Mastering Mahjong: The Key to Scoring BIG

Mahjong is supposed to be fun, but you'll really start having a great day when you've played a few times and remember the patterns of different hands.

Don't commit to a hand too soon. Once you grab a discarded tile and expose a set, you're pretty much locked in, and you can't go back to a concealed hand after that.

After picking your hand, consider other similar ones. Be open to switching it up based on the tiles you see during Charleston, the ones you draw from the wall, or by checking out the discarded tiles or the tiles other players reveal.

Let's dive into some similar hands:

We'll start with everyone's favorite... Three Philosophers (pg 16)

Flexible hands include Robin & South Bank on the same page, but if you get more honours, you might switch it up and start thinking about ZigZag with odd honours or Bombshell with pungs of winds & dragons (both on pg 60).

Little Robert (pg 17) is pretty flexible too, but if you start getting Pungs instead of Chows, you can move on to Big Bob (pg 54). Did you notice the similarity in the names? Just when you decide on a hand without honours and give them away, you get honours back. It always happens during Charleston. That's the time to switch to Mixed Pungs (pg 55).

We can't forget Gloria's Choice (pg 18) that can easily turn into All Shook Up (pg 51).

Those can also be flipped to form North or South Seas (pg 25).

When you begin by picking up honour tiles and lean towards United Nations and similar hands on page 24-25, keep an eye out for 1s and 9s so you can hit the jackpot with Unique Wonder (pg 40).

There are tons of hands that connect to other hands, and you'll find them with a bit of practice. You'll know when it's time to stop playing 'chicken hands' like Crazy Chows, the Running Series, and other half-limit hands and move on to hands like the ones above that will boost your score and your enjoyment of the game.

Note: All page numbers are from the latest edition of the mahjong book

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