Mahjong

>There's a long haired weeb on YouTube who made a very decent video series on how to play

Got a name for this fellow?

You gotta memorize the winning hands but there isn't an immediate need to know them by name nor how to calculate score (the computer does it for you anyhow).

If you reveal a four of a kind set (a "kan") you get to draw again. That's the closest thing.

There's no reason to reveal an already formed set in your hand and the rules don't even allow it in the first place. Once you become familiar with the rules you realize that it would be pointless.

Took me a while to remember, his username is hanayoriuta. Its something like four videos one hour each.

>If you reveal a four of a kind set (a "kan") you get to draw again. That's the closest thing.

How many tiles can I draw from this?

>There's no reason to reveal an already formed set in your hand and the rules don't even allow it in the first place. Once you become familiar with the rules you realize that it would be pointless.

I thought maybe you could draw new tiles from the revealed set.

>Took me a while to remember, his username is hanayoriuta. Its something like four videos one hour each.

Thanks!

playing it with physical tiles is much more fun, but this is decent if you just want to play against computers. good for a beginner, at least.

gamedesign.jp/flash/mahjong/mahjong_e.html

Thanks!

Only one from a particular group of tiles previously set aside called the dead wall.

It's to compensate for the amount of tiles in your hand, which counting your open sets must be 14 always when you draw.

I've been wanting to get into mahjong for ages, but the learning curve seems too steep to get my friends involved, and there's no one that plays nearby me.

...

I learned to play Mahjong, and taught my wife and our two tabletop friends, using regular old western playing cards.

Here's how I did it:

-Start with 4 decks.
-Remove all the numbered Diamond cards except the Ace of Diamonds.
-Remove all the face cards except the Jack of Spades, Queen of Clubs and King of Hearts (these are arbitrary but it makes the most sense if all Face cards are identical to themselves but distinct from each other).
-I put N-S-E-W indicators in the corners of each Ace (E-Heart, S-Clubs, W-Diamonds, N-Spades).

The end result being a set of 136 cards, with four duplicates of each cards.

The Suits go from 2-10 instead of 1-9. Face Cards are used as Dragons (we called them Crowns). Aces are winds.

We play Riichi rules and it's been a ton of fun. My wife is a freaking shark at it.

In riichi you need at least one point. It could be a specific hand as you say, or it could be a set of dragons, the point for being in riichi or winning from a tsumo with a full concealed hand.

>Not putting a green stripe on the 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 of hearts and the king of hearts

But seriously though, it's better if you make Aces as 1s, discard the 10s, and just make all honors come from the "discarded" suit. You can spread them out and say that 2 is East, 4 is South, 6 is West, 8 is North, and face cards are the three dragons. It helps keep the concept of 1s as 1s and 9s as 9s which is important, and helps keep the concept that all honors are totally different and not a part of any suit.

Or you could just spend ~$10 for a set of pic related.

There's a glorious antique ivory & bone set in my family estate. My grandfather brought it home from Korea.

I've never been able to make sense of the rules.

Sounds like war loot. Keep that thing safe, ivory/bone mahjong sets are very (VERY) valuable

So whats everyone's preferred rules? I grew up on chinese rules, but a friend introduced me to Japanese rules and I like it quite a bit more. Feels a bit more tense, and skill focused (albeit not by a lot), rather than Chinese, which I always felt was a tad too reliant on luck of the draw. I'm wondering if there's any other variations that might be good.

I'm very much a fan of Jap mahjong, a friend tried to introduce me to Chinese mahjong after we had both been into riichi for a while since he grew up with it and it just didn't click with me. I haven't really tried any other type outside of those two though, so who knows, there may be one out there that I prefer more.

Try Washizu mahjong.

Malaysian three player mahjong. Faster and more aggresive game.

After looking that up, it seems cool, though I'm not sure if A: It would make things more or less reliant on luck, B: How the hell I'd get a custom set. You'd probably have to just buy a cheap set and paint the corresponding symbols on the back, and C: Where I'd get the equipment to transfusion and store blood steriley.

Someone sell this to GW:

1-9 of Marines, Orkz and Chaos Marines
Winds are the chaos gods symbols
Dragons are red Aquila, Green IG symbol and white is "Light of the god emperor" (blank like the white normally is)

Jap. It involves much more complexity and strategic theory.

There's a three player jap variation which is brutal.

Yeah I picked up a set of cards like this and have transitioned over to playing with them. The regular western cards were a great learning tool though, especially for players who are familiar with games like Canasta. One of our players described Mahjong as "Canasta on crack."

Jap 3p is incredibly amusing to play. I always play a few games of it on tenhou when I get sick of losing in 4p because it's hard to get mad when the game is so stupidly swingy.