Most players think defense means not calling. That's not quite right.
Calling is one move. Defense is a whole posture, and it starts before anything hits the table. It's noticing what the other players are building, what they're passing through the Charleston, which suits they're quietly collecting. It's the difference between reacting to a discard and actually reading the room.
Here's the part that took me a long time to accept: your own rack is the least useful thing you're looking at. You already know what's in it. Everything you don't know is sitting on the other three sides of the table, in plain view, and most of us never look up.
So let's do the work first, then I have something for you.
Challenge Corner
Last week's answer
Last week was the very first Charleston pass. You had a pair of Soaps, two Flowers, a Red Dragon, and a spread of unconnected middle numbers across all three suits. Nothing built yet. What goes first?
95% of you got this right, out of just over 500 votes. That's the strongest showing we've ever had on a Challenge Corner question, and I love it. You pass three of the unconnected middle tiles and you keep the Soaps, the Flowers, and the Dragon.
Here's why the Soaps stay. A Soap counts as zero and as a dragon, so it works in multiple hand families without you having to decide anything yet. Flowers are the same kind of free: they fit almost anywhere, and giving them up on pass one is almost always a mistake.
The unconnected middles go, not because they're bad tiles, but because they're the tiles you know the least about right now. Pass one isn't the time to commit to a hand. It's the time to buy yourself options. Flexibility early, conviction late. That's the whole stance.
This week's question
We're staying in defense territory, and this one is about the thing I see missed most often: reading the whole table, not just reacting to one opponent. Tap your answer, and I'll share the results and my own read next week.
You're building Consecutive Run #1 (11 222 33 444 5555) in bams and you're 10 tiles in. The only group you still need is the 5555. The wall is about half gone, and the player to your left just exposed a pung of 5-bams. What do you do?
- Keep building. Ten tiles in, you have a joker, and you're this close.
- Go defensive right now. Stop reaching for anything she might need.
- Read the whole table first. What are the other two players building? Are they close? Is there a path through?
- Start pivoting. Find a different hand that doesn't need 5-bams.
If that question was your favorite part of this email
Jillian made 92 pages of that question
Jillian Krohne of Mahj-el Tov just released a strategy workbook built entirely around the skill we've been circling all summer. It's called Play Smarter. Screw Your Opponents. Her title, not mine, ha! But she isn't wrong about what it does.
It's built specifically for the 2026 card, and the whole premise is the one I keep coming back to in class: stop staring at your card, start reading the table.
What's actually inside:
Exposure exercises. You see the exposed tiles, you work out every hand on the 2026 card those tiles could still be. This is the drill almost nobody practices on purpose.
Pass and discard scenarios. Real table situations, with the reasoning walked all the way out.
Compound exposure exercises. Reading two and three opponents at once. This is where most of us fall apart, myself included on a tired night.
Bettor exercises. All four racks visible, so you practice seeing the whole board the way a bettor gets to see it.
Mah Jongg Mysteries. Full game reconstructions. If you were in her Mysteries series with me this summer, you know exactly the kind of thinking these ask for.
A complete answer key. Not just the answers. The reasoning behind each one, which is the part that actually teaches you something.
It's a digital download, so it's yours the minute you buy it, and it's printable. Print it, put it next to your rack, work it with a pencil. That's how I'd use it.
Who it's for: players who know the rules cold and want the instinct. If you're still getting comfortable with the card itself, bookmark this one and come back to it. It'll still be here, and you'll get so much more out of it.
$35.99, 92 pages, digital download.
If you're the one teaching
Some of you don't just play. You teach, or you've been circling the idea of it. This part is for you, and the timing is good, because August's material is dropping in the Teacher Edit this week.
The theme is Teaching Beyond the 101, and it's the step almost nobody plans for. You run a beginner class. It goes well. Your students finish it, they're thrilled, and then they ask what's next. Most teachers have nothing built for that, so the student drifts off and finds someone else, or just stops playing.
August is both halves of fixing that.
The how. Structuring your classes, so there's actually a next step to point people toward. And teaching the mixed-skill table, so you can run a room where everyone's at a different place without losing the newer players or boring the ones ready to move.
The what, because knowing how to design a class doesn't help if you have nothing to put inside it. Four ready-to-run strategy sessions: reading the table (yes, the same thread as this whole issue), joker judgment, defensive discards, and pivoting between hands.
Every unit ships three files: a facilitator guide you read ahead of time at your kitchen table, a run of show you hold in your hand during class with the timings and answer keys filled in, and a student takeaway you rebrand with your own logo and hand out. All of it in a print-friendly black-and-white version too, because I know you're printing these at home.
What lands when:
This week: Structuring Your Classes, plus all four strategy sessions
Monday, August 17: Teaching the Mixed-Skill Table
Wednesday, August 19 at 8pm ET: member Q&A, where you can bring me the class you're planning
You could open one of these on a Sunday and run the class on Tuesday. That's the whole point of building them this way.
Come see the Teacher Edit. $39.99 a month.
One more place this work continues
If you want the table-reading practice with people around you instead of on your own, that's what Confidence Club is for. Every month there's a challenge built to stress-test exactly this kind of decision, plus live Q&A where I work through your actual hands, the full replay library, and a room of players sorting out the same things you are.
$19.99 a month, cancel anytime. The workbook and the Club are a good pair, honestly. One gives you the reps, the other gives you someone to check your thinking against.
Where to Find Me
Instagram: @larasmahjongedit, daily teaching and table talk
Facebook group: Lara's Mahjong Edit, the free community where we talk tiles all week
Confidence Club: larasmahjongedit.com/pages/confidence-club, the membership for players who want to go further
P.S. If you only click one thing this week, make it Jillian's workbook. 92 pages of reading the table, and an answer key that explains the why. Print it and work it with a pencil.
Talk soon,
Lara