My dearest table guests, welcome back.
This is the order of the tile and I am Prim.
You are invited to enjoy issue #11 and this week the calendar
has moved, the community has steadied, and the tagline Prim
has been holding for months has finally arrived.
Nothing at the table escapes notice.
Prim is writing this on the Thursday after Memorial Day, and
she wants to thank you plainly and without fuss for the way the
community carried last week. The responses to last week's
issue have been unlike any response Prim has received in
these pages. A reader in Tennessee wrote to
say that she lit a candle at her Thursday game and cried with her
table mates for the first time in 20 years.
A reader in Massachusetts told Prim about the specific Gold
Star pin her mother wore to every game until she died.
The inbox was heavy. Prim may not be able to reply to
every one of those letters, but she would like you to know that
she read every single one. Thank you for trusting her with
what you wrote. The table held.
Now the calendar moves. The Mediterranean cruise photos
have finished scrolling. The summer arc of the season
begins in earnest. And the card that Prim has been
writing about for 10 weeks is finally, truly settling into the
community's hands. People are winning with it.
People are losing with it. People are developing opinions
about which sections reward which temperaments.
The conversation has matured in a way that it had not yet.
By April, we are no longer figuring the card out.
We are now figuring out what the card wants from us, which is a
different and more interesting question, and this issue is
about sitting with that question.
The tagline this week is the one Prim has been holding for months
because it is the one she most wants you to understand.
Nothing at the table escapes notice.
The game is an information game, and every player at the table is
producing information constantly, whether she intends
to or not. The player who becomes excellent
over time is the player who tunes her attention to the
signals other players are unconsciously emitting.
This issue is about noticing, and about being noticed, and
about what to do when you realize one of your regulars has
been reading you for longer than you realized.
We will talk about the Winds and Dragons section, which is the
2026 Cards Power Pattern category and which rewards
exactly this kind of patient attention.
We will talk about the table mate who has figured out your
patterns and what to do about it.
We will meet a woman who quietly shaped this game from behind a
desk for nearly three decades. We will look at the automatic
mahsong tables that are slowly creeping into the American
market. And we will tell the story of
the first woman to host a mahsong television show in 1951
because she was doing the work of broadcasting this community
before most of us had been born. Pull up your chair.
The wall is built. Let us begin.
Let us begin with what everyone is talking about.
This is the draw. The community mood this week is
what Prim would call restored quietness.
Last week was heavy and beautiful and the right kind of
heavy for that weekend. But a community cannot live at
that register for long. The Facebook groups this week
have rebalanced back toward their usual rhythms.
Set photos are returning. Car debates are sparking again.
A new argument about Charleston optionality flared briefly on
Tuesday and then resolved itself by Wednesday morning, which Prim
would note as a sign of a community that has regained its
footing. The week did what weeks in this
community do. It moved on without forgetting
what came before, two developments worth flagging in
the wider community. First, registration for the
Midsummer and early fall events has visibly accelerated in the
last seven days, which is the post Memorial Day bump Prim has
seen in every year she has been paying attention to the
calendar. Players tend to think about
summer and fall commitments after Memorial Day, not before.
The registration managers know this.
If you have been waiting to commit to a full event, the next
two weeks will be the decision window for many of the good
ones. Set your rack.
Below, we'll have the particulars.
Second, the Mediterranean cruise debrief has begun.
Players are home, unpacked and posting their thoughts and the
consensus on this year's cruise is that it was one of the
strongest destination events in recent memory.
The on board tournament structure was praised almost
universally, the ship's staff accommodated mahjong specific
needs gracefully. The ports of call offer
genuinely beautiful playing backdrops and a cluster of
players have started circulating a rack on balcony in Santorini
photo that Prim would call the single best piece of mahjong
photography produced so far this year.
The cruise circuit as a format has matured substantially in the
last three or four years. It is no longer a novelty, it is
a legitimate category, and the community is treating it as one.
One small community pulse note. The Facebook groups have been
quietly debating the etiquette of the mahjong table camera,
meaning the question of when and whether to photograph a game in
progress, and whether the rack photo crosses any lines in
certain settings. Prim has opinions on this that
she will save for a future issue.
