Philly Mah-Jawn Mahjong opens new clubhouse in Old City

The popularity of mahjong the th century Chinese tabletop championship has exploded in fresh years Spots have been popping up around the country and the contest is gaining popularity with younger players While the largest clubs in the country are in New York and San Francisco one of Philly s popular clubs stands apart from the rest by having its own space now Philly Mah-Jawn Mahjong Club moved into its new clubhouse space on the second floor of the Corn Exchange Building in Old City in March with a grand opening planned for Aug and after it s fully set up To say that this is a clubhouse is really true because the goal is just to give everyone a space to play noted Mike Lee the president of the club Philly Mah-Jawn Mahjong Club s new clubhouse in Old City with the soon-to-completed mural being painted by a member Nick Kariuki Billy Penn Founded in the club originally met at Pasqually s Pizza Beer Wine in West Philly They moved to the now-closed Thirsty Dice in Spring Garden then Queen Rook Encounter Cafe on South Street Much has changed as the group worked toward securing a home They ve gone from hand-shuffling tiles to having several state-of-the-art auto-shuffling tables donated by club members Mahjong players push the tiles into one of the clubhouse s auto-shuffling tables at the end of a round at Philly Mah-Jawn Club s Saturday meetup Nick Kariuki Billy Penn The group at present has four evolving officers who balance the club obligations with full-time jobs and is in the process of adding more Membership fees presently go toward covering rent All the furniture and equipment at the location has been donated or purchased through donations Lee mentioned the group is as of now applying for non-profit status Like poker there are around variations of mahjong played around the world The greater part popular which Philly Mah-Jawn plays is Japanese or riichi mahjong which grew in popularity partly because it has been featured in Japanese media such as video games and anime The COVID- pandemic also helped boost the popularity of riichi mahjong with countless people playing virtually at online services including Tenhou Riichi City and Mahjong Soul or coming across it in video games like the Yakuza franchise During COVID it entered a lot of people s head spaces that mahjong was a meeting that was fun Lee declared It didn t need to be various kind of dark gambly smoky thing that a lot of people think about when they think mahjong Philly Mah-Jawn Mahjong Club president Mike Lee looks over a match during one of the Saturday meetups at the new clubhouse in Old City Nick Kariuki Billy Penn Lee stated that the club s membership grew exponentially when the pandemic s lockdown ended and players started meeting at Thirsty Dice The club also hosts the Philadelphia Riichi Open The second year annual tournament is expected to draw players from across North America and will be held at the Old Pine Group Center on Nov and with free play days at the clubhouse Nov and A mind sport Asking mahjong players to compare it to other games is kind of like building a Frankenstein s monster of other centuries-old tabletop games There s a poker body to it built with a dominoes skeleton and chosen limbs that resemble bridge and rummy all sewn together by particular strategic patches of chess and go I would consider it more of a mind sport Edward Zeng a member of the club and Canada s top-ranked mahjong player I d consider riichi mahjong and selected variations of mahjong as mind sports Essentially four players are dealt suited numbered and honor tiles from the available They then take turns picking face-down tiles from the wall until the first person builds a winning sequence or yaku of tiles typically four sets of three plus one matching pair - or they run out of selectable tiles The types of yaku have assigned values or han based on the probability of getting them like poker hands There are wagers and payments associated with the scoring and keeping track of that is where the challenge can start to get complicated While the battle involves exchanging matchstick-style chips of various values the club and its lease does not allow actual gambling Members of Philly Mah-Jawn Mahjong Club including club secretary Sarah Allen top right play a round during a Saturday meetup at the new clubhouse in Old City Nick Kariuki Billy Penn Zeng a program engineer with an undergraduate degree in math and computer science from the University of British Columbia and a master s degree from the University of California Berkeley commented that a math and numbers background helps to understand the match but it s not a requirement Having a mathematical background definitely helps I would say it helps with your reasoning ability and your understanding of the meeting kind of like that you re probabilistic like intuition Zeng explained But that