Editing Mahjong (section)

==Luck, Statistics or strategy?==
[[Image:Mahjong.jpg|right|Pon! Pon! Chii! Kan!|thumb]]Beginners will notice that a lot of things in Mahjong are based on chance. Your place on the table, your beginning hand and draws from the wall etc. However, if you base your entire game blindly on luck, you might win some '''rounds''' but most of them will involve garbage hands, since you're not aiming for any special hands or trying to trick your opponents to fold their hands, because they think you have something monstrous there. And, most importantly, if you're just relying on getting some lucky tile before anyone else does, you're not watching whether or not your opponents might get their winning tile from you or way before you. In short: With luck you win battles but lose the war.

Regarding reading discards: To interpret hands on what players throw out beyond a shallow estimate is like trying to achieve immortality. Unless you're some sort of interdimensional demon, just forget about it.

[[Image:Kokushi-musou.jpg|right|Get ready to escape out the back if you get this hand.|thumb]]
But what you can do is use the mighty powers of probability and statistics to your advantage. Doing so, you have a better chance of predicting what is the most plausible, rewarding and fastest hand you could strive to from your beginning hand or should you fold it, if you think your needless discards will cause another player to win.

Some argue that success in Mahjong is based on "flow" and demons. Which is supposedly very evident in high-stakes games, where everyone has a great hand but one poor bastard is going to lose his left testicle at the end of the round. The aforementioned statistical thinking opposes this school of thought.

One tiny thing you can do to tip the odds in your favour is to not get overconfident, don't get too greedy. Let's say the other players look like they're one tile away from winning. In your hand there's 6-7-9 of circles; which one do you discard? Bear in mind that a lot of times people are waiting for a tile to complete their hand, it's going to be between 1 and 9. Not all the time but I'd say ~70% of the time. So, you throw out the nine, even though it could get your as some extra minipoints, and wait for a 5 or 8 of circles. A related point is tile versatility, which comes from how many things a tile can form a combination with: 1s and 9s can only form a combination with 3 kinds of tiles (including the tile itself) (2,3;7,8)2s and 8s with 4 (1,2,4;6,7,9) and 3-7 with the most: 5. Honor tiles such as dragons and winds contain the worst versatility: 1. Holding onto tiles with high versatility enables you to gain combinations faster from draws while low versatility tiles make your hand sluggish and slow but more expensive.

Another small trick is to immediately decide what kind of hand and strategy you're going for right from your starting hand. Calculate how many tiles you need in order to win. Less or equal to 3? Go for it and fuck everything else; More than 4? Play defensively: Collect "anchors" and throw away tiles you're quite sure are safe.

Regardless of your strategy: The main point in Mahjong is not to have the best hand, but to lose the least amount of money.

[[Image:Dragon Tiles.jpg|right|These motherfuckers can make or break hands|thumb]]