MAHJONG TIME FIRST EXPERIENCE

I finally got my internet connection upgraded to a respectable 10Mps download speed (I was on 512kps previously). Friends were astonished that it took me so long to catch up with the times, but then that’s me, the technology dinosaur.

At any rate, I now have a respectable enough connection to play on Mahjong Time, one of the best places to play MCR rules online. I had my first real experience yesterday night, or rather early this morning. And I am sad to say that I was well and truly trashed. Out of 7 games played, I only won 1.

As far as I know, The Mahjong Time interface has recently been be updated, resulting in a much faster playing experience for the players. Good for most, but a disaster for me. In this world of i7 processors, I am but a meager 386. I also only realize exactly how slow my usual group has been playing.

Most of the time, I had hardly time to assess my tiles before I had to make decisions, and many times, the software bot ended up making them for me because I exceeded the set timing. And well, the decision making logic of the bots are somewhat similar to my father’s hair, which means there is hardly any. Needless to say, I spent most of my available time figuring out my own tiles, and hardly noticing the discard pool or other players’ melds. I remember only realizing that an opposite player was attempting a full flush hand after giving him/her the winning tile, despite three obvious melds on the table. I am sure I was not very popular with the other two players after that move.

It usually takes a while to get used to the playing interface when transiting from table play to online play, and probably vice versa. There were a few occasions where I ruined my hands because I had accidently clicked on the wrong tile, or clicked on the wrong action.

MCR on Mahjong Time has a rather Euro-centric audience, not surprising since the rule set is more popular in Europe than in other Asia mahjong strongholds, where local variants hold sway. This is why I started playing at close to midnight and ended at 4 am in the morning, as that is the period where most players are available, and spent all of Sunday in a sleep deprived haze.

That said, it was still a fun experience, and when all is said then done, playing online is better than no mahjong at all, for all the difficulties it poses for me. And I think it would be extremely good training for me – I really need to at least upgrade to a Pentium 4 even if an i7 is out of reach.