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Defensive Majiang Strategy On this page, some basic defensive majiang strategies are given. Of course, you should also take a look at the other half of the strategy hints section which concentrates on offensive strategies (preferably first, since this page makes some references to that one). These two aspects of majiang strategy shouldn't be considered very separate (despite the way these pages, too, have been organized) but recognized as to sides of the same thing, and be allowed mingle into one, balanced whole. It is also worth keeping in mind that the hints given on this page are by no means a comprehensive analysis of anything, nor do they provide a sure path to becoming a majiang expert. True skill is only achieved only through experience and creativity - that is, through playing, and what could be more fun that that? It is also imperative to note that the majiang rules system profoundly affects the viability of various strategies. These hints have been written with the Japanese-style rules used by Kejimajiangmi in mind, and are only in part generalizable to other rules systems. However, since these hints are pretty basic, they embody many of the fundamental principles that are common to most majiang systems. It might be useful, for the beginner, to actively keep in mind the most important points (in bold face) while playing - they are easy to forget in the excitement of a game. And of course, it should be remembered that these hints are just guidelines. The wall provides endless surprises to which every good player must be able to adapt. Why Defense? One of the intriguing aspects of (Japanese-style) majiang is that the one player who discards the winning tile is alone responsible for his actions, and must pay the winner. It follows that: even if you don't win, you don't have to lose. For the defensive strategist, this important fact opens possibilities that could be summarized as: you don't have to win each deal. And truly: unlike in most games that are based on 'manipulating luck', a good majiang player can - almost always - choose to avoid losing a deal, irrespective of which tiles he draws from the wall. Defensive play is important in all majiang styles (possibly excluding some American variants), but in the Japanese-style systems, its role is strongly emphasized. Accepting One's Fate Some players find it inconceivable that every hand is not suited for winning. Instead of trying to go out, a player can, by keeping certain tiles in his hand and discarding carefully, avoid losing and sometimes even prevent the others from going out. A good player is able to assess his chances of winning after just a few rounds of discards and adapt to the situation. Avoiding losing and discarding only safe tiles can be as challenging and enjoyable as trying to win. By discarding only tiles that are totally useless to other players, a player can sometimes keep the other players from going out until the wall is exhausted, especially by cooperating with other such 'saboteurs'. So: don't despair when the wall just gives you crap. Accept the situation and take up the defensive. Luck will even out sooner or later (later, it often seems). Sometimes, it will happen that one loses on one of the very first discards in a deal, or on an almost completely safe discard. These situations can be really frustrating, as it doesn't seem like one deserved the loss, but even then it's no use trying to fight one's fate and start playing against the odds. Take losses calmly. Calculated Risks Majiang strategy is largely based on the taking of risks in a well thought-out manner. To understand this, it is good to first think about what is actually meant by the often-heard word 'risk'. A risk can be thought to consist of three main concepts: probability, i.e. how likely it is for something to occur, loss, i.e. what (and how much) the participant is might lose if 'the bad thing' happens, and gain, i.e. what (how much) the participant stands to (potentially) gain by taking the risk. In good majiang playing, as in other good risk-taking activities, these factors have to balance in order for a good outcome to result. During game play, one has to constantly evaluate one's prospects with the current objective in mind: how many points can be won, how likely winning is, and what are the possible losses (and how likely is losing). If the objective, in light of this analysis, is realistic and sensible, one should go for it; otherwise, another objective should be found and defensive strategy emphasized. Taking risks is an integral part of majiang, and nothing will be gained using a no-risk playing style. On the other hand, taking too many risks soon brings about losses which will require several victories - and usually more risks - to compensate for. The taking of risks has to be measured against the potential value of one's hand and the situation in the game. A thorough familiarity with the scoring rules is necessary to choose one's discards well. With a hand of barely over twenty points, not many risks are worth taking, and one should probably forget about winning pretty soon unless the hand happens to develop very quickly. With a hand of several hundred points, however, risks will have to (and usually should) be taken in order to keep one's hand ready. One should always be mentally prepared to give up one's plans for winning if the situation becomes too dangerous. The Changing