Once the final tile has been flipped over in a game of mahjong the pressure moves from our hands onto table: Which players will keep the dealer’s chair? What impact will those riichi sticks has on the upcoming round? These are all questions on everyone’s mind for that brief instant before play begins again. It … Read more

There’s a certain kind of tension that Mahjong plays out, one unrelated to the tiles themselves: the math anxiety experienced when you call out that you’re tenpai. Yes, you’ve got a winning hand, but how much will it cost? What are the points in question? How will they change total score for everyone else at … Read more

You are waiting for one tile in your full hand on the table. Your opponent then discards it… And you don’t know if you should play or not. Do you? If you choose not to call a winning discard, you’ll probably lose out on the opportunity to win on any discard until you draw another … Read more

I sit at the table with 13 tiles and I sense this hand is close to being a winner. But I don’t know what tile I am looking for. The calculator will shows me precisely what I’m looking for and how many of those tiles exist in the wall. This lets me focus on reading … Read more

You enter a tournament, lose some games you shouldn’t, and see your rating decrease. But when you look at official list, nothing has changed much. Chances are you’re on a rating floor, a safety net in the chess rating system designed to keep players numbers from crashing during a poor run. Knowing about rating floors … Read more

Early in the process, then, you’ll probably think of your rated games as less like tests of skill than a bit of a lottery. On paper you might be facing someone who looks half your strength, yet you crush them. Or maybe you’re facing someone who seems stronger, but you win. That’s okay… This is … Read more

It never feels like race at the end. It’s more like a waiting room. Every couple of hours, you pull out your phone, cross your fingers and wait for a result that’ll turn the standings in your direction. In sports, though, feelings isn’t reliable. All that remains is an honest metric: the tragic number. This … Read more