New Card Class Slides Done

I have been playing Mah Jongg for thirty years. Longer, if you count childhood years playing Chinese Mah Jongg with my grandmother. American Mah Jongg is my favorite because the National Mah Jongg League changes the winnable hands every year.

This keeps the game exciting and stretches players brains because nothing about the new hands are in our long term memories. Of course there are those players who remember old favorite hands, but for most players, our memories fade as we get excited about a new card with new hands.

Every year the excitement builds waiting for our cards to arrive. I order a bunch on January 1, which I’m told is the first official day to order your cards. My credit card gets charged and I wait until April for my cards to arrive. Supposedly the earlier you order the sooner yours gets mailed. This year I still have not received my cards. Being a Mah Jongg teacher this is not good. Thanks to friends who have gotten theirs, I have a card to use.

Use is not the right word. Study, ponder, play, analyze would be more like it. This week starts my tour around the state and on zoom of my New Card Orientation Class. Thankfully I gave myself a little extra time this year and I have needed every minute.

I can tell that big changes have happened at the NMJL because this card is a BIG departure. Some of my predictions due to repetitive use of hands every other year came true, but some did not, and it is a game changer. I am thrilled to have this challenge.

I have spent the last eleven days running the data, analyzing the card, playing hundreds of games and writing my class slides. I finally finished tonight. 82 Slides and they are chocked full of information.

New players are not going to have that much trouble because they don’t have years of habits to change. Long term players are going to have to learn some new tricks.

I can’t wait to start teaching it and listen to the questions people have and reanalyze based on what I learn. I hope that students can handle the amount of information I am throwing at them. I can’t help but tell them everything I have figured out. There was a lot to think about. The power point is full of animations to hopefully make taking the information in easier. The new card is a change, but no matter what it is going to be fun.

I still have spaces in classes all over, since it is a lecture class, they are big. It’s a whole lot easier to come to one class than it is to spend 11 days doing the analysis yourself, unless you are a data nerd like me.

All I can say is, Welcome to 2024.

This slide has 37 animations you will see in class