For now, the debate is worth reading.
It reveals a community that is growing more aware of its own
documentation, which is a healthy thing for any community
to become. Which brings us to crack the
card, The Winds and Dragons section on the 2026 card.
Prim has been circling the Winds and Dragons section for weeks
and she is going to give it the Crack the card treatment this
issue because it is one of the most interesting and one of the
most misunderstood sections on the 2026 card.
A certain kind of player loves the Winds and Dragons hands.
She sees the high point values, the dramatic exposures, the
satisfying completion and she chases them with enthusiasm.
A different kind of player, usually a more experienced one,
treats the section with cautious respect, plays it only when the
deal invites it, and never forces it.
Prim is firmly in the second camp.
Let her walk you through why #1 The section is about supply more
than it is about strategy. Here is the core truth about
Winds and Dragons hands on any card, and on the 2026 card
specifically. These hands depend on a tile
supply that is structurally limited.
There are only four of each wind tile in the set, and only four
of each dragon tile. If you are building a Winds and
Dragons hand that requires, for example, 3 N winds and three
green Dragons, you are competing with the rest of the table for a
supply that is already thin. The flowers are similarly
limited, and while flowers are ubiquitous in supporting roles,
the core winds and Dragons are the hardest tiles to aggregate
in the quantities these hands require.
This is not a section where you succeed through cleverness.
This is a section where you succeed when the deal, the
Charleston, and the Wall cooperate.
If they do not cooperate, no amount of strategic play will
rescue the hand #2 the read on your deal happens immediately.
The decision to enter the Winds and Dragons section has to
happen earlier than the decision to enter almost any other
section on the card. The reason is tile scarcity.
If you are going to commit, you need to be collecting, holding
and calling for Winds and Dragons from round one, because
waiting until round three to decide means that half the tiles
you need have already been thrown.
The Charleston is your earliest and most honest indicator.
If the Charleston is bringing you Winds and Dragons, you are
being invited. If the Charleston is bringing
you predominantly numbered tiles and flowers, the Wall is telling
you to build elsewhere. A player who forces a Winds and
Dragons hand when the Charleston has not delivered is a player
who is, to be blunt, hoping. Hope is not a strategy in this
section. Accept what the Wall gives you
and pivot without regret #3 Dragon management is the subtle
skill. Once you are committed to a
Winds and Dragons hand that involves Dragons, the next
challenge is managing the Joker interaction carefully.
Several of the Winds and Dragons hands on the 2026 card involves
specific dragon counts, and Jokers can substitute for dragon
tiles under most conditions. The subtle strategic question is
whether to use a joker to complete your dragon count
early, locking in the value but exposing your intent, or to hold
jokers in reserve while you try to aggregate natural Dragons for
a closed or partially closed version of the Hand.
Experienced players tend to hold the jokers longer than newer
players do. The reason is that a Joker
exposed in a Dragon Pung is a joker that can be called by
another player who has a natural dragon to swap for it.
And in the Winds and Dragons section, those joker calls can
be devastating late in the game. The move that looks strong in
round three can become a liability in round 7.
Hold Jokers aggregate naturally where you can expose only when
the timing forces it #4 The defensive read is the other half
of this section. A final principle that most
strategy discussions of this section skip.
Even when you are not playing a winds and Dragons hand yourself,
you need to be watching for the player who is.
The signals are distinct. A player who is aggregating
winds and Dragons tends to hold them in her rack without
exposing for longer than a player in a numbered tile
section. A Charleston that sees winds and
Dragons disappear is 1 to pay attention to.
Early discards are heavily skewed toward numbered tiles of
multiple suits. Winds stay concealed and are not
the early choice for release. 1 tends to pick and pause on any
wind or dragon that surfaces in the centre of the table.
If you notice two or three of these signals in the same
player, assume she is in the section and adjust your own
discard strategy accordingly. Do not throw loose wins or loose
Dragons late in the game. Do not pass a loose dragon in
the Charleston if you can avoid it.