Role of Defense As the deal progresses and the hands of one's opponents get closer to being ready, the role of defensive playing becomes more and more important. This development has a reverse relationship with the progress of one's own hand, i.e., the slower your hand develops towards victory, the faster you should begin to emphasize defense. Little by little, avoiding losing should usually become one's main consideration when making one's choices about discarding and melding. One measure of the quality of one's hand that can be easily calculated during gameplay is the minimum number of tiles that are required, with optimal luck, to transform one's hand into a complete, winning hand. One should also consider the number of remaining tiles that can be used for this transformation (i.e. the quality of the elements in one's hand). With practise, this calculating is replaced by semi-intuitive 'seeing'. With a truly lousy initial hand (which requires seven or more tiles to become a winning hand) it is likely better to play defensively from the start. When aiming for victory, one must also remember to pay attention to defending. Each set completed by another player brings them one step closer to winning before you do, or might even cause you to lose immediately. Already after a few rounds of discards, there's a disctinct possibility of someone having a ready hand, and after ten or so rounds, at least one of your opponents is very likely ready. To play skillfully, one should understand that defensive and offensive strategies should not be mutually exclusive, and a deal does generally not consist of definable phases such as a 'passive build-up part in the beginning', an 'aggressive melding part', and a 'defensive latter part'. Instead, a good player re-evaluates his situation continuously and is able to emphasize offense and defense as approproate, or choose something in-between, such as a discard which is not ideal from the offensive viewpoint, but still allows him to keep his options open in case good tiles appear from the wall later. This balancing between strategies is a very challending business, and it may be difficult to resist going for an over-aggressive move when a good tile shows up late in the game. A beginner might do well to make a decision to switch the defensive at some point of the deal, and firmly stick with that. Honors Isolated honor tiles are usually discarded right away just because they're too inflexible to be good for forming elements. This is generally a prudent practise from the defensive viewpoint as well, as honors are particularly valuable to other players, and should be gotten rid of at once or not at all. If the initial hand is really hopeless, though, even isolated honor tiles should perhaps be kept so that other players with two copies of the same tile won't be able to use them to form valuable sets. Additionally, they may prove extremely safe discards later in the deal (but they may not). Many a fine hand has been ruined by an unsafe honor tile drawn late in a deal to a ready hand. In cases like this, one should usually fight the frustration and discard a safe tile instead of the unsafe honor, even though it might well mean giving up chances of winning the deal. Discarding the honor would not only provide the other players with a chance to win, but also give them a potential extra double. Reading Discards In order to play a good defensive game, a player must of course know which tiles are safe discards. The most important means of determining this is observing the discards of other players. Typically, the first tiles a player discards after getting rid of superfluous honor tiles are isolated tiles which are not part of any easily developable element. These tiles and their close neighbors in the same suit are, at least in the early stages of the game and perhaps a bit later as well, safe discards as far as that player is concerned. When a player, several turns later, discards a tile (that he previously had in his hand) that is markedly different from the tiles he's been discarding thus far, there's a good chance that the newly discarded tile is part of some element and the tiles close to the discarded tile might well be dangerous discards. Additionally, it's quite possible that the player has become ready to go out with some tile(s) close to the discarded tile, especially if he's been playing aggressively and melding during the last couple of turns. In addition to copies of the very same tiles that a player has just discarded, other tiles can also be deduced to be resonably safe discards. If a player discards a number two from some suit early in a deal, tile number one from the same suit is generally also safe. If he discards a three, both one and two are often safe. Further deductions can be made in the later parts of the deal as well, based on the assumption that players generally aim for sequences, and therefore have elements of two consecutive tiles in their hands. Thus, if a player discards, say, a five, then it's not likely that he'll be waiting for a tile three numbers removed, i.e. a two or an eight from the same suit. This so-called 1-4-7 -rule often works better than one would first think. It should always be remembered, though, that of course there is also the possibility of a player looking for triplets or having rarer types of elements (e.g. 1-3-5), in which cases these deductions don't work. However, they can be used to maximise the chance of