Mahjongg playing

[cintiaghimel]

Hey guys and girls!

I would like to know more about mahjongg. I'm addicted to mahjongg playing (pc game) and I'm thinking of buying a set, but I don't think the way you play it's quite the same, is it?

I found a website withe rules of the game and it has nothing to do with the one I play on my PC (Mahjongg Escape/Quest).

A friend of mine is going to China next month and I asked him to bring me a set, and I'd like to know how much does it cost in China. I presume it's cheaper than on the web, plus I'm not willing to buy a Deluxe version of it. Any help?

[Pravit]

Do you mean the one you play on your PC is mahjong solitaire (matching tiles and taking them away)? The real mahjong is played with four people and is a bit like rummy. It's more fun than the tile-matching game, I would say! You can play a computer version of the four-player game here:

http://www.ninedragons.com/

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever played Mahjong solitaire with a real set?

[cintiaghimel]

Yes I meant Mahjong solitaire. But I thought one could play mahjong however one likes it, I mean, I can play it tile matching with the traditional mahjong set, right?

Yesterday I went to next city and there is a chinese shop there. I asked the girl if she knew mahjong, but she didn't know what's that even after I described it (I described as the 4 walls game). I wonder how hard it's gonna be for my friend to find it there as he knows nothing about China and will probably give up in his first attempt to explain it in English...

I'll give a try on the link you posted thank you very much!

[Pravit]

Of course you can play with a mahjong set however you want. The think about the tile matching game is that's relatively recent - as far as I know it didn't exist before the age of personal computers. The computer sets up the tiles so that if you play perfectly, you should be able to win - in other words, if you pick the right pairs every time, you won't get stuck. However, I have no idea how you would do this with a real set, without the help of a computer. Assuming you shuffled around the tiles randomly and built a big pile like in the game, you would probably be able to match off a few tiles before getting stuck.

Now I think it would be quite easy to make a mahjong program that would show you each layer of tiles, so you could go and build your own mahjong solitaire game with a real set. It would be slow and time-consuming, and pretty pointless, but then you could at least say you played mahjong solitaire with an actual mahjong set.

[thph2006]

Is mahjong played by everyone in China or mostly by men, or women, older people...? How popular is it these days? Are there other popular games Chinese natives prefer?

[Pravit]

I think everyone at least knows how to play mahjong. Sometimes you see people playing it in parks or on the streetside. Although older women are quite fond of it, it's not considered a feminine game. Correct me if I'm wrong but I have the impression that it's more popular in the south.

Another game that you see people playing all the time is xiangqi, which is similar to western chess. Since it only requires two people and a xiangqi set, you see people playing it all the time on sidewalks, in parks, on lunch break, etc.

Although I never see anyone playing it, since my girlfriend refuses to learn how to play xiangqi, we often play banqi. It's a fun little game.