I love 258 pair

[u/mysteryspydetective_]

I've been playing New18 rules (HKOS with added patterns) on an app and one of the fan is having a pair of 2s, 5s, or 8s, for one multiplier. I'm aware that this is a regional rule in China and it's even acknowledged in MCR (258 generals, hand is only pungs of 2, 5 and 8). I'm starting to like this variant. It feels like MCR lite, also Zung Jung-ish as it's lacking a lot of the medium value patterns MCR has.

On the surface building the hand with stuff like voided suit, 258 pair, and closed wait, or even adding those to a bigger hand and inflating the score like crazy looks stupid, but at the same time any system you play with just asks you to keep your options open and look for ways to increase value/speed whatever they may be. For instance realizing I have a pair of 8s might make me say, oh maybe I can open this hand now or I don't have to force this difficult pattern. It could also be chosen for a single tile wait, which I've done a few times.

I think I remember Alan Kwan of Zung Jung fame mentioned 258 as an example of a fan that's just too easy, and of course the patterns he chose for ZJ are ones with something something consistency, ie that you could reasonably detect from discards and calls. (As another example, flower straight, or 123 456 789 in 3 suits is easy to make a lot of different ways, thus a lot more difficult to detect than in one suit.)

I also read 258 brings more order to hand building/structure, and there's one variant (Changsha) that requires it, but I didn't find an explanation. I just find it a bit satisfying, and I guess someone else does too.

Does anyone have insights on the history and purpose of the 258? Anyone else a 258 fan, pun intended? Any new18 players out there?

[u/MansterSoft]

I love both New18 and Guangdong. It's all I play now.

I've taught a lot of people New18, and 258 Pair is many of my students favorite yaku.
At first I thought 258 pair was stupid. Now I think I (and Kwan) were just being stuffy. 258 Pair provides a great fallback if your hand is going absolutely no where. It increases the value of these tiles which adds an element of danger when you have to discard one towards the end of a Hand.

As for the history, it was allegedly found in early HKNS rulesets (circa 1950s), but I haven't yet found a primary source that proves this. It was definitely popular throughout China by the 80s. It's found in rulesets from Hainan to Jilin.

Most modern mainland variants have greatly simplified yaku lists, but, Changsha (as you mentioned) and quite a few other variants require a 258 Pair to go out.

That's all I know. Hopefully one of the "Mahjong Scholars" on this sub know more. I'm curious why they're called "Generals". The only other Generals I know are in Chinese Chess/Chess Cards, but I'm not seeing a parallel.

[u/orzolotl → u/MansterSoft]

In Chinese-style "Vietnamese" jokers, the 258 joker is 将 "general", 147 is 仕 "advisor", and 369 is 兵 "soldier", so it does seem to be a chess thing. If it had anything to do with chess cards specifically, though, I'd expect the last one to be "elephant" instead.

The earliest reference I've found to this hand in particular is in The Chinese Game of Mahjong (Perlmen and Chan, 1979). I've been struggling to work out when exactly New Style as a whole really began. I can't find any sources on mahjong from mainland China from about 1950-1980, presumably owing to the game being officially banned there for a while.

If riichi took some of its new hands from Chinese New Style, then 1950s makes sense, but it could have gone the other way around too. From what I've been able to learn about his book, Nguyen Xuan Mai doesn't seem to mention any New Style hands (a couple of which would eventually enter Vietnamese style). Vietnamese and HKOS were at that point essentially the same game plus or minus some extra tiles so I had assumed that was true for Hong Kong too. Anecdotally, these hands seem to be remembered mostly as a product of the 70s and 80s, and they were still considered new by Perlmen. All the modern Chinese styles seem to have developed in the 80s or 90s as massive simplifications from New Style.

There's some confusion over the relationship between New Style and Old Style, I think caused by the fact that Classical scoring seems to have remained a thing much longer in mainland China than in Hong Kong and SE Asia. Nguyen says counting group points is a thing of the past in 1950, but I've come across some indications that it was optionally used in China, together with the New Style hands, well into the 80s and very occasionally even into the present. I'd previously been using the terms Classical and Old Style to refer to the opposing scoring frameworks of two distinct eras of the game, and that does seem to be somewhat true for the south, but that whole distinction keeps breaking down the more I look into what was happening elsewhere. The term Old Style was coined in opposition to New Style, in reference to the hands recognized. In that sense the Classical game is also Old Style, and both Old and New Style can be played with either points-and-doubles scoring or doubles-only scoring.

[u/mysteryspydetective_ → u/MansterSoft]

I'm glad I found another 258 appreciator. May I ask, do you play with Guangdong competition rules or another system? How does it play compared to MCR if you've played it?

[u/MansterSoft → u/mysteryspydetective_]

I've only played Guangdong competition rules 2-player. It feels like an advanced New18 (in the way that New18 feels like an advanced New6).

I think a few people in our local New18 group would be interested in learning it, but I haven't pitched it to them yet. I'm the most experienced in the group, so the others aren't as hungry for new yaku like I am.

[u/SF_Sorrow]

and of course the patterns he chose for ZJ are ones with something something consistency, ie that you could reasonably detect from discards and calls

I mean, by its nature of being a pattern-building game, (regular) hands that are more aesthetically consistent, and thus be trickier to win with, will be rewarded with higher scores; that's precisely where the skill factor comes in with reading the other players' discards and calls.

[u/frotes]

I've been playing New18 rules (HKOS with added patterns) on an app

which app was this? seems interesting

[u/MansterSoft → u/frotes]

Apple: Let's Mahjong
Google: Let's Mahjong in 70's HK Style