Mah jongg players warm up for second winter tournament

Monday, Dec. 7, 1998 | 11:14 a.m.

The second annual winter Marjorie Troum Mah Jongg Tournament West comes to the Monte Carlo this week with more than 100 of the region's top players expected.

This will be the fourth time the Monte Carlo has hosted a Troum-sponsored event. The Strip resort has been the site of three summer Las Vegas mah jongg tournaments since 1996. The West Coast tour has stopped in Las Vegas yearly since 1990, when the inaugural event was held at the old Dunes hotel-casino.

"We have established our tournament as a tradition in Las Vegas during the warmer months, and now we are working to make it a popular winter event as well," said Troum, daughter of the late Dorothy Meyerson, who standardized American mah jongg rules in the 1930s.

The tournament kicks off Wednesday and concludes Friday. Although entries are closed to out-of-towners, Las Vegans may pay the $70 entrance fee up to the 9:30 a.m. start Wednesday. For more information call (800) 708-7677.

Troum says the ancient Mandarin Chinese game has enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years after being featured in several major motion pictures like "Driving Miss Daisy" and "The Joy Luck Club" and on popular television shows like the CBS sitcom "The Nanny."

"In October at the fourth annual Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival they had a showing of 'Mah Jongg Mavens and Memories,'" Troum said of the Alan Rosenberg film that played at the Music Hall in Beverly Hills. "More and more we are seeing mah jongg in many different forms of media."

She points to two New York Times stories this year on mah jongg and a Los Angeles Times piece on how the game has made a comeback in China.

Also, Troum, who runs a mah jongg supply company in California, says that while the game is still popular in Jewish communities, many other groups have picked it up, especially families and young people.

"I am selling a number of sets to families as Christmas gifts," she said. "Parents are teaching the game to their children."

Mah jongg features four players, with each contestant using 14 of the 152 small Chinese-symboled tiles to form hands. Unused tiles are discarded to opponents. A player says "mahj" or "that's it" when making a winning hand. An average game takes 15 to 20 minutes.

The Troum tour is co-promoted by Roberta and Steve Last of Travel Wizard in La Mesa, Calif.