Sherlock Miniature #1: ‘Mrs. Hudson’s New Fan’
- Details
- Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 November 2012 18:00
- Written by Vitaly Novikov
That was an ordinary game of mahjong at Baker’s Street 221 B. Mrs. Hudson was sitting at East. She looked very carefully at her starting hand (14 tiles, no flowers) and said: “Gentlemen! Though I have memorized all MCR fans, but I cannot recognize a knitted fan in my starting hand. I have looked at my tiles up and down but no way! I wish some day new fan describing my hand be added to the list!”
Question: Please, describe Mrs. Hudson’s starting hand and explain what this new fan is about.
Comments (5)
1Saturday, 21 April 2012 13:40
Vitaly
The way Mrs. Hudson looked at tiles :).
2Monday, 23 April 2012 00:14
Sylvain MALBEC
Could it be the mysterious "random bunch of isolated reversible tiles that don't form a valid hand" non-existing-fan?
3Monday, 23 April 2012 11:03
Vitaly
Sylvain!
Yoy are definitely on right track!
How many "isolated reversible tiles" you can count at maximum in that "bunch"?
That answer would shows us whether you are correct :).
Yoy are definitely on right track!
How many "isolated reversible tiles" you can count at maximum in that "bunch"?
That answer would shows us whether you are correct :).
4Monday, 23 April 2012 14:10
Sylvain MALBEC
"at maximum"?
All 14 of them!
1-4 pin, 2-5-8 pin, 3-9 pin, 4 sou, 2-5-8 sou, 6-9 sou, white dragon
But the result doesn't look like near any knitted fan, and the tiles aren't isolated anymore:
1234589 pin, 254689 sou, white
The only remarkable pattern I see is 2-5-8 in both pinzu and souzu. This is not enouth to make a hand, but maybe the new fan doesn't concerne the whole hand.
All 14 of them!
1-4 pin, 2-5-8 pin, 3-9 pin, 4 sou, 2-5-8 sou, 6-9 sou, white dragon
But the result doesn't look like near any knitted fan, and the tiles aren't isolated anymore:
1234589 pin, 254689 sou, white
The only remarkable pattern I see is 2-5-8 in both pinzu and souzu. This is not enouth to make a hand, but maybe the new fan doesn't concerne the whole hand.
5Monday, 23 April 2012 14:45
Sylvain MALBEC
225588pin 225588sou white-white
It is difficult to judge the difficulty of problems, but some did take me some time to solve.
I especially enjoyed the '32nd of December' and its fourth question.
Thanks to Vitaly for the problems, to Martin for hosting the "venue" and congrats to Sylvain and Scott for their success.
A: two kongs of the same suit (i.e. 8 one-suit tiles) and a kong of wind
So... winds are now suit tiles?
And they are in every suit?
Wow!
Looks like I've misunderstood the question and it was actually an easy one!
Was it because I was the only one to answer the question within the allotted time?
Just curious.
Thanks.
At first, it looks like each player had three pure melded kongs, two of them separated by two numbers (e.g. 1 and 4), and that their left-side neighbour is waiting for these two said kongs with a ryanmen (e.g. _23_).
But it turns out there are not enough tiles for that.
So, here's the trick:
Watson had: melded: 1111m 4444m 5555m, concealed: 23s EE.
Lestrade had: melded: 1111s 4444s 5555s, concealed: 23p SS.
Holmes had: melded: 1111p 4444p 5555p, concealed: 78m WW.
Mrs. Hudson had: melded: 6666m 9999m, concealed: RRRR(concealed kong) 23m NN, and erronously melded as flowers: 2223m.
It certainly "cut off all conceivable scenarios".