Up and More Mahjong Clubs

Yet another year has zoomed past.

The last entry on this blog was on 31st December 2012. The next one is this, almost an entire year after. I have neglected my blog again, but I do so without much regret! This year, I have been so busy doing all kinds of mahjong activities.

This blog was founded way back in 2007 to record the ups and downs of my interest in mahjong, and more importantly to document my efforts in promoting Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR), and competitive mahjong in general. Along the way, I got a little side-tracked into doing stuff in Singapore Style, but my main focus has always been MCR.

So, I am proud of what I and my associates and collaborators have achieved this year. Last year, we went to China to compete in the World Mahjong Championships 2012 (the major MCR tournament). This year, we built on our achievements and made preparations to get more deeply involved next year, for tournaments in China, Europe, and possibly Japan! This included growing a club network for competitive mahjong, and hosting a mahjong exchange with visiting players from China.

MCR Clubs: Nee Soon South CC Sport Mahjong Club and Thomson CC Mahjong Club
Besides the original club for playing MCR in Nee Soon South (see original post here), we have now set up another club for MCR in Thomson. This is to cater to the slowly but surely growing pool of MCR players. Sessions at the two clubs alternate for now, so this means at least one club session for MCR every week! Interested parties can contact me via the comments (remember to leave your contact details) to find out more!

Riichi Maajan Club
Additionally, since there was a void in the mahjong scene here and quite a lot of interest, we have also set up a section to play riichi maajan in the Sport Mahjong Club at Nee Soon South. Interested parties can go to this website, Playing Riichi Maajan in Singapore, to take a look. To get involved, go to the Newcomers page to get connected to the organiser, Feng.

There will definitely be more clubs in our plans! Hopefully, I will not be too busy to forget all about this blog. But that is a happy problem!

On to 2014! Happy New Year, everyone!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello,

Friends and i recently Had some doubts regarding the following scenario and out of curiosity, I started googling but can't seem to find much info. We play for leisure only so usually we go with Majority. But curious as to how others play thus posting query here :)

Singaporeans dun play pong/chi hu because it generates no tai, however if we qiang gan/hua shang etc which adds one tai to us, could we game since we have one tai?

Same for chou ping hu, if we have no flowers etc and are waiting for ka long to which someone else gang (open gang not hidden gang), can we game since qiang gang is one tai?

If we're doing chou ping hu or ping hu, and we managed to get a ka long (example eat 6 tong with 5,7 tong) and we throw 1 bamboo out (waiting for 1 and 4 bamboo to game) Within the same round, I understand we can't game if somehow throws 1 bamboo. What about 4 bamboo?

Hope u understand the above cuz dun really use Chinese language to type. :) thanks!

EP said...

Hello Anonymous,

Many apologies for taking so long to publish your comment/query. I have been really busy with other activities, so this blog took a backseat.

Anyway, your query on Singapore Style mahjong rules contains multiple questions so I will try to answer each individually.

But before that, let us clarify some basic principles.

A. In Singapore Style mahjong, there is usually a minimum requirement before winning is allowed. This could be 0 doubles (tuidao majiang) which allows any way to win; 1 double, the most common practice; 2 doubles, which some people like to play with, to create more difficulty and excitement; or more, which is quite rare, unless playing 3-player mahjong.

B. There are sometimes other applications of house-rules, which may then affect [A]. See specific examples below.

1. If the basic requirement is just to have one double/tai to win, then qianggang (Robbing the Kong) or huashang/gangshang (Win on Replacement after Flower/Kong) would give you that one double.

However, some people use a [B]-type house rule: special lucky moves do not wins unless the player already has some other confirmed double. In this case, unless you already have an animal (or your own seat flower, or a pung of a Dragon), winning with qianggang or huashang may be disallowed under such a house rule. (This appears to be a localised variant of the sakizuke rule from riichi maajan).

This kind of house rule is rather rare though, especially because it unfairly penalises players and deviates from many traditional rules. So, you have to check with your friends before playing whether such a rule is allowed. Otherwise, you should normally be allowed to win with just qianggang or huashang since each of these moves satisfy the basic requirement for a double (i.e., [A]).

2. If your hand structure has a kalong (or Closed Wait, as we call it in English), and you win on that tile from a discard (ignoring whether you have flowers etc.), it is not a choupinghu. Since it inot a choupinghu, then it gets no double. But the qianggang is allowed under [A] with 1-double requirement (and not under [B]).

3. This question touches on immunity of discards. Depending on whom you play with, winning on 4 bamboo may not be allowed. 1 bamboo, under all traditional rules is not allowed, since the idea of immunity is to afford opponents a way to defend by following suit in discarding 'safe' tiles. The question is with linked tiles.

i) To some people, 4 Bamboo can be used for an immediate win (within the same turn of the 1 Bamboo discard). This is because they rationalise that only 1 Bamboo has real immunity.

ii) To other people, 4 Bamboo is also immune because a player who wants 1b to complete 23b also wants 4b and by logical extension, 4b should be immune too. This is consistent with promoting defence as a valid aspect of the rules.

It is best that you clarify this with your friends before you play.

I personally would use (ii) as the immunity rule. This makes more sense and consistency when used with other rules:
a) if I have 123c, I cannot take 4c to make 234c and discard 1c;
b) if I have 234c, I cannot discard 2c, and then take 5c to make 345c within the same turn after the discard.

If you want to use (i), then you have to change (a) and (b) accordingly.

I hope this is useful to you, even though this reply comes so late after your query.

EP said...

zedekiah,

I had received your (private) comment on 20th May 2014, and I had replied you not long after. I am not sure if you had received the reply (it might have gone into your Spam folder, for example).

Please ignore this if you had received that reply.

Hotel to Stay in Cebu said...


Thanks for one helpful site. Cheers and more power always ;-)

giN said...

Hey man love what you're doing! I love playing mahjong and would like to find out more about your activities.

Anywhere around the east that can play? Like kembangan?

EP said...

Thank you for your support, guys!

giN, if you are interested, do contact me directly by leaving your contact details in a comment (which will be kept private).

While I believe Kampong Kembangan CC has a mahjong club, I am not involved in that.