definitely doesn t mean that you can t get really good at this championship without a really strong math background It s a lot of just fundamentals pattern recognition and then just building that intuition through repetition playing the tournament more learning more What mainly differentiates it from deterministic games like chess and go and makes it more fun for players like Zeng is that the players are working with incomplete information Your potentially amazing winning hand is inevitably at the mercy of the unpredictable draw of the wall tiles that are face down at the start of each round of which are unusable in a dead wall from the start of the round That levels the playing field quite a bit In games like chess it s very hard to beat an opponent that s better than you because they will dependably see further ahead than you Zeng declared But in mahjong sometimes you can get lucky and that s what I think is the best appeal of the competition to me The group has held teaching workshops at venues including the Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival of Greater Philadelphia where children as young as years old played The encounter s easy to pick up but takes the majority folks a lifetime to master This Billy Penn reporter s first hour of open hand mahjong coached by Lee and club secretary Sarah Allen left us with a basic grasp of the tile types and how to build a winning hand One of Philly Mah-Jawn Mahjong Club s officers shows her s ank yakuman winning hand Nick Kariuki Billy Penn New club member Lucas Sowa had been playing Mahjong Soul He commented that after clearing the initial hurdle of knowing when to make certain calls himself rather than letting a virtual assistant do it for him it was more fun seeing the competition play out in a welcoming group of real people It s a lot more satisfying when you do get wins or when you are getting what you re looking for Sowa commented I think it s also just more fun to be around people playing it like in fact being able to see faces and being able to talk Lucas Sowa joined the club after playing mahjong through a mobile challenge during the summer of Nick Kariuki Billy Penn That camaraderie and neighborhood around the table is what others enjoy too You get to just meet a bunch of different people because you need four people to play That s like at least three other people you re talking to right Zeng reported That sense of society has helped grow the club Group members chip in however they can Several donated the expensive equipment like the auto-shuffling tables Another member designed and D-printed custom tiles Others painted a mural of the club s name and logo in front of Philly landmarks and mahjong tiles on one of the club s walls The final design for the mural in Philly Mah-Jawn Mahjong Club s new clubhouse in Old City Courtesy of Philly Mah-Jawn Mahjong Club The group already has a Yakuman board on one of its walls which includes Polaroid style prints of the players who manage to get a special class of rare high-scoring yaku sequences like a wall of fame for getting a royal flush in poker or a turkey in bowling Other methods that Lee declared the group hopes to personalize the space is by putting up photos of members travels to mahjong events outside of Philly Club members were at New York s Riichi Nomi Open the biggest annual tournament in the nation this past weekend Lee stated the club aims to advertise to attract a lot of new players and expand operations While they re open to incorporating particular of the different versions of the games the main focus is centered on the Japanese riichi variation We re kind of unapologetically mahjong If you want to play whatever version you want you can play it but it s going to be for mahjong That s the end goal Lee noted Philly Mah-Jawn Mahjong Club president Mike Lee adds a new photo to the club s yakuman wall Nick Kariuki Billy Penn When and where Philly Mah-Jawn Mahjong Club is open from to p m on Fridays from noon to p m on Saturdays and from to p m on Sundays They also meet Wednesday evenings from to p m at the King of Prussia Bridge Club The introductory membership rate is for the whole year then a subsequent daily fee of when the members come in and play The introductory membership payment also covers the day s fee to play on the day you join the club The club also has a Mangan membership that is for the year and gets you a stampcard that builds up to a free th visit as well as access to members-only tournaments which vary slightly in rule set There s a non-members time block from noon to p m on Saturdays where the club officers offer teaching and advice for walk-in players of all levels The non-members pay the day fee to play in that time window and can add another to secure a membership afterwards The post Philly Mah-Jawn Mahjong opens new clubhouse in Old City appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY