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And that is just what many of the more experienced Japanese mahjong players like to do in the course of a game - use feel the concealed face of the tile next to be taken from the wall with their thumbs! Yes, not a few seasoned hands have become competent at tile-reading by rubbing the indentations on tile-face with their thumbs. It takes hours of practice to get to the point where you can accurately distinguish each of the 34 different tile faces of a standard Japanese mahjong set with your thumb, and there seems to be little advantage in being able to do so. It is a diverting party trick and it also adds some kudos to a player's game if the player can pluck a tile from the wall, announce what it is and discard it without so much as glancing at it. Mahjong is most exciting when played swiftly, so being able to read a tile without looking at it may be said to help the cause of speedy play, but apart from that there does not seem to be much practical profit in taking the trouble to learn the skill. However, there is one case where a "thumb-reader" could glean some useful information about an opponent's tile. Because mahjong players like to play fast the player who is waiting for his turn often reaches for his tile before the player to his left has discarded. An experienced tile-reader places his thumb under the tile on the wall that he is about to take so that he can "read" it while waiting for his turn. But then, when a discarded tile is claimed by another player as an open "Pon" the sequence of play is broken and the player who was waiting to take a tile - and who has now "read" it with his thumb - is passed over so the tile will most likely end up in another player's hand. In that case the "thumb reader" will know what the tile is and will perhaps pay attention to where it is placed in the other player's hand. Some people might object that such a practice is a form of cheating, but others counter that it is just part parcel of the Japanese approach to the game. It might also be pointed out that there is nothing to stop the player who received the tile from practising some deception by placing it somewhere in his hand where it does not really belong in the hope that the "thumb-reader" will draw the wrong conclusions about the make-up of his hand. Whatever you may think about the practice of "thumb-reading", the fact that it is possible to do at all is testimony to the sensitivity of the human thumb, or "oya yubi" as it is called in Japanese. Article Source: http://www.articlewheel.com
This is the place where I try to persuade you, my fellow Japanese mahjong fanatic, that you ought to hot foot it over to my website, Japanese-Games-Shop.com and blow a large chunk of your hard earned wages (or ill gotten gains) on a seriously expensive, exclusive, utterly exotic, Japanese mahjong set. I recommend the Nintendo Yakuman New Ivory Japanese Mahjong Set, possibly the most expensive Japanese mahjong set this side of the Milky Way.
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