It’s every Mah Jongg player’s favorite time of the year! The NMJL’s 2024 cards are arriving in mailboxes all over the country, and just when we were all getting comfortable and feeling as though we’d finally mastered the 2023 card, it’s time to learn a new one.

No matter your level of experience, learning the new card each year can be tough and somewhat intimidating. But we’re here to help. At I LOVE MAHJ, we offer all the tips and tools needed to improve your game significantly, no matter your skill level. In addition to articles such as this one, the I LOVE MAHJ online platform offers lots of resources and tools to help you learn the card in record time. 

We’ve got lots to share with you. So, make yourself comfortable, perhaps brew yourself a delicious cup of coffee, and be sure to have your 2024 National Mah Jongg League card to hand, so that you can follow along. 

What We’ll be Covering

We’ll touch on themes, insights and data, as these will help you quickly familiarize yourself with the new hands, identify patterns and be able to confidently navigate your way around the new card. Our ultimate goal is to make getting to grips with the new card as easy, quick and painless as possible, so that you can win more often and thoroughly enjoy playing and strategizing with the 2024 card. Let’s face it, it’s no fun scrambling around the card trying our hardest to locate a suitable hand for our dealt tiles! Plus, all this learning is wonderful exercise for our brains!

So, buckle up, as we test drive the 2024 National Mah Jongg League card!

Notation/Convention

Before we dive in, let’s just clarify the way we’ll represent hands in this article.

• Hands will be labeled as <section>/<line><version> (eg: CR/3b represents the second version of Consecutive Run, line 3)
• Hand patterns will be shown by the number of tiles in each meld (eg: pung-pung-kong-kong will be shown as 3-3-4-4)

First Impressions

The 2024 card is exciting, creative and quite unique, compared to recent cards. There are many new, never-seen-before, hands and unusual patterns and playing it should prove to be lots of fun!

To the chagrin of those who “don’t like Math,” Addition Hands are back this year, along with several multiplication hands scattered throughout (hint: no math is necessary to play these hands, focus on the numbers and ignore the symbols).

Unlike last year, “year” hands are only found in the 2024 and Singles and Pairs sections (as is customary). Note that the “Big Hand” seems significantly easier this year, yet it’s still worth 75 points.

The Winds-Dragons section is very interesting, with excellent flexibility between hands. We also see the return of the beloved all-Dragon hand. Note that winds are also found in various sections of the card (2024, ALN, Quints and S&P).

The biggest shock of the card is Quint line 2, with its unusual “any 2 non-matching numbers” note. The flexibility this offers, results in a huge number of playable hands (864 to be precise), which will have significant repercussions on game play (more on this later).

Overall, the new card is fresh, exciting and very playable. It offers great switchability between hands and sections, and includes some interesting new hands and patterns. It also seems easier than last year’s card. The flexibility provided by many hands and the (relatively) simpler version of some hands (including the “Big Hand”) will make completing hands easier. We predict faster wins, on average, and fewer wall games.

In the remainder of this article, we will:

• Discuss common patterns
• Clarify points of confusion
• Point out carryover hands
• Highlight subtle hand changes from last year, as well as gotchas 
• Provide interesting analysis on the 2024 hands
• Suggest strategy tips specific to the 2024 card (including how to switch between particular hands)
• Point you to our method for learning the new card at record speed 

To continue reading please CLICK HERE.

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