The other night one of our players started to giggle and blush as she picked up her tiles and placed them on her rack. Our fifth sat beside her shaking her head.  we all assumed she had a bounty of Jokers in her hand. Two of us of course had not a single one… it had been that kind of night.

So what do you do when you are dealt 4 Jokers? You do get excited. You look to the Quints hands of course because you obviously need Jokers for those hands. But which way do you start to go when not one other tile in your hand pairs with any other tile except for the 4 Jokers? So after the Charleston this player retained a 2 and 3 crack, one 4 bam and one 4 dot plus a few unrelated tiles. She was thinking of  the hand with 2344 44444 44444. 

Meanwhile after a few draws from the wall she acquired 2 more Jokers.  She was embarrassed by her wealth but frustrated by it as well. We were realizing that certainly we were not going to win this hand and please let’s hope it is a wall game. The play continued and she exposed her 4 dot with 4 Jokers — ouch. Could she be that close and that ready? The woman in the West position then called the discarded 8 dot for a pung and used a Joker as well — so although that was her only bonus tile that was number 7.  

A few more turns and nothing was coming my way.  As our Joker friend started to throw Flowers we began to narrow down the choices as to which Quint hand she was playing when out of no where, our friend in the West seat called for Mah Jongg! We had been so focused on our Joker friend and our West friend opted for the simple consecutive run 5-9 in dots!

We were in shock — how can you have six Jokers and not win the hand? What else could you do? Was there another hand that would have worked? Our friend simply said Jokers are great but you need tiles that go together to make the Jokers work.This hand will haunt her for awhile.

So what would you do?

P.S There have been lots of discussions lately about what hands to play when you are dealt a wealth of Jokers.  Once again this week, it happened. Last night it seemed that either you got no jokers or multiples.  So how do you decide which direction to go?