Mah-jongg Night

For some odd reason, I have never sat down with anyone to play mah-jongg.  I think it's because I knew the basic history of how complicated the game could be.  But some friends asked us to play a few hands so my gamer curiosity got us to the table to try it out.  

The tiles were solid and hefty, and had a good feel to them.  At first we played around with a solitaire version, where you set up one of the standard shapes they show and try to clear the whole pattern one unblocked pair at a time.  That was okay, but works much better on an app, where designers set up hundreds of amazing patterns to try.

After that, we had a four player session with a rummy feel.  It was fun setting up the fort.  I already knew the matches, and Anne caught on quickly (thanks to those apps).  Of course, we speculated about possible variations, and I suppose I bugged them with questions: can I add a tile to someone else's layout (no), can we pick up any tile or just the last one discarded (last one), can I add a tile to one of my own melds (no), stuff like that.

At the hotel later that night, I read the wikipedia page about the game, and the depth and variations hurt my brain. There are regional variations, special competitive organizations that publish their own rule sets, and more.

I need to get a photo of the mah-jongg set I have on my shelf at home.  They always struck me as being playable art items, or relics of another age.  For my taste it takes way too long to set up, flipping and scrambling all the tiles on the table, then setting up the tableaux.  I can see how players might spin-off and take it very seriously, like some of the domino players I have run into over the years.