Rummy meets Mah Jong? Well, it must be a wife-game!

This was my first thought when I first heard of Mhing, so of course it wound up on my want list. My wife is a fiend when it comes to Rummy games, and she's mentioned in passing that she used to play Mah Jong with her mom and grandmother when she was younger. I figured that if the game was a good blend of the two games, then it wouldn't be too hard to get her to play the game.

The game is fairly simple: Starting with a hand of 13 cards, the players are trying to collect three four sets of three cards and one pair, and then lay the cards down for points. It follows the basic rules of Rummy, where you draw a card, then discard a card. Note, though, that three sets of three four cards and one pair totals fourteen cards; when you have enough cards to go out, you lay down your hand instead of discarding a card. The sets of cards can be either triplets (3 cards of the same value in the same suit) or sequences (three consecutive cards in the same suit). There are three suits, numbered 1-9 four times in each suit, and there are also four each of seven different honor cards, eight flower cards, and eight wild cards in the deck.

When you draw a card, you may draw either the top card of the draw stack, or the card that the other player has discarded. The "penalty" (such as it is) for drawing a discard is that you have to lay that set of cards face-up on the table and commit that set of cards toward your entire hand. The reason this is a penalty is because your hand can be worth a variety of points, based on how hard it is to collect it. This is where the strategy of the game comes in to play.

The harder it is to collect a certain hand of cards, the more credits it's worth when a player goes out. The simplest collections are worth one credit apiece: double sequences (e.g., the 4-5-6 in two different suits); double triplets (e.g., 3-3-3 in two different suits); or special pairs (a pair of 2s, 5s, or 8s). Harder collections are worth more credits: triple sequences (e.g., the 4-5-6 in all three suits) are worth three credits; a high/low hand (all number cards in either 1-5 value, or 5-9 value) is worth five credits; and having one triplet of each of the dragon honor cards is worth eight credits. Credits then determine your points -- 1 credit is worth 2 points, 2 credits are worth 4 points, 3 credits are worth 8 points, and so on. You total your credits from your entire hand before determining your score, so you can combine different credit values together, if you have multiple sets in your hand that score. For example, if you have a high/low hand (5 credits) that includes an identical double sequence (3 credits), a special pair (1 credit), and is all made up of one suit (8 credits), you have earned 17 credits, which is in turn worth 512 points.

I've never played Mah Jong before, so I don't know if this is identical to how one collects sets and scores points in that game. Regardless, I like the way that the difficulty of collecting a set determines the number of points you can collect. It allows for a player to either go for the quick-and-dirty strategy (collect enough to go out, even if it's worth a small amount of points), or the slow-and-steady approach (wait until you have a killer hand combination before going out). Considering that a game is supposed to play until one player reaches 500 points, though, it's much easier to go for a combination of the two strategies. A lot of what you can do is determined by your starting hand, but some of the rules of the game limit what you can do. You can only ever pick up a discard if you can form a triplet or a sequence; you can never pick up a discard to complete a pair, unless it's the card you need to go out. So, if you're hoping to collect a triplet of honor cards (having one is worth 1 credit), but you only have one in your hand, and your opponent discards another one, you can't pick it up. Also, since there are only four of each honor card in the deck, if you see your opponent discard another of that honor card, you can rest assured that you're not going to make that triplet.

Another aspect of the game that lends some strategy to your play is that only the person who goes out scores any points for that round. Since sets formed from discards are played face-up on the table, and since flower cards are immediately placed face-up when they are drawn (they don't combine with any other card, but they're worth 1 credit apiece if you go out), you can know where your opponent stands for potential points. In one game we played, my wife was in a small lead, but she also had four flower cards, and an identical double sequence in front of her; this was worth a potential 7 credits, or 32 points. Considering that that hand would have put her much farther ahead of me (I still didn't know what else she had in her hand), I opted to play quickly, going out for a lesser amount of points, but preventing her from taking a huge lead in the game.

The game comes together quite well, and I enjoy it for what it is (frequently, there are times when the game is at the mercy of the luck of the draw), but I can tell that it plays quite differently with two than it would with more players. In multiplayer games, you're supposed to call "Chow" when you pick up a discard to complete a sequence, "Pung" when you pick up a discard to complete a triplet, and "Mhing" when you pick up a card that completes your 14-card hand. When more than one player tries to claim the card, a Mhing takes precedence over a Pung, which takes precedence over a Chow. In a 2-player game, this is all moot, but with more players, I can see that it might lend another element of strategy to the game. At the same time, I can see that it would also add another element of chaos to the game, and make the game even more luck-based as players neared completion of their hands.

I think the game requires that both players follow the same strategy toward collecting hands of cards, or else the game will grow tedious and frustrating for some players. In our earlier games, my wife was locked in to the mindset of just going out, since that's how most Rummy players win, but as a result, she scored low-credit hands. Still, she was the only one scoring points, and even though she was only scoring 2 or 4 points each hand, she was still stomping me, since I was still back at 0. It forced me into a position where I felt like I needed to score a hand for more points, but she stole the hands from me every time, because she had the luxury of a cushion of points. In our first game, my wife won every hand, and after a while, I wasn't even enjoying the game. The next night, I took the early lead, and my wife suffered from the same frustrations I felt the night before. Later, we discovered the strategy of going for larger-credit hands, and the game leveled out to where we were going back-and-forth between hands. It felt like we had "discovered" the game at this point, and the games became more enjoyable.

Luck plays a large part into the game (it is a card game, after all), but I also see the way that it balances things out. The flower cards, for example, can only be collected by drawing them randomly, and they're worth 1 credit apiece. If a player in a comfortable lead draws most of the flower cards, then he can be sitting on a potential huge lead; on the other hand, if a player has fallen behind, but manages to go out with a decent collection of cards, and has collected most of the flower cards, then he can come back into the game. It can still grow frustrating, though, to be on the losing end of things and watching your opponent collect a handful of flower cards.

If you try to play to 500 points, though, the game simply takes too long. This is, after all, a card game, and it can only keep your attention for so long. We adjusted the end of the game to 100-150 points, depending on how much time we have to play the game. This usually accounts for 4-5 hands, and is the sweet spot for us. You could probably play around with setting your own points limit, based on how well you and your partner do at collecting cards, and how much you enjoy the game.

Overall, I'm satsified with Mhing as a 2-player game. It's not my favorite Rummy game, but it's one that my wife will play, and one that allows for enough strategy and planning to be fun and challenging.