The Winds and Dragons player is often quiet until the moment of
her call, and her call is often on a tile the rest of the table
through carelessly. Do not be the player who
carelessly feeds her. Read the table adjust the
section punishes inattention in both directions.
Now this publication receives questions, many questions.
And this week the question came from a player who asked to be
identified only as a long time Thursday regular Prim thinks it
is the best question she has received in a month.
This is the table is asking. I have been playing with the
same three women for 11 years. Over the last year, I have
started to notice that one of them is beating me more often
than she used to, and I think I have figured out why.
She has read my patterns. She knows when I am building
2468 hands versus consecutive runs hands based on how I
arranged my rack in the first Charleston.
I am not imagining it. What do I do?
I cannot confront her. I also cannot keep losing.
Prim has thought about this question carefully because it is
the kind of question that touches on the deepest etiquette
of long term table mates, and because it is also a real
strategic problem with real solutions.
Let her give you a three-part answer.
Part 1. She has not done anything wrong.
The first thing to name for the Oscars own Peace of Mind is that
the table mate who has read her patterns is doing exactly what a
good mahshong player is supposed to do.
Reading other players is not cheating.
It is not a violation of etiquette.
It is, in fact, the game at its most skilled level.
The players who win tournaments at the national level are,
almost without exception, players who have trained
themselves to read the subtle signals of other players.
The table mate in question has simply levelled up and she has
done it through 11 years of careful attention.
You do not owe her a confrontation.
You owe her quietly respect. She has earned her advantage
honourably. Part 2.
The advantage is reversible. The good news, and this is the
part Prim, once they ask her to hear clearly, is that the
advantage she is facing is entirely reversible.
Your table mate has read your patterns.
You can change your patterns. The specific tell the Oscar
identified, which is the way she arranges her rack during the
first Charleston is a habit, and habits can be modified.
Try rearranging your rack in a different order for six games.
When you accept tiles from a Charleston, mix them in before
pulling them back out for the next pass.
Try alternating numbered tiles and flowers across the rack
rather than clustering them. Try leaving your rack more
neutral for longer before you start sorting it visibly.
Never leave your tiles separated into groupings.
Everyone else can count the groupings.
Above all else, never give value to good or bad passes in the
Charleston. Others are listening.
Any one of these changes will break the pattern that your
table mate has been reading, and for the next several games you
will have regained the information advantage you lost.
She will eventually read your new patterns.
That is fine. The game is an ongoing dialogue.
You will rotate your signals. She will eventually rotate her
reads. The dialogue is the game Part 3.
The relationship is more important than the Ledger.
The third part of Prim's answer is the most important.
You have been playing with these three women for 11 years.
The relationship is worth more than any single season's win
loss ratio. And the behaviour the Oscar
describes is not a betrayal of the relationship, it is the
relationship maturing. A table that has played together
for a decade should be producing players who read each other.
If you were not reading each other at this point, something
would be wrong with the table. The right response to this
situation is not to fix the table, mate.
It is to match her. Level up your own attention.
Notice consciously how she arranges her rack during the
first Charleston Watch, how she holds her hand when she is early
on a joker hand versus a numbered hand.
Learn to read her as carefully as she has learnt to read you.
The 10 years of friendship at the table will not be diminished
by the fact that you are both getting better.
It will be deepened because the game will keep producing new
things to notice about each other, which is part of what a
long running table is for the broader principle Prim would
close this section with a principle that applies to every
long term Ma Shong relationship. The game is a window through
which your table mates see you and through which you see them.
What you reveal at the table over years is a reflection of
who you are. When you are not trying to
manage the impression. Your patience, your impatience,
your competitive fire, your generosity, your tendency to cut
corners, or your refusal to all of it shows up at the table if
you sit there long enough. This is why the game, done
right, produces friendships that outlast most other social
formats. The table does not lie.
Neither do the women at it. The longer you play with the
same table mates, the more each of you becomes to the others a
known quantity in the best possible sense.
Prim would trade a lot of things for that kind of mutual
legibility. She would not trade the table
for a winning streak. Neither, she suspects, would you
now, this publication makes it a point to recognise those who
distinguish themselves in the community.
