Archive for the ‘In Garthe’s Hands’ Category
In Garthe’s Hands #9 – Full Straight & 3 Concealed Triples
Mar 20th, 2007
by garthe
Long time no hands!! I bet you all thought with the lack of new hands columns that I must have finally run out of new hands to throw at you. Not the case! Though it should be encouraging to know that we are at least half way through them all at this point. In fact, it should be even more encouraging to note that the 16 hands I’ve given you so far plus the two I’m going to give you today make up 3396 of the 3428 hands I’ve completed in 1544 games of Fight Club so far this year. That’s more than 99%! So pay attention for at least this column too, and then you can ignore me in earnest for a few weeks. Without further ado, I introduce to you: One Suit Straight, and 3 Concealed Triples.
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Posted in Columns, In Garthe's Hands |
In Garthe’s Hands #8 – Mixed and Pure Outside Hands
Feb 27th, 2007
by garthe
How are you all holding up remembering all those hands? We’ve covered quite a few already and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you are wondering how much longer I can keep coming up with new hands to throw at you. Don’t worry; after 14 of them now, we’re almost halfway through! Hang in there. The hands I’ll be covering the next few issues will be comparatively rare, but can make for impressive scores when they’re pulled off. Today let’s cover two more that are closely related to each other: Mixed Outside Hand, and Pure Outside Hand.
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Posted in Columns, In Garthe's Hands |
In Garthe’s Hands #7 – 3 Color Run & 3 Color Triples
Feb 16th, 2007
by garthe
Last week I got to tell you about my absolute favorite hand so I guess this week I have to go to the other extreme and tell you my most hated. It’s strange because many pros consider it their favorite. I don’t know if it’s just because I want to be different or because I’m bitter or what, but this hand bites me more than it feeds me and I just can’t forgive it. I HATE Sanshoku. I hate it so much I don’t even want it to have an English name. How about 3 Color Runs. That sounds poopy enough doesn’t it?
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Posted in Columns, In Garthe's Hands |
In Garthe’s Hands #6 – All Terminals & 4 Concealed Triples
Feb 5th, 2007
by garthe
Oh how I’ve waited. Today I finally get to declare my true love, my favoritest of favorite hands, a thing more beautiful than Yosemite and my girlfriend put together. (Now we’ll see if she’s really reading this).
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Posted in Columns, In Garthe's Hands |
In Garthe’s Hands #5 – All Triples and All Pairs
Jan 25th, 2007
by garthe
What to cover, what to cover….there’s still so much. In my last episode I jumped in to the wild and crazy world of multi-point hands with the two kinds of flushes. I was debating jumping into the total absolute lunacy of “complete hands” which give more points than anything you’ve ever imagined and which would have included my absolute favoritest of hands. But I think first I’ll take a step back to some hands which are related, but which will figure more prominently in your hand repertoire. These hands are not the most most mostest of points, but will often play a part in hands which eventually add up to a lot of points.
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Posted in Columns, In Garthe's Hands |
In Garthe’s Hands #4 – Flushes
Jan 15th, 2007
by garthe
So I took a look at my Fight Club stats the other day, and as luck would have it, 5 of the 6 hands I’ve covered so far are my most used hands, by quite a large margin. Of course it’s not luck, but rather, all part of my greater plan. Let’s take a look:
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Posted in Columns, In Garthe's Hands |
In Garthe’s Hands #3 – Reach
Jan 4th, 2007
by garthe
Last week I began a theme on hands that go well together with other hands. This week I’ll continue on that theme with 2 more hands in the same vein. However, these hands are not like the hands we’ve seen so far where you want to build certain combinations of groups or use certain tiles. These are more like situations: Concealed-self-draw and Reach. They are both possible any time a hand is one away from being basically completed. Another way to say it is that any combination of 4 groups of 3 and the 2 tile head will qualify for these hands.
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Posted in Columns, In Garthe's Hands |
In Garthe’s Hands #2 – Peace and Double-Run
Dec 26th, 2006
by garthe
Last week, I introduced Value Tiles and Simples, two hands that are mutually exclusive. It is totally impossible to ever have both of those hands in one hand. However, cramming as many of the different kinds of Hand Points as possible into one hand is how one gets more points out of a hand and is thus one of the secrets to winning games of Mahjong. It’s similar to Poker in that respect. For example, a hand with one pair, or even a three of a kind is not that great. A hand with both, however, is a full house, and probably worth a lot. Straights and flushes are pretty good, but a hand that is both a straight AND a flush beats everything, yeah?
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Posted in Columns, In Garthe's Hands |
Garthe’s first Column – Value Tiles & All Simples
Dec 17th, 2006
by garthe
Mahjong Mahjong Mahjong. So you think you want to dive into the exciting, seedy, seething, frothing at the mouth world of Mahjong. Well I’ll tell you: watch out. Few escape unscathed. My ex-girlfriend regrets ever explaining the rules to me as the game achieved near girlfriend status for me after about 10 minutes. There is no known cure, besides a new girlfriend, but as afflictions go it’s a pretty good one.
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Posted in Columns, In Garthe's Hands |
