Reading Your Rack

Counting honestly

What 'three tiles away' really means.

Intermediate · lesson 2 of 22

Distance is the clearest measure you have, but it flatters some hands. Three tiles away with two jokers in hand is genuinely close. Three tiles away where two of them are halves of pairs is not.

So count twice. First the plain number, then ask how many of those tiles a joker could cover for you. The gap between the two answers is the real difficulty of the hand.

Note

And ask a third thing: are those tiles still in the game? Four of anything exist. If three are already discarded, that tile is nearly gone whatever the count says.

Reading ahead is fine. The path takes lessons in order, so this one ticks off once you get here.

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