being right. To plan one's game, one must be able to approximate how valuable hands the other players are striving to get. If one of the other player is going for a particularly valuable hand, it calls for extra caution. A potentially valuable hand can be easily noticed in case a player has melded triplets of valuable honor tiles, but the value of a concealed hand is much less obvious. If a player has failed to discard any tiles from some suit, he may well be trying for a valuable one-suit hand, in which case it's a bad idea to discard any tiles from that suit which aren't completely safe. If, late in the deal, not a single copy (or perhaps just a single one) of an honor tile has been discarded, it's likely that one of the other players has two or three of them in their hand, and discarding another is a big risk. The value of a players hand can also be deduced from the risks he takes - a player trying to win big is going to take lots more risks than a player trying to win with a cheap hand or just playing for a draw (be careful with this, though, it's sometimes possible to discard very safely while still trying to win). Counting the tiles visible on the table and in one's own hand can also give some basic idea of what's safe to discard. If there are three of the same honor tile in the discards, for example, the fourth is completely safe (barring the 'Thirteen Orphans' special hand). Or, if all eights and two nines are visible, another nine is practically safe. Note, though, that just because you have, say, a triplet of some suit tile in your hand, it doesn't mean that it would be much at all safer than any other tile - it's still quite possible for anyone to wish to claim it for a sequence, the most common set type. Melding A concealed hand is a major asset for offensive playing, and at least equally useful for defense. A concealed hand provides a plentiful number of potential discards, increasing the number of safe decisions available. Especially with a concealed hand consisting of simple suit tiles it's occasionally possible to play quite aggressively and still discard only safe tiles. Melding sets instead decreases the number of free tiles. A large number of losses are caused by an unsafe discard that is made just after claiming a tile for a meld. Melding a triplet or four is particularly questionable (also) from the defensive point of view, as it takes away two (or three) safe discards from your hand, which is bad even if one is planning on winning the deal. It's also worth noting that the player on the right gets an extra turn when melding. Under some rather rare circumstances, claiming a tile can help with defense. By melding a triplet, you can try to skip over the turn of a player who seems to be doing well. You can also use triplet to ruin someone's attempted meld of a sequence. Very occasionally, it might even be worthwhile to meld a sequence when you're not even going for the win only to confuse other players (this is only an option when the two other tiles in the sequence would have been very dangerous discards anyway). Sometimes, when the wall is just about to be exhausted, you might want to prevent your most dangerous adversaries from drawing the last tile in the wall (which is worth a double if they manage to win with it). It should be remembered, though, that in the special cases you should meld only if you have a good number of safe discards in your hand. Observing One's Opponents A very important, player-dependent, and hard-to-teach aspect of strategy is the observing of one's opposing players. By carefully watching how the other players look at tiles that have been discarded or that they have drawn, and observing their other mannerisms, it is possible to draw conclusions about various things such as the tiles they require and how close they are to being ready to go out. Usually, players show some kinds of signals when a tile that they need or might need is discarded or drawn from the wall. This gives useful clues as to the contents of their hands. If a player seems not to want any tile he draws, instead discarding them as he draws them, he is very likely to be close to winning, probably ready to go out. A player who discards a tile immediately after drawing it likely has no incomplete elements that are connected with that tile, possibly even no tiles close to it at all. On the other hand, a player who hesitatingly puts away a drawn tile very likely has tiles near the drawn tile. Many more situation-specific deductions of these types can be made, and perhaps even extend them to the players bodily poses and behavior. Of course, a good player can avoid giving such involuntary clues and perhaps mislead others with false hints. Since psychological reasoning can be used to obtain significant advantage in the game, it is clearly in the players' interests to make one's opponents believe that they're doing exactly the opposite than what they're actually up to. A player should hesitate when discarding completely useless safe tiles, display interest when he needs bamboos and an opponent discards dots, etc. If you're aiming for a big victory, convince the others you aren't, and if you just try to avoid losing, you could, say, avoid discarding tiles of one suit altogether to make it seem that you're going for one suit only. With all of this deduction and counter-deduction going on, having a concealed hand is a major advantage.

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