BAM! CRACK! MAHJONG!

WOMEN REVEL IN REVIVAL OF CHINESE TILE GAME


Sam Pease, from left, Bev Rudman, Cynthia Leonard and Deborah Homer play mahjong last week at the library. Rudman, a Green Lane resident, founded the club last year to introduce neighbors to the ancient Chinese board game. PHOTO BY ANDREA VON HOHENLEITEN

Sam Pease, from left, Bev Rudman, Cynthia Leonard and Deborah Homer play mahjong last week at the library. Rudman, a Green Lane resident, founded the club last year to introduce neighbors to the ancient Chinese board game. PHOTO BY ANDREA VON HOHENLEITEN

One of the trendiest games being played on Conanicut Island in the new year doesn’t need a television screen, a computer or a smartphone. Instead, the entire game is played with 144 plastic tiles.

A club for mahjong players will meet at the North Road library every Monday in 2019. The program is hosted by volunteer Bev Rudman, a mahjong junkie for nearly 15 years. She founded the group after learning about the reincarnation of the game dating to the 1800s.

“Why don’t I just teach people?” she told herself. “That way, I’d have more people to play with.”

When the group began in the summer, it was separated into units for beginners and intermediate players. As the rules and gameplay became familiar, however, it morphed into its current format, which includes about 75 minutes of casual games.

“We started playing the second week of the lessons,” Rudman said. “You can learn quickly, but you just get more proficient.”

Mahjong is a game of Chinese origin that utilizes tiles with a design emblazoned on one side. During the course of a game, players compete against one another to collect the tiles they need to complete predetermined hands. Each player is given a reference card that lists the arrangements needed for all winning hands.

Jocelyn Schaffer, from left, Diane Stover, Mary Gooding and Karen Estes playing mahjong last week at the library. Players make winning hands by using 144 designed tiles. PHOTO BY ANDREA VON HOHENLEITEN

Jocelyn Schaffer, from left, Diane Stover, Mary Gooding and Karen Estes playing mahjong last week at the library. Players make winning hands by using 144 designed tiles. PHOTO BY ANDREA VON HOHENLEITEN

“It’s kind of like gin rummy,” Mary Gooding said, “but way more complicated.”

A game is designed for four players sitting on different sides of a table. The players are given a rack to hold the tiles in their hand, similar to Scrabble. At the start of a game, the tiles are scattered face-down, which the players use to build four “walls” of 36 tiles each.

The players first determine which of the four sides will be “east,” which will be the first wall they break to build their hands. A dice roll determines how many tiles each player can take at a time. The walls are broken until each player has 12 tiles. The dealer, who would be the east player in this instance, takes two more tiles while the other three players each take an additional tile.

While the players build their hands, they take turns removing tiles from the remaining walls while discarding tiles they do not need into the middle of the table. The first player to announce “mahjong,” which is a winning hand, is the victor of that game. These hands are made from different combinations of matching titles based on their suits, designs or numbers.

“The challenge is deciding what hand you’re going to go for,” Jocelyn Schaffer said. “That can change as the game goes on. According to what we picked, we try to figure out what hand we could potentially complete to get mahjong.”

The group plays the American variation of the game, which includes rules not found in the original Chinese version. One of these is the “Charleston.” This style allows each player to pass three face-down tiles to each of the other players before the game begins.

There is no typical length of a mahjong game. While newer players may take 30 minutes to get a winning hand, experienced players with good luck can finish a game in half that time.

“Someone may have a hand and it can be over in five minutes,” Rudman said.

Eight players typically attend the Monday sessions, with two games of four players being played simultaneously. Rudman originally hosted a second weekly session on Tuesdays but cut back after snowbirds left for Florida.

Among the players is Deborah Homer, a librarian who was curious about the ancient game.

“I had wanted to play it a long time ago,” she said.

Homer said learning the game was easier than chess but more challenging than dominoes. Her fellow players agreed the difficulty curve of mahjong was perfect for them.

“It’s a fun game,” Cynthia Leonard said. “There’s a lot of strategy, and a little luck.”

The library isn’t the only place in town where mahjong can be played. A group meets at the senior center on West Street to play Friday mornings, and the Conanicut Yacht Club also offers a group for its members.

Rudman attributed the popularity of mahjong to its casual gameplay, which allows players to socialize with one another.

“This is a game that you can talk while you play,” she said. “You can sit around, you can chit-chat. There’s camaraderie. It’s easy, it’s fun and it’s fast-paced.”