Mahjong

Mahjong, sometimes spelled Mah Jongg, is a game that originated in China, commonly played by four players with some three-player variations found in Korea and Japan. The four player table version should not be confused with the popular Western single player tile matching computer game Mahjong solitaire, which is a recent invention and completely different from the table game. Similar to the Western card game rummy, mahjong is a game of skill, strategy and calculation and involves a certain degree of chance. In Asia, mahjong is also popularly played as a gambling game though it may just as easily be played recreationally. The game is played with a set of 136 tiles based on Chinese characters and symbols, although some regional variations use a different number of tiles. In most variations, each player begins by receiving thirteen tiles. In turn players draw and discard tiles until they complete a legal hand using the fourteenth drawn tile to form four groups melds and a pair head. There are fairly standard rules about how a piece is drawn, stolen from another player melded, the use of basic numbered tiles and honours winds and dragons, the kinds of melds, and the order of dealing and play. However there are many regional variations in the rules; in addition, the scoring system, the minimum hand necessary to win varies significantly based on the local rules being used. All tiles are placed face down on the table and are shuffled. By convention all players should participate in shuffling using both hands moving the pieces around the table, loudly, for a lengthy period. There is no fixed rule on how to deal or how to treat tiles which flip over during shuffle, though possible solutions include turning back over the pieces at the moment they are seen, turning over all revealed pieces at intervals or doing so at the end of the shuffling and forming of the wall. Each player then stacks a row of 18 tiles two tiles high in front of him for a total of 36 tiles. Players then push each side of their tiles together to form a square wall. The dealer throws three dice and sums up the total. Counting counterclockwise so that the dealer is 1 or 5, 9, 13, 17, so that south is 2 or 6, 10, 14, 18, etc., a player's quarter of the wall is chosen. Using the same total on the dice, the player then counts the stacks of tiles from right to left. Starting from the left of the stacks counted, the dealer takes four tiles to himself, and players in counterclockwise order take blocks of four tiles until all players have 12 tiles, so that the stacks decrease clockwise. Each player then takes one last tile to make a 13-tile hand. Dealing does not have to be this formal and may be done quite differently based on house rules. Each player now sets aside any flowers or seasons they may have drawn and takes replacement pieces from the wall. The dealer takes the next piece from the wall, adds it to his hand. If this does not complete a legal hand, he then discards a piece throwing it into the middle of the wall with no particular order in mind. Local play on the street in Lanzhou Each player takes a turn picking up a tile from the wall and then discarding a tile by throwing it into the centre and, if desired, announcing out loud what the piece is. Play continues this way until one player has a legal hand. At this point a player will call out mahjong and reveal their hand. There are four different ways that this order of play can be interrupted which is mentioned below. During play, the number of tiles maintained by each player should always be thirteen tiles meaning in each turn a tile must be picked up and another discarded. Not included in the count of thirteen tiles are flowers and seasons set to the side and the fourth added piece of a kong mentioned below. If a player is seen to have more or less than thirteen tiles in their hand outside of their turn they are penalised.

Play is a range of voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities normally associated with pleasure and enjoyment. Play is commonly associated with children, but positive psychology has stressed that play is imperative for all higher-functioning animals, even adult humans.

The rites of play are evident throughout nature and are perceived in people and animals, although generally only in those species possessing highly complex nervous systems such as mammals and birds. Play is most frequently associated with the cognitive development and socialization of those engaged in developmental processes and the young. Play often entertains props, tools, animals, or toys in the context of learning and recreation. That is, some hypothesize that play is preparation of skills that will be used later. Others appeal to modern findings in neuroscience to argue that play is actually about training a general flexibility of mind – including highly adaptive practices like training multiple ways to do the same thing, or playing with an idea that is good enough in the hopes of maybe making it better.

Some play has clearly defined goals and when structured with rules is called a game, whereas, other play exhibits no such goals nor rules and is considered to be unstructured in the literature. Play promotes broaden and build behaviors as well as mental states of happiness – including flow.

Play has traditionally been given little attention by behavioral ecologists. Edward O. Wilson wrote in Sociobiology that No behavior has proved more ill defined, elusive, controversial and even unfashionable than play. Though it received little attention in the early decades of ethnology, and instead only existed as a matter of study within human psychology, there is now a considerable body of scientific literature resulting from research on the subject. Play does not have the central theoretical framework that exists in other areas of biology.

Ethnologists frequently divide play into three general categories: Social play, locomotors play and object play. Locomotors play is the pretend playing that a very young animal participates in when alone. The jumping and spinning characteristic of locomotors play can best be seen in young goats. Researchers have theorized that locomotors play helps the cells in the cerebellum of the brain to develop connections. Types of play listed by psychiatrist Dr. Stuart Brown expand upon these basic categories to include fantasy and transformational play as well as body, object, social. The National Institute for Play describes the previous five play types, as well as the play types attunement and narrative.

The broaden and build behaviors it fosters may have even greater value for adults than children. The mental state of flow is also a major component of play, and has itself been associated with things like creativity and happiness. Brown often quotes Brian Sutton-Smith's insight: the opposite of play is not work, it is depression. 6] Examples of adult play abound e.g. the arts, but also curiosity driven science.

Tim Brown explains that a value like a bit of shamelessness during the creative process is extremely important in adult designers.

Play may allow people to practice useful habits like learned optimism, which might help manage existential fears. Play also offers the opportunity to learn things that may not have otherwise been explicitly or formally taught e.g. how to use, and deal with, deceit and misinformation. Thus, even though play is only one of many habits of an effective adult, it remains a necessary one.