I was invited back to join in a Sunday game with some of the ladies who live in my building. This is serious game play since most of these ladies have been playing Mah Jongg for around 50 years. Playing with this group is great for my game – although not for my wallet! – because the games are played with lightning speed. You have to be really sharp to play with these ladies. The good news is that one of their table rules is that you can only lose $5 maximum during the day.

But yesterday was a good Mah Jongg day for me – I ended up winning around $3.00 and generally was happy with my game play. But, before I post some of the winning hands, you might remember from the last time I played with this group that I posted the coin bag that A had needlepointed. Yesterday I noticed that not only did she have a needlepointed Mah Jongg coin bag but she had also had made a matching case for her glasses. And here it is:And now for some of the winning hands from yesterday’s 5 hour Mahjathon:Here is a hand that I was eager to play, and things were looking good after the Charleston:I was VERY lucky on this hand because I had two exposures – NNJN and EEEE – and it was very obvious which hand I was playing. I thought no one would ever throw out a W but, fortunately for me, with three Ws in my hand, I also had two Souths; when the other two Souths were thrown and I didn’t declare them, everyone thought that my hand wasn’t even close to Mahj. N took a chance and threw out a W and that was that!

This was N’s beautiful Mah Jongg – I have tried to put this hand together but, as yet, have been unsuccessful. Great hand, N!G threw us all off the track while putting together this nice hand:And here is my most embarrassing moment: I declared Mah Jongg without noticing that the 8888 needed to be a different suit from the 22 and 44 – in this case the 8888 needed to be Craks, not Bams…I guess I don’t know the new card as well as I should! Of course, my hand was declared dead and play went on without me. Even with this embarrassing mistake, I had a great time with these nice neighbors. But G shocked me by announcing that she was moving to Florida at the end of this month after 22 years in this building. I will miss her!