When this year’s mahjong card came out, I gave myself a challenge: play every hand on it.

I wanted to really learn the card, and for me, that meant pushing myself to spend time with sections I might otherwise pass over. It’s easy to keep looking in familiar places. I wanted to get more comfortable seeing possibilities across the whole card.

Now that we’re about six months into the card year, with about six months still to go, I’ve been thinking about what that challenge has taught me.

Some of it is about the card itself. But a lot of it is about how we learn, what counts as practice, and how much we can take away from a game even when someone else calls mahjong.

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Practicing mahjong with pink tiles on a scalloped practice board.

Am I giving the whole card a chance?

Having favorite hands makes sense. Familiarity gives us somewhere to start, especially when we look down at a rack and don’t immediately see a direction.

But there’s a question worth asking: do my tiles keep taking me to the same sections, or are those the sections I know how to see?

That was part of why I wanted to play every hand. I wanted to give the less familiar parts of the card enough attention that I could actually consider them when the right tiles came along.

There’s a difference between looking at a hand and understanding how you might build it. Spending time with it gives you a chance to notice its requirements, think about a starting point, and recognize what might make it difficult.

You don’t need to take on the whole card to give yourself that experience. Choose a section you tend to skip. Spend a few minutes looking at what its hands have in common and where they differ.

Then give yourself the small challenge of remembering to look there.

That doesn’t mean forcing your tiles into a hand that isn’t a good fit. You’re giving yourself another possibility to consider, and permission to be a little less comfortable while you learn.

What kind of practice do I actually need?

One thing I keep coming back to is that practice can look different depending on what you’re working on.

Playing a full game gives you practice making decisions as things change. You have your own tiles to think about, other players to watch, and choices to make without unlimited time.

But there is also value in slowing everything down.

You can sit with the card and compare hands without playing at all. You can work through a practice Charleston and pause to consider what you would pass and what you would keep. You can look at a rack and spend time finding possible directions before choosing one.

Those are all ways of giving a particular part of your game some attention.

If finding a starting point feels difficult, a few quiet minutes exploring a rack might help. If you can see your options when you have time but feel rushed at the table, playing with others gives you a chance to work on that.

With a full-time career, a family, and LMJE, I appreciate practice that can fit into the time available. Sometimes that’s a game. Sometimes it’s ten minutes spent understanding something that has been confusing me.

It all counts.

What did that game teach me?

It’s easy to remember who called mahjong and let that become the whole story.

But there were so many decisions before that moment.

Maybe you recognized a hand you would have missed a few months ago. Maybe you held on to a possibility longer than you should have. Maybe you changed direction and understood exactly why you were doing it.

Those things deserve a little attention, too.

I think every game gives us something to learn from, although sometimes we need a moment afterward to notice it. One question I like is: “If I saw those tiles again, is there anything I would do differently?”

Sometimes the answer will be yes. Other times, you’ll feel comfortable with your decisions even though the tiles didn’t come.

You don’t have to turn every game into homework. You can enjoy the people around the table, laugh about what happened, and still leave with one small thing you want to remember.

We have about six months left with this card. If there’s a section you’ve barely touched or a part of your game you’d like to understand better, there’s still plenty of opportunity to spend time with it.

What has this card taught you so far? I’d love to hear what you’re working on, too.

Lara

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Lara’s Mahjong Edit

What Six Months With This Card Has Taught Me