Mhing

Game Review

Reviewed by Mary Beth Till


Suntex International
Released date: 1984
Price: $16.00 for the deluxe edition
Complexity: Beginner to Intermediate
Solitaire: None
**** 1/2

Mhing is a card game for two to six players based on Mahjongg. It is easy to learn, a lot of fun to play (but you better not have laryngitis!), and can become habitforming, especially among highly competitive game-players (but we don't know anyone like that, do we?).

The Deluxe Edition contains 150 cards, rules of play, a card tray, scoring pad, scoring combination sheets, and chips for playing Mhing as a betting game. All components are of the highest quality materials. The cards are beautifully made and brilliantly colored-the red and gold backs and the artwork and bright colors of bamboos, dots, characters, dragons, winds, and flowers add greatly to the oriental flavor of the game. The rules are concisely stated, beginning with a summary paragraph and then taking you step-by-step through a game and final scoring procedures (the trickiest part to learn). Included are examples and a Question and Answer section for possible problems that could arise. The scoring combination sheets are absolutely necessary for beginning players. They need to learn what combinations of sets will score how many points.

The object of the game is to score 500 points. This is not as easy as it may sound, since the only player to score points in a hand is the one who goes out ("goes Mhing"), by building four sets of three cards each plus one pair. Sets may be Sequences or Triplets. Play is like Rummy: each player gets thirteen cards, and the dealer begins play, which continues with players drawing and discarding. Discards are available to the table at large (to whoever calls for them first) in order to complete sets or go Mhing. Only the player who goes out scores points, and it is possible to go out without getting any points.

The more interesting aspects of Mhing are the point-scoring strategies and its vocal nature. First, only certain combinations of sets of three cards will get the player credits, which are then converted to points. Therefore, as mentioned before, you can go out (go Mhing) without scoring anything. This is sometimes a good strategy if you are trying to prevent someone else from scoring points. It is both interesting and challenging to try to make multiple combinations of the possibilities given on the scoring sheets in order to get even more credits.

Perhaps my friends and I get the most fun from the vocal aspect of the game. The rules call for announcing your discard as you play it: "Red Dragon ... .. Five of Characters," "Three Bamboos." In order to pick up a discard out of turn, a player must announce what he will use the discard for: completing a triplet ("Pung"), completing a sequence ("Chow"), or going out ("Mhing"). In the excitement of getting just the card you need, tongue-tripping is inevitable. We still get a lot of: "Pung! ... Oh, I mean Chow!", not to mention "Pow!" or "Chung!" Naturally, this aspect also raises intriguing linguistic questions: Does one pronounce the "h" in Mhing? Does "Pung" rhyme with "sun" or "moon"? Do you say "Five characters" or "Five of Characters", or (since we are dealing with Oriental languages) "Five Character"? What is the appropriate Chinese-American dialect to use for maximum authenticity?

Mhing is easily learned, but has almost infinite possibilities of being new and different each time it is played, due to the variety of combinations one tries to make for high scoring. One good hand can completely turn around the ranking of players, which calls for no little amount of groaning and gloating.

I consider Mhing truly delightful for all who enjoy playing games with friends for an evening - and you can get so engrossed that the session lasts the whole night (I remember a 7 P.M. to 2 A.M. session!). I highly recommend Mhing to everyone.

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