Amazing Mahjong

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

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

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

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).