History of Mahjong: Cheating

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iandstanley
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Re:History of Mahjong: Cheating

Post by iandstanley » Mon May 18, 2009 1:50 pm

HotelFSR wrote:It is very easy for hustlers to cheat with these!

The cheater just needs to have a fake one in his hand, while he reaches for the real one. He switches it at the last second just as he is checking it, and it will look like it was there all along.

These kinds of moves are ideal for hustlers playing against suckers. It seems clear not only that they must have invented this, but that they tailored these aspects of the game for themselves. The same surely holds true for Chinese mahjong with its large self-draw bonus.
I totally agree that it would be feasible for the slight of hand to substitute a tile. But if you are not sure about the players take this approach

In the Chinese variant (common with Chinese players in casinos) I was taught, discards are played tiles face down (a much more interesting challenge when there is no sacred discard rule .... try it). When you discard you quickly show the tile to each player individually for a second or so before swiftly moving onto the next player ... each discard lasts only about 4 seconds or so before it is face down on the table.

Taking this kind of approach use a house rule. the dora tiles must be picked up using two fingers only and be shown immediately to the player opposite first then turned over (this prevents a suspect player from switching the tile and exposes any palmed tiles to all players at the same time)

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Re:History of Mahjong: Cheating

Post by Benjamin » Wed May 27, 2009 3:42 pm

iandstanley wrote:In the Chinese variant (common with Chinese players in casinos) I was taught, discards are played tiles face down (a much more interesting challenge when there is no sacred discard rule .... try it). When you discard you quickly show the tile to each player individually for a second or so before swiftly moving onto the next player ... each discard lasts only about 4 seconds or so before it is face down on the table.
Wouldn\'t this make it *easier* to switch that tile? If I switch a tile in my hand with a tile that\'s face down, no one would ever know unless they saw me. If you keep them face up then at least someone who remembers discards can see that there\'s a discrepancy.

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Re:History of Mahjong: Cheating

Post by iandstanley » Thu Jun 11, 2009 10:40 pm

Now there is two things described here:

1. the method for discards, and
2. the method for dora tiles.


With discards (1) the open palm shows you only have one tile in the hand you are discarding


The question was re dora tiles (2).

If the dora tile is picked up from the wall and immediately shown to the other 3 players before being put on the wall then the players palm is shown to the other players making it virtually impossible to switch the tile without showing the switched tile in the hand.

One of the best approaches I have seen is where the player presses down on the edge of the tile and it flips over. I have tried with two of my sets and this results in most of the top layer of tiles being knocked over :p

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Re:History of Mahjong: Cheating

Post by Ruro » Fri Jun 12, 2009 9:47 pm

well ian that happens, when you flip over a dora, but the quality of the set really matters there. If it\'s a bamboo set and not shaped perfectly it will happen a lot, and also you can\'t hold 14 tiles together (because they just slide off) So i recommend trying flipping over a plastic or other type of perfectly square shaped tile

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Re:History of Mahjong: Cheating

Post by iandstanley » Fri Jun 12, 2009 10:42 pm

That figures ... I\'ve been using my bamboo set from the 70s recently since I\'ve seen the flip on youtube ... I\'ll have to dig out my ymimports riichi set and try again.

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