The other night I re-learned how to play the traditional Chinese game of Mah Jongg. Unlike the Windows version of Mah Jongg, which involved matching stacked tiles, the real game is a lot like the card game Gin in that you want to get groups of three identical tiles or three consecutive tiles of the same "suit". Like most Chinese games, the numbers and characters are in unreadable (to me Chinese characters), and like all Chinese games Pete often makes up rules as we go along.

Pete [after drawing a tile]: Ooh, it's a special combo. Everyone owes me a buck.
Me: But you flipped the tiles face down, how do I know what the combo is or if there is any combo at all?
Pete: That's the rule.

Pete [after I win a game]: No special combos, everyone owes you $2.

Pete [after Pete wins a game]: $2 base plus the Dragon is $16 plus two flowers is $2 plus I was the dealer (keep in mind no one actually deals, people pick their own tiles from the table) and won the last game so that's 2 more dollars. Everyone owes me $22 and I get to deal again.

We don't actually play for money, or else I would take the time to look up the rules and verify that Pete isn't just making things up as it so often seems. The other day when Pete wasn't playing, I won all 3 games. Last night with Pete playing and thinking up new combos fast and furious, I only won once. Although there isn't really very much skill to Mah Jongg, something seems a little off about that.