The mahjong session and I

I read from Calvin's blog that he played mahjong yesterday, coincidentally I too played mahjong yesterday. So I shall dedicate this entry to the mahjong session with my friends yesterday - the struggle. It's been weeks, and I do mean weeks, since we last had our mahjong session. We used to be playing week in week out, so it is not a surprise that I find myself at a loss when I first saw my tiles, during the first round. Loss, as in I could not decide what to play to(pong pong hu, one colour, ping hu, etc.). The first round is a quick one in my opinion, since I was still trying to re-adapt to the game. Weijie self touch '5-dai'. The next round Shining self touch '5-dai'.

We have revert back to playing 20c 40c since the holiday season is over. With this game barely started, I am on a -$12.80 capital. My strategy when I got a bad hand was always to guard my 'xia kar' - the person after me. But as mentioned earlier, I was still quite loss, so somehow I forgot to play to my strategy, of guarding Weijie. And you should know why I mention this important point. =) I got an amazingly consistent 1-2 dai 'Qi Shou'(start hand). Almost every round, my Qi Shou(13 tiles) would be 1 flower, 2 'da pai' and a combination of 4-4-3 for the other 11 tiles. Actually I am not that unlucky after all, considering I always got the flower at Qi Shou to deter me from going for Ping Hu, and the flower is usually my own flower or an animal. I still remember I was quite excited during 1 round when the first 4 tiles I opened were 1 animal, 2 got dai's da pai and a barrel. Well, the next 10 tiles then turn out to be 3 barrels, 4 bamboos and 3 ten-thousands. After many rounds of these '4-4-3', I started to guard Weijie. As the saying goes: when you are determined, you can grind even metal into needle. I guard Weijie and 'make' the same colour as him; with 4 tiles left to draw from the wall, I finally started to 'Ting'(listen) to a half colour 5 dai. Although I didn't win that round, but it was my first 5 dai of the night.

The game progressed at a healthy pace, my losing did not 'peak' despite my bad tiles. This is because other than Shining winning a 4 dai from Weizhi and Weijie winning a 5 dai from me, it was a night of 1, 2, 3 dais. The 5 dai is uncanny; Weijie Qi Shou got 3 animals. The round barely started and he pong 3 times. There is only slightly more than 10 tiles in the discard pool, it is almost impossible to guard Weijie's pong pong hu. I am making a half colour barrel with 1 dai on the table - my hand is 2 da pai(eyes), 1234-barrel & 67-barrel. To ting, I can't discard the 'safe' 6 barrel, I have to discard either 1 or 4-barrel. By MY theory that Weijie likes to self touch and would probably listen to 1 barrel, I chose to discard 4 barrel and then it is you-know-what-happen. Destined or just think too much.

Bei Feng and Weijie is the zhuang, we are in the last 3 rounds - I have lost $40, Weijie won $50+, Weizhi lost $30+, and Shining won $20. My Qi Shou is 2 Bai Ban, 2 Hong Zhong, 1 Qing Fa, 1 Bei Feng, 3 barrel, 2 ten-thousands, and 2 bamboos. I pong my Bai Bans and Hong Zhongs but there was no 'Bao' Qing Fa because there was already 2 Qing Fa in the discard pool. I managed to get an animal, so I have 3 dais on the table; bao Bei Feng Bei. My hand is 2 Bei, 456-barrel, & 2 8-barrel. Weijie drew a Bei Feng from the wall but he haven't Ting, so he did not discard his Bei Feng. Shining is also listening to 5 dai and he discards a Nan Feng and then a 8-barrel. I won a 5 dai from Shining this round. Then 'Weizhi zhuang', Shining won a quick 2 dai. The last round, we played our usual minimum 4 dai rule. I won with a half colour pong pong(yes, my favourite) discard from Weizhi. I recouped $25.20 from the last 3 rounds to take my losses down to $14. What a lucky escape, the mahjong session and I - the struggle.