Not through volume. Heavens, no.
Through substance, This is who's talking.
And this week we are talking about the woman who ran the
quietest institution in American mahsong for nearly three
decades. Her name was Ruth Unger, and she
served as president of the National Marshall League for
nearly 30 years from the early 1970s into the early 2000s.
During her tenure, the league grew from a mid century
institution with a modest membership to a major cultural
organization that shipped hundreds of thousands of cards
annually and touched the lives of several million American
women. Ruth did this work largely out
of the public eye. She was not a media figure.
She did not cultivate a public persona.
She was a steward in the oldest sense of the word, and she was
extraordinarily good at it. She understood that the card was
the institution. What set Ruth apart for Prim was
a clear understanding that the League's primary product was the
annual card, and that the annual card was the single most
important piece of infrastructure holding the
American mahjong community together.
Every major decision she oversaw, from printing runs to
pricing to the composition of the card design committee, was
guided by the principle that the card had to be worthy of the
community's trust. The card is why an American
mahjong game in Ohio looks recognisably like an American
mahjong game in Florida and a game in California.
The card is the common language. Ruth's stewardship ensured that
the common language stayed coherent across 3 decades of
community change, which included the decline of the mid century
mahjong generation, the quiet years of the 1990s, and the
early signals of the revival that has become the boom we are
living in now. She kept the committee small,
serious and long tenured. Ruth's other signature decision,
which is less discussed but equally important, was her
commitment to a car design committee composed of players
with decades of experience who served long 10 years and who was
selected for judgement rather than celebrity.
The women who sit on that committee now and the ones who
sat on it in her time accumulate 500 years or more of combined
playing experience across the table.
This is why the card each year is not a surprise.
It is a calibration. Ruth understood that an
institution like the League could only maintain its
authority if the people making the consequential decisions had
the experience to justify the authority.
The committee under her leadership became the most
experienced game design body in the American parlour game
industry, and it remains so today.
The game you play is the game she defended.
Ruth passed away in 2015 and the League's current leadership has
carried her institutional philosophy forward in ways that
honour her work. What Prim would like you to take
from this feature is the simple recognition that the community
you love and the game you play is held up by decades of quiet
institutional labour performed by women whose names most of you
will never learn. Ruth Unger was one of the most
significant. She did her work from a desk
without fanfare for nearly 30 years, and every time you play a
hand on a new card, you are benefiting from the
institutional discipline she built.
At this table, we remember the soldiers.
At this table we also remember the stewards.
Both kinds of memory belong at the same table.
Ruth would have approved Prim suspects of that sentence.
And now a brief indulgence, because this author believes
that one cannot play well if one does not play beautifully.
This is Tile Envy, where we cover it openly and without
apology. Prim wants to talk this week
about a piece of equipment that most American players have seen
in videos from Asia, but that very few have encountered in
person, which is the Automatic Mahsong Table.
If you are not familiar, the Automatic Mahsong Table is a
fully electric table that shuffles, stacks and delivers
the wall for the players. At the start of every hand, the
tiles drop into a chamber beneath the playing surface, are
mechanically shuffled, stacked into four walls, and then raised
up into position, all in under a minute.
The players never touch the tiles between hands.
The ritual of the wall build, which is such a central part of
the American game, is compressed into a brief hum and a
mechanical rise. Automatic tables are ubiquitous
in Japan and in high end mashong parlours across East Asia where
the game is played for hours at a time in commercial settings
and the tables ability to accelerate the between hand
interval is a meaningful productivity gain.
The American market has until very recently shown almost no
interest in these tables for a combination of reasons Prim
finds interesting. The American game is played in
homes, not parlours. The wall build is considered
part of the social fabric of the game.
The price point of a quality automatic table, which ranges
from 3000 to $15,000 depending on the tier, is a commitment
most American players have not seen a reason to make.
The machines are engineered for a Chinese or Japanese tile set,
which is slightly different from an American set.
All of these factors combined have meant that the American
market has been essentially empty.
