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MAH JONGG, THE PEOPLE’S GAME

The world’s most popular game, with millions of players worldwide, Mah Jongg is played in many different versions. As each version has its own rules and winning hands, players of different groups cannot play the game together. In our modern mobile society it would be nice to have a simple version that all players can share.

Chapter 11 of this book introduces a newly arranged player friendly game with simply designed winning hands based on the logical combination of tiles. The game is arranged in a way that will help players understand the formation and the probability of matching tiles in a winning hand through intuition rather than through memorizing the combination of tiles in a specially designed, password-like winning hand. This will make playing the game more enjoyable. It is not the author’s intention to set a new standard for the thousand-years old game, but rather to hope that the simple instruction and the logical combination of tiles in a winning hand will make the game easier for new players to follow.

For experienced players, the classical (Cantonese) version in Chapter 2 illustrates a complete collection of logical probabilities of combinations of tiles from many modern and classical versions of the game, and will serve as valuable reference.

This new edition also salutes the very popular American Game with a chapter that explains this version’s unique characteristics. Chapter 8 succinctly covers the basics and explains how to navigate the official score card. This author’s hope is that, combined with the basic strategies offered in this book, this information will help you enjoy—and win—the American Game.

Finally, two new popular variations—the International Game and the Shenzhen Game—are also included in this new edition. I hope that with these new chapters this book will serve as a complete guide and reference to all players regardless of their preference, and will encourage them to try new versions.