Chapter 12 of 12 · Section 3 of 3
All 14 steps of this section, written out on one page. The pictures and activities aren’t included: to see them, open a step in the lesson.
Your goal: Spot habits that waste useful tiles, and pick a choice the evidence supports instead.
Chapter 10 covered mistakes in procedure and how to recover from them. Here the moves may be legal, but the plan behind them is weak: chasing value, carrying unrelated lines, exposing a group or a Joker without a whole line in mind, and ignoring the table.
Losing a hand doesn’t, on its own, prove you decided badly. Judge by the information and choices you had at the time. Work on one habit at a time, rather than trying to prevent every loss.
You hold a 4 Bam and a Joker. The newest discard, ringed in gold, is a 4 Bam.
A legal call. Wise only if your whole line can still be finished (steps 5 to 8).
Move through the steps with Back and Next, or jump to one from Chapter contents. This browser saves your answers and your place on this device, so you can leave and come back.
As in Chapter 11, Section 1, step 1: a 25-point line that needs 2 tiles you can still get beats a 50-point line that needs 6, with hard natural tiles among them. The higher score alone is no reason to give up your progress.
Chapter 11’s rack: Even Craks needs 2 more tiles; the 50-point line needs 6.
3 × 2 Crak
3 × 4 Crak
3 × 6 Crak
3 × 8 Crak
2 × Flower
Fits nothing
12 places filled. Needs 2: an 8 Crak, which a Joker could also fill, and a natural Flower.
2 × Flower
4 × 2 Crak
4 × 4 Crak
2 × 3 Bam
2 × Green Dragon
Fits nothing
8 places filled. Needs 6, and 4 of them must be natural, because a Joker can’t fill a pair: a Flower, a 3 Bam and 2 Green Dragons.
The same 13 tiles in both lines. Dashed places are still empty.
Before you compare what each line is worth, ask whether you can really finish it. A hand that never wins collects nothing. Counting the tiles still needed is a good start, not an exact chance of winning.
One line is well supported by your tiles. A line worth more needs several tiles you are unlikely to get. What do you check first?
If you carry several unconnected lines, you can end up partway toward all of them and close to none. Every discard gets harder too, since each tile belongs to a different line you’re imagining.
As in Chapter 11: 11 of your 14 tiles fill your lead line. The 5, 7 and 9 Dots help only an unrelated line, and they take places your lead line needs.
3 × 2 Crak
3 × 4 Crak
3 × 6 Crak
3 × 8 Crak
2 × Flower
Fits nothing
11 places filled, 3 to go. The 3 Dots fit none of its groups.
3 × 1 Dot
3 × 3 Dot
3 × 5 Dot
3 × 7 Dot
2 × 9 Dot
Fits nothing
3 places filled, 11 to go. It shares no tile with your lead line.
Every Dot you keep holds a place on your rack that Even Craks still needs.
The same 14 tiles in your lead line, Even Craks, and in an unrelated line, Odd Dots.
Compare your plans by the places each one fills and the natural singles and pairs still available. Let go of an unrelated line once keeping its tiles would cost tiles your lead line needs. Keep a backup only when it shares useful tiles with your lead line.
Go by progress, shared tiles and the tiles left, not a set turn number. Holding 3 suits makes sense when the line you chose needs 3 suits. See the worked example of a line that covers more tiles but is blocked (Chapter 6, Section 1, step 13).
A Joker can make a group look ready to call, and a tempting pung can look like progress. But don’t call and expose a group only because you can. First make sure a whole line you can finish holds that exact group, and that the call moves it forward.
Once exposed, a group stays: every new line must hold it.
As Section 2, step 5 showed, a concealed Joker can still move; once you expose it, it stays in that group. A call also shows the group to everyone. An early call can still be a good move when the whole line is clear and the tile matters to it. Don’t swap the habit “call every group” for the equally rigid “never call early.” Step 8 has you weigh 2 calls on a whole rack.
You hold a 4 Bam and a Joker. The newest discard, ringed in gold, is a 4 Bam.
Your 4 Bam and Joker, and the newest discard.
Early in the hand, a Joker lets you call the exact group a well-supported X line needs. Do you have to wait for a certain turn?
Your rack after a call: an exposed 4 Bam pung.
What does an ordinary exposure change for the rest of the hand?
In Chapter 7, Section 2, step 22, you checked whether a call was allowed. Here both calls are allowed: decide whether each one is wise. Look at your whole rack, both lines and the newest discard, then choose: call it, or let it go? Nothing is marked until you check both your answer and the fact that decides it, and your first answer to each situation is kept.
Situation 1 of 2
Early in the hand, nobody has exposed a group. Your lead line is Even Bams; your backup, Consecutive Bams, shares its 2 Bams, 4 Bams and Green Dragons. Left discards a 4 Bam: with your 4 Bam and your Joker, it would make a pung.