This is changing slowly, and Prim wants you to know it is
changing. A handful of importers have
begun bringing automatic tables to the American market over the
last two or three years, often with adapted tile chambers that
can accommodate American sets. The price points are still high
and the tables are still relatively rare, but Prim has
seen three in person at private residences in the last eight
months, which is 3 more than she had seen in the previous decade.
The buyers are generally players who play many hours per week,
often in established home groups that play competitively, and the
feedback Prim has received is mixed but leaning positive.
The speed of the game increases meaningfully.
The fatigue of repetitive shuffling at the end of a long
evening decreases. The social fabric, which Prim
worried about in advance, seems to remain intact because the
conversation during the wall build is replaced by
conversation during the slightly different pre deal ritual when
the machine is running. Prim is not going to tell you to
buy one. For most American players, an
automatic table is not a good purchase.
The home game with tiles on a mat is the heart of this
community. Thinking about the loss of the
beautiful mats saddens Prim and the less beautiful tiles that
are required even more. And Prim would not want the wall
build to disappear from the American experience of the game.
But Prim also wants you to know that the technology exists, that
it is slowly entering this market, and that there will
eventually be a generation of American players who consider
the automatic table standard equipment for serious home
groups. How this interacts with the
broader American aesthetic of the game is a conversation the
community will have in the coming years.
Prim has no strong prediction about the outcome.
She will report developments as they emerge.
One small note for the collectors and aesthetes among
you. The Japanese made high end
automatic tables, particularly the Amos brand, are genuinely
beautiful pieces of engineering. If you have occasion to see one
in a Mashong parlour in Tokyo or Osaka, Prim recommends the
detour. The tables are the kind of craft
object that makes you think differently about what a game
table can be, even if you never plan to own one.
The Asian Mashong equipment market is more developed than
the American one by a large margin, and observing it is
useful context for where the American market might or might
not eventually go. Now to matters of the calendar.
Where shall one be seen this season?
This is set your rack. The post Memorial Day
acceleration is real. Prim mentioned in the draw that
registration for summer and fall events has accelerated visibly
in the last seven days. Here are the specifics.
Destination Mashong's Atlantic City event in mid August has
moved from 60% to 80% filled in one week.
The Shriners tournament in Austin on June 20th is now
accepting names for the wait list, not primary registration.
mAh Shong Fever's late summer destination is approaching
capacity. The Mahjong World Championship
in October has added a second block of hotel rooms and a
corresponding second wave of registrations, which is a
meaningful sign of continued growth year over year.
The summer local circuit is in full swing.
The JCC and Community Centre tournaments that Prim has been
covering in these pages are now running at full summer cadence.
The Atlanta Area joint tournament weekend in mid June
has confirmed its inaugural dates and opened registration.
The Chicago North Shore JCCS are running a three weekend summer
series beginning in mid June. The South Florida Federation's
summer charity tournament calendar is now posted in full,
with seven tournament dates between June and August and
three of them already near capacity.
The Bay Area community centres are posting weekly through
August. If you have been circling a
summer local event, the calendar is now dense enough that you can
probably find one within 30 minutes of your home on at least
two or three dates this summer. Call around commit.
The fall is beginning to solidify beyond the October
World Championship. The full destination calendar is
now visible enough to commit to destination.
Mashong is running events through November.
Mashong Fever is layering in two additional fall events beyond
the one Prim has been covering. Mashong Madness is running its
traditional full circuit with dates in September and October.
If you are a player who wants to do more than one destination
event this year, now is the time to build your full calendar.
The math on back-to-back destinations is favourable if
you are organised about it. The math on deciding in
September is much less favourable.
The retreat format quietly gaining a final trend worth
noting. The retreat format, meaning
multi day small group intensive mashong events with a teaching
component, is visibly growing this year.
Destination Mahjongers Cashiers retreat in April was well
received. The Miraval Berkshires retreat,
which was originally planned for Memorial Day weekend and has
been moved to late August, is nearly full.
Crack Your Bags continues to add retreat dates.
The retreat format combines the destination aesthetic with
serious teaching in a way that the tournament format does not.
Prim has been watching this segment carefully.
