September 26, 2010 | 2:50 pm

“CALL” FOR THE SAME TILE

Posted by Elaine Sandberg

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“CALL!” FOR THE SAME TILE

Who Gets it?

I was playing in a game the other day when an unpleasant “discussion” broke out. Here’s the story.

The setting was I was East, Amy sat to my right, then Madge and then Jan. I made a discard. Madge and Amy both needed the discard for Mahj. Madge called for it and a couple of seconds later, Amy called for the same tile. Madge is quite competitive and claimed that Amy waited too long to call and that she called only to keep her from Mahj. A big, BIG “discussion” ensued.

So the question is Who get’s it? If two people want the same tile, the rule is the person to the discarder’s right gets the discard. So normally, Amy would get it. But Madge was adamant that her claim was justified. To settle things, although I felt the tile was Amy’s, I thought the rule needed clarification.

So I called the League’s office.  I carefully explained the situation about the time lapse between the calls. The answer was—The person to the right of the discarder gets the tile—no matter there is a lapse between the time one player’s call over another.

But there is an exception. The determining factor is whether Madge had started to expose her hand or not.  If Madge had begun to expose, the tile would be hers. Since she did not, the tile was Amy’s.

We all kissed and made up and had a glass of wine to soothe our savage breasts. And happily, Madge made the next Mahj, uncontested.

Til next time..

MAY THE TILES BE WITH YOU……