Mahjong Bay › Seasonal › Winter Mahjong
Winter Mahjong
- 78tiles
- 3layers
- 26free at the start
- 12.6pairs open on a fresh deal, average
- 37%of boards lost by random clicking in my test runs
Three balls of tiles stacked into a snowman, 78 in all, with a two-tile hat, two stick arms and a second layer on each ball. It is the winter board without a holiday attached: the tree is for December, this one is for the long stretch of January and February after it. Snowflake, snowman, mitten and cocoa are the flowers; a pine, a moon, a star and a sled are the seasons.
The snowman plays as three small boards joined by narrow necks. The head is eleven tiles and clears fast. The body and the base are each a ring around a raised middle, and the base carries a third layer of three tiles, so most of the game's depth sits at the bottom. The two arms are single tiles sticking out from the body; they are free from the first move and are worth saving for a moment when you need a specific face.
Where people get stuck is the neck between body and base: the base's top row is pinned by the body's bottom row, and the body only opens once its own second layer is gone. Work the body's centre early and the base follows. 26 tiles are free at the start, a random run gets stuck 37 times in a hundred, which is about the Turtle's difficulty on a board half its size.
The same blue table and the same bonus tiles are on the holiday page with the snowflake layout, which is the smaller and easier of the two winter boards.