It may be the fastest growing category of destination mahshong
in the American market this year. 80% filled destination
Mahshong Atlantic City August 16th through 18th Wait list
Shriners Mahshong Tournament Austin, TX June 20th Near
capacity Mahshong Fever late summer destination event open
Mashong World Championship Paris Las Vegas October 16th through
18th Nearly full Miraval Berkshire's retreat August open
summer local JCC and community centre circuit opening Full
destination Mashong calendar September through November Full
event calendar at the order of the tile.com/events.
And finally, because this author believes every player deserves
at least one piece of knowledge that makes her the most
interesting person at the table, we close with crack
intelligence. Here is a piece of American
Mashong history that almost no one in the current community
knows about, and Prim wants to change that.
In 1951, at the height of the post war American television
boom, a producer named Dorothy Myerson hosted what is widely
regarded as the first televised American Mahsong program.
The show aired locally in New York and by some accounts
briefly on a small regional network.
The format, by the standards of 1951 television, was unusual. 4
women played a game of American Mahsong on camera live, while
Dorothy narrated the strategic moments and explained the rules
to the home audience. The production was simple.
The lighting was harsh, as 1951 television lighting was.
The cameras were static. The game proceeded at roughly
the pace a real game proceeds, which is to say, leisurely, with
pauses and conversation and occasional confusion about whose
turn it was. What Dorothy Myerson understood,
and what almost no one else understood at the time, was that
Ma Shong was a television compatible game.
The rhythm of the turn, the visible nature of the exposures,
the drama of the call, the satisfaction of the closing
hand, all of it translated to a visual medium in ways that most
parlour games did not. Card games did not translate
well because the hands were private.
Chess did not translate well because the action was internal.
Mashong with its public exposures and its public calls
and it's visible wall was inherently telegenic.
Dorothy saw this years before the rest of the broadcasting
industry would have understood what she was doing.
She was, in the sense that would matter decades later, early.
The show did not last long. Television in 1951 was an
expensive medium, and a mahshong program did not attract the
advertising revenue that the networks were looking for at the
time. The program ran for a limited
number of episodes and was not renewed.
Dorothy continued her broader work in media production and in
the mahshong community for decades afterward, but the
televised experiment remained A footnote until recent
researchers began to piece together the early history of
the game's media presence. What the 1951 show demonstrates
in retrospect is that the idea of mahjong as broadcast worthy
content is not a modern idea. It was tried 75 years ago.
The medium was not ready. The audience was scattered.
The game was Prim would like you to carry from this section a
small corrective to the widespread assumption that mAh
shong has only recently become visible to the wider culture.
The game has been trying to reach a broader audience for
more than 7 decades. The YouTube channels, the
Instagram Reels, the TikTok hands, the podcasts that are
emerging now are not a new impulse.
They are the continuation of a thread that Dorothy Myerson
pulled in 1951, when she set up four women at a table in front
of a camera and explained patiently for a live audience
what was happening. Every modern mahshong content
creator is, in a small and unacknowledged way, her
descendant. The community has been
broadcasting itself all along. We are finally in the era where
the technology and the audience have caught up to the game.
Dorothy Wood Prim suspects be delighted.
You're welcome. A closing note for the observers
and the observed. If you take one thing from this
issue into your next game, let it be this.
Nothing at the table escapes notice.
Everything you do is being read by someone, and everything
someone does is being read by you.
And the long dance of mutual observation is the game itself.
Play with awareness, play with generosity.
Play in the knowledge that your table mates are reading you and
that they deserve your best signals and your worst tells in
equal measure, because that is what the table is for.
If you have not yet subscribed, visit theorderofthetile.com and
drop in your e-mail. Forward this issue to the friend
at your table who notices everything and says nothing.
She deserves to know you noticed.
Until next week. May your rack be blessed and
your Charleston ruthless. This has been the order of the
tile issue #11 nothing at the table escapes notice.
Do forward this to your favorite 4th.
Everyone deserves a seat at this table, and everyone deserves to
be properly informed before they take it.
Until next Thursday, dear listener.
Prim as always.