Reachmahjong.com

I have tried Kong88. In brief:

1) The 2-player game is OK, I guess. It used dots and honors only.

2) The 4-player game uses Hong Kong rules. The major problem I have with this is that the pace of play is much slower than I am used to from the Japanese mahjong sites. Being a US resident, I am not allowed to play for real money on Kong88, and thus have not tried the real money tables. But if you\'re not gambling for real money, I would say that the site is a waste of time.

Once there was a rant on this forum that, aside from the obscenity, pretty much nailed Jenn. I think I\'ll leave now.

Ugh that does suck if you can\'t play with real money. I know a lot of the servers for these things are located on the Isle of Man and there was a big thing in the UK media when the US decided to crack down on online gambling. A lot of companies got really scared. Does it depend on your state or is it just the US in general?

Also, does MahjongTime let you play for money still?

I haven\'t tried Kong88 yet but I\'m gonna try today. The slow thing sounds irritating... First, I actually want to try Beat the Landlord that they host on there. It\'s one of the games I\'ve wanted to try since seeing it played in China.

I also wondered if anyone knew if the 13 Card they have on there or \"Chinese Poker\" is that Ya-Wei game. The one which is supposedly the precursor to mahjong.

Anyway, I\'ll let you know what I think...

gemma wrote:I also wondered if anyone knew if the 13 Card they have on there or "Chinese Poker" is that Ya-Wei game. The one which is supposedly the precursor to mahjong.

Gemma,
I have written an extensive FAQ on precursor games (http://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq11b.htm and http://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq11h.htm), but I never heard of "Ya-Wei." If it\'s an important precursor to mahjong, could you point me to a site or a book?
Or is Ya-Wei another name for one of the precursor games already listed in my FAQs?

And no, just now I looked at the rules of the 13 Card game on Kong88 and it looks nothing like any mahjong precursor game I\'ve seen (it looks like Poker).

Well my attempts to take a look were stopped by the Windows-only client...

I suspect that Ya-Wei is a colloquialism for the precursors you mention in your articles. But let me ask some people and get to the bottom of it!

Sorry... Not Ya Wei, I mean Ya Pei. Although I\'ve never seen it. 32 cards/tiles or something similar...

gemma wrote:Sorry... Not Ya Wei, I mean Ya Pei. Although I\'ve never seen it. 32 cards/tiles or something similar...

I never heard of ya pei either. Could you take a look at my FAQ 11b and 11h and help me figure out which of the known precursor games you were thinking of? You can search FAQ 11h for the word "32" ...

Okay I think it\'s some sort of domino game and you cover Chinese dominoes in your article. =)

http://www.longwiki.net/%E7%89%99%E7%89%8C

Point 3 includes a quote. I think it must be another word for the actual dominoes. I\'ll keep looking around to see if there is an actual game attached to the term. The closest I\'ve got so far is something similar to Pai Gow.

I have heard a lot of crazy theories about the origins of mahjong though...