MCR DISCUSSION - OUTSIDE HAND

I have not done MCR hands analysis in a while, mainly because we have hardly been playing, and also because we were mostly past the stage of experimentation and settled into a comfortable rut. Anyway, I thought it was about time I started using my brains a bit more and instincts a little less, now that I have a goal to work towards.

For the last two sessions that we got going, I noticed myself trying to make a lot more "Outside Hands". I tended to avoid this hand in the past as a beginner, as it is valued at only four points, and finding the other four points to go out was rather challenging for me, as I did not like to keep track of numerous small scoring fans. The fact that I am now trying this hand out more often, and finding enough success at it, tells me that I have matured somewhat as a player, and I am really happy to have another playable hand to add to my repertoire. I should also thank WJ for inspiring me to try this, because this is one of her favorite hands to do, and I learnt quite a bit from analyzing her hands.

A typical starting hand for “Outside Hand” could be:

In the past, I would have worked very hard to move this hand into one of the mixed suited chows, all types, or even pure straights. A lot would have depended on the luck of the draw, since the hand obviously lacks a lot of the critical tiles for these hands. It usually took me a long time to get ready, and I hardly ever won the set with such strategies.
It was not as difficult to find the other four points as I thought. I typically approach "Outside Hands" as a mainly chow based hand. With increasing number of pungs of terminals and/or honours, it became more worthwhile for me to go for “All Terminals and Honours” or even “All Terminals”. For a chow based hand, it should be easy enough to get two or three points from a 123X 789X – 123Y 789Y combination , X and Y being any two of the three suits. Together with “All Chows”, eight points should be easily achievable. Other common fans which may be combined for the eight points are “One Voided Suit”, “Pung of Terminals or Honours”, “No Honours”, “Concealed Hand” etc.

It seems to me a reasonably flexible and fast hand to make when the starting conditions are right. I will definitely be trying this out more often. And as I start playing hands with smaller scoring base fans like this, I hope to be able to start making composite hands with more and more ease. When I can do that, I have reached the next level of the game, in my own opinion.