Your rack: 13 concealed tiles. Above it, the newest discard.
A teaching example, not a line from the current NMJL card. X means exposures are allowed. You need all 14 tiles.
3 × 2 Bam
3 × 4 Bam
3 × 6 Bam
3 × 8 Bam
2 × Green Dragon
A teaching example, not a line from the current NMJL card. X means exposures are allowed. You need all 14 tiles.
3 × 2 Bam
3 × 3 Bam
3 × 4 Bam
3 × 5 Bam
2 × Green Dragon
Again: your 13 tiles
Newest discard, from Left
Call the 4 Bam, or let it go?
Which fact decides it?
Before you let go of a spare, run through Chapter 11’s 4 questions (Chapter 11, Section 1, step 3). Remember that a player with no exposures may still be close to winning.
Your lines. Which tiles fill your lead line and your backup? Where can a Joker fill a place?
The table. What do the exposures and the old discards show?
Your choice. Which tile fits none of your lines, and which is least likely to help another player?
Your discard. Say only its name, for example “3 Bam,” as you place it. Keep your reasons in your head.
The same 4 questions, in order, before every discard.
Question 3 in action, with the 2 spares from Chapter 11’s table: the 3 Bam is only the example the picture names, not the answer.
Your choice: both fit none of your lines, so compare what each could do for another player.
The exposure: Right’s line holds a 2 Dot pung. On your card, check which lines that hold one use a 3 Bam or a West.
The 4 Wests: yours, 1 old discard that nobody called, and 2 unseen.
The four 3 Bams: yours and 3 unseen. Nothing on the table points to them, or rules them out.
Here the West is a little less risky: one was let go already, and fewer are left to finish a group. Less risky isn’t safe: the last Wests may still finish someone’s hand.
The 3 Bam or the West: what the table shows about each.
A tile discarded earlier doesn’t make another copy safe now. Use the strongest evidence you have, and admit what you still don’t know.
Three discards, and what each one allows. The first 2 come while you play the C line below; the third is about a Joker.
Question 1 of 3
2 × 1 Bam
2 × 3 Bam
2 × 5 Bam
2 × 7 Bam
2 × 9 Bam
2 × Red Dragon
2 × Flower
Your 13 tiles: one Red Dragon short
Your C line, and your 13 tiles.
The newest discard is a 5 Bam. With your two 5 Bams it would make a pung, but it wouldn’t win. What may you do?
Answer without looking back at the examples first. Each answer comes with an explanation, and you can revisit a lesson or practice the questions you missed.
Question 1 of 4
3 × 2 Crak
3 × 4 Crak
3 × 6 Crak
3 × 8 Crak
2 × Flower
Fits nothing
12 places filled. Needs 2: an 8 Crak, which a Joker could also fill, and a natural Flower.
2 × Flower
4 × 2 Crak
4 × 4 Crak
2 × 3 Bam
2 × Green Dragon
Fits nothing
8 places filled. Needs 6, and 4 of them must be natural, because a Joker can’t fill a pair: a Flower, a 3 Bam and 2 Green Dragons.
Two lines for the same tiles.
Which line should be your lead line?
This is the final check for the whole course: 12 situations, one from each chapter, in chapter order. Nothing is filled in for you. Keep the table reference handy if you need it, the same way you keep the agreed card at a table. You get feedback after each answer; do the whole set before you review earlier lessons.
Question 1 of 12
2 × 1 Bam
3 × 2 Bam
3 × 3 Bam
3 × 4 Bam
3 × 5 Bam
Your 14 tiles, in groups
The pattern, and your 14 tiles.
The card shows this pattern, and you hold these 14 tiles. Can you call Mah Jongg?
This checklist brings together the procedures you have practiced; use it to find any step you still need to rehearse. Chapter 9 walked you through a whole first game, and the tabletop rehearsal sheet lets you practice one with real tiles first. Keep the table reference nearby if it helps.
Set up. Mix the tiles face down, build four walls, decide who is East, break the wall and deal: 14 tiles to East, 13 to everyone else. See Chapter 4.
After the deal, East holds 14 tiles and everyone else 13.
It’s fine to play slowly at first. Tell the table you’re new, and ask before you call if you’re unsure.
You have reached the end of the course. The practice record below covers this section; the main menu shows your progress in all 12 chapters. A simulation and a quiz can’t prove your skill at a real table. Practice complete hands at your own pace with the table reference, your agreed card and real tiles.
4 × 1 Bam
4 × 2 Bam
3 × 3 Bam
3 × 4 Bam
Mah Jongg: all 14 tiles match the line
Your aim at every real table: 14 tiles that match one line on your card.
Opening this recap doesn’t complete exercises you haven’t tried. A quiz score is feedback on your practice, not proof that you’re ready for a real table.