Squares...

A harmless enough shape until you apply it to mahjong and then it becomes and evil prison mahjong players need to escape.

I like instagram and I’d like to post more what would you discards, situations etc. However, the squares are just not good enough. Any line of tiles gets entirely lost by a big eye full of table surface. I could split the hand up but that would mean doing it in groups and that almost defeats the point of it being useful as a teaching tool. I need a rectangle.

(incidentally, the algorithm does not like huge amount of table in a picture)

I experimented with taking some example hands on windowsills, but they all looked so silly. (And again, not useful)

I could take a photo of an entire table context, but the information is so small that again it’s not helpful.

Discard pools do photograph and sit in a square nicely so maybe I should be thinking of focusing on those for my insta but that really cuts out a lot of novice players. No beginner question ever needs a pool of discards.

Mahjong always suffers from its un-photogenic and modern media unfriendly qualities. Streaming being the key pain when we compare ourselves with Texas Hold‘em with community cards and more human focus. Formats such as those popularized by instagram make it even more difficult to get our art noticed… Creating our own format and platform would be the answer I guess but then we can’t mingle with the mainstreamers and induct them in the ways of the tiles…

I’ll keep experimenting on social media and maybe one day someone will crack it. My instagram is here if you do want to follow me.