ATOMIC (Article 184)

There is an American mah jongg house rule called Atomic which includes hands not on the card. I like to call the hands a Cantonese Sampler because the hands are from Cantonese style! Allowable hands (NO FLOWERS) include one or more of the following:

• Seven unique pairs
• Seven pairs (kongs allowed as two separate pairs)
• Three kongs and a pair
• Four pungs and pair
• Four chows (three in a sequence) or pungs and a pair (any combination)

Common Rules

• You are qualified to play Atomic if there are no flowers or jokers are in your dealt hand.
• You must declare Atomic before the Charleston; place a marker on your rack (i.e., penny, figurine, domino, stickered tile).
• No Flowers can be passed to you, which may burden your opponents.
• After the Charleston, if you pick a Flower or joker from the wall, you are off-Atomic and you must switch to a hand on the American mah jongg card.

Hand value

• Players agree to the value, which ranges from 50 to 100 points.

How to Beat an Atomic Player

American mah jongg is a game of multiples. Because we play on a card with limited hands, jokers are in the mix to make the hands achievable. Even if someone is playing a pair hand, atomic or not, hands that have big multiples can leverage jokers.

When a group plays with the atomic hands, the player who opts in is the one who takes on big risks. These hands take time to build, and if they get a joker or flower, they have to start over and play a hand on the card. This means that players who opted out have a big advantage: They can play exposable hands, and speed-to-ready is the path to optimizing their winning potential! How to beat an Atomic player??? Play easy, exposable hand!!!