Washizu Mahjong in Holland Tournament

and

This weekend, I got a beautiful Happy New Year card from Takunori Kajimoto, the referee at the forthcoming European Riichi Mahjong Championship in Hanover, who will also hopefully join us for the Washizu in Holland Tournament.

A happy Year of the Dragon to you as well, Kaji-san!

Happy New Blood in the Year of the Dragon…

My tiles and, in the card box, the Dead Wall

(follow-up from Martin’s column in Mahjong News)

So I played Washizu Mahjong last Sunday with some friends. Some first impressions. There’s a lot of things you have to think about when you play Washizu mahjong.

1. After each player has taken his initial thirteen, or fourteen, tiles from the Wall (out of the Box, out of the Bag), fourteen more tiles have to be put aside to make the Dead Wall. Also these tiles are kept in a bag or something like that. But one of them is taken out right away and put apart somewhere on the table. That’s the Dora Indicator.
2. Also, when someone kans, he has not only to take a additional from the Dead Wall Bag, but someone, e.g. East, has to move one tile from the Living Wall Bag to the Dead Wall Bag. Since the Dead Wall always must contain fourteen tiles.
3. When drawing the initial thirteen, or fourteen tiles, you must take care to cover them with your hands. It is not bad to show your transparent tiles, but you would not show the opaque ones to your opponents – would you?
4. There should be a rule that it is forbidden to cover your tiles with your hands during game play.
5. How do you grab a tile from the Wallbag? Some people can really feel the value of the tiles with their fingertips, although I hardly believe anyone can feel the difference between Character 4 and Character 5 with small Japanese tiles. On the other hand, anyone can feel the difference between a Dot 1 and a Red Dragon of he wants to. And a Japanese White Dragon is way too easy… But: wearing gloves? Then we would have to have a DIN- of ISO-standard for Washizu gloves. I have some grandchildren who would love to be dealers and hand over tiles to players. But after five minutes they will want to play hide-and-seek, I am afraid; the eldest is just six years old.
6. Some players say that it is better to turn the opaque tiles a half turn, so the players at your left and your right can see them better. For yourself, this would not matter. Our experience is somewhat different: once turned around, they are not so well to distinguish. Esp. when you are not that tall.
7. People who always sort their tiles, now cease doing so, in order to make it more difficult for the others. Or they put the opaque tiles in a way that you can’t possibly guess what tile it is. I think it is impossible to force players to do otherwise.
8. You have to bear in mind always that, if a player has one visible Red Dragon, he never can have a pon of them. Since there is always just one opaque specimen of each tile.
9. Sometimes a player has just one or two opaque tiles, while another player may have up to six or seven non-transparent ones. We think it might be worth another yaku if you go out with one opaque tile and maybe two if you have only transparent tiles.

To be continued…
By the way, Tom Mustonen, a.k.a. Wortex, won our friendly game.