"Just Fishin'"

The Mah Jong Group meets at the Lum Reserve Tennis Club Clubhouse at 1.30PM on the 2nd Wednesday of the month for a pleasant 3 hour session of this fascinating and compelling Chinese tile game. If you would like to participate just contact the Mahjong co-ordinator. Beginners are very welcome.

Mah Jong is a game for 4 players, (although two, three or five may play) played with a set of 144 colourful and decorative tiles. During the game the players hold 13 tiles each. They play as individuals, not as partners. In turn each player draws one tile at a time from the stack - known as the wall - or picks up a discard, temporarily holding 14 tiles, then discards one tile. The objective of the game is to be the first player to obtain either a set of four defined groups of three (Pung) or four (Kong) tiles and one pair, or certain special hands. The first player to achieve this structure, which need not bring the highest score, wins the hand and is called going Mah Jong. Because of the absence of partnerships, players may find the game more attractive than some card games. The tiles are a joy to behold as well as to handle and play becomes more interesting as the nature of the hand changes with each change of tiles. Mah Jong tiles are thought to have developed from dominoes.