Shows / The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong Table
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong Table
Prim Proper is the voice on Order of the Tile, a weekly newsletter and podcast delivering strategy, beauty, and community intelligence to American Mahjong players who already know the game...and want to play it better. She has studied the card. She has watched the table. She has thoughts about your discards, your rack, and the hand you abandoned too early. Every Thursday, she shares what she has observed. Not all of it. Just enough. Discover more at orderofthetile.com.
Episodes
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThe Hand That Haunts You
Prim has lit the good candles. It is the one week of the year when a little dread is welcome at the table, so she settles in to tell you which of its hauntings…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThe Price of a Title
The whole weekend folded itself into a single word, said a little too fast by someone whose hands were not quite steady. In The Draw, Prim marks a first: the…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThe Ballroom
The night before is when nothing has gone wrong yet. Every rack is still perfect. The Draw celebrates everyone cheering from home. The Table Is Asking settles…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TablePlay It Out
The dead hand is not a hand with nothing left to do. It is a hand with a different job. Crak the Card explains why you may not fold or call your own hand dead…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableDear Diary
The woman who always seems to know is not reading minds. She is reading the middle, and Prim would like to retire the legend gently, because it keeps good…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableFortune Favors the Prepared Rack
The coin in a particular pocket, the tile turned just so before the Charleston, the friend who will never sit north to start. Prim is fond of every charm at…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableA Different Game
Four women sit down at one table with identical tiles, an identical card and identical seats, and not one of them is playing the same game. This week Prim…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThe Real Season
Prim learned about the turn of the season from her uncle's bees. A hive that divides in the middle of summer rebuilds. One that divides at the end of it can…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThe Third Half
A hive split at the end of summer, and somebody asked whether what was left on the branch was the third half. It was not. It was a quarter, and that turned out…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableHey, Lucky Lady!
Luck owns the wall and nothing else. Prim on the art of the pivot, why hesitation is the only genuinely unlucky thing at a mahjong table, and the woman with…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThat's a Foot Wedge!
Prim's grandfather played golf professionally, so he knew every clause of the rulebook and exactly what each penalty cost. Which is what made him the right…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThe game seats four. This table seats more.
Every August has a moment where you find out what you actually chose, and Prim's arrived the way these things usually do: with the whole season tipped out on…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThe Guilty Party Is Herself
There is a scandal this week, and Prim regrets to report that the guilty party is herself. She lost track of the week so completely that Thursday arrived…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TablePrim knows a fake when she sees one
There is a particular light in late July that makes everything look finer than it really is, and Prim does not trust it for a moment. This week is about the…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableWe have been watching
Some weeks the whole game teaches the same quiet lesson, and this week it is this: to be watched, at the right table, is to be cared for. Prim opens with news…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThe Open Door
The table is getting younger, wider, and easier to sit down at, and Prim could not be more pleased. This week is about the open door: who is walking through it…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThe world plays its game this week. We play ours.
The country spent this week roaring at the World Cup and recovering from the Fourth, and Prim noticed the same truth underneath all of it. Glory is loud…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableWhat happens at the table, we tell.
Happy Fourth of July, dear listeners. What happens at the table, we tell. This week the game refuses to stay politely in the parlor. It is in the community…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableSome tables keep secrets. Ours keeps score.
Some tables keep secrets. Ours keeps score. This week the entire world has decided, all at once, to play, and Prim could not be more vindicated. In The Draw…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThe table is open. Pull up a chair.
Spring ended with the whole world agreeing with us. Summer begins with a harder question: now that everyone has pulled up a chair, what do we do with a fuller…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThe season's most interesting hand has been dealt.
Spring began with Prim insisting this game was a culture and a discipline. Spring ends with the financial press agreeing. The numbers arrived this season like…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableConsider yourself informed
The first Thursday of June, and Prim sets the record straight. The 13579 section rewards the player who has done the math, and the odd numbers are not rare…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableNothing at the table escapes notice.
Prim has been circling the Winds and Dragons section for weeks, and this issue is the proper treatment. The section is about supply, not strategy, and the read…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableAt This Table, We Remember.
On the Thursday before Memorial Day, Prim sets the strategy talk aside for a moment. This issue gathers the community around what the weekend asks of us: how…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThe best discard is the one no one expects.
Happy Mother's Day from Prim. This week's table is full of photos of mothers and daughters at the tiles, and Prim has read every one. In this issue: The Draw…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThe wall has been read.
The week after National Mahjong Day, the community exhales, and Prim reads the wall. She makes the case that the 2468 section is where games are quietly won…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableEvery discard tells a story.
My dearest table guests, National Mahjong Day has arrived, and the whole country is reading each other's Thursday. In Issue Number Seven, Prim sits down on the…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableWhat a Joker.
Prim is thinking about jokers. Not the jokester kind. The tile kind. The single most powerful, most coveted, and most debated object on your rack — and somehow…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TablePatience is not a virtue. It is a strategy.
Prim is slowing down. On purpose. The community has pivoted from studying the card to choosing where to play. This week at the table: → Why the Singles & Pairs…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableA new card. A new season. Same Prim.
The game has been here for almost a century. But this year, so many friends have finally noticed. Episode 4 follows the explosion as it happens... from…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThe Tiles Don't Lie. Neither Does Prim
Someone is selling fake cards. And too many of you are buying them.3 In Issue No. 3, Prim addresses the counterfeit NMJL cards flooding Amazon and Walmart…
The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong TableThe Charleston Never Lies
The envelopes have been opened. The group chats haven't stopped buzzing. And Prim has opinions. In Issue No. 2, we turn our attention to the most revealing…
- The Order of the Tile: Secrets from the American Mahjong Table
The Season has Begun.
The card is here. And Prim has been waiting. This is the very first dispatch from The Order of the Tile — a weekly audio companion for the American Mahjong…