Monday, Aug. 26, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Roberta Last smiles every time actress Fran Drescher mentions mah jongg in the whiny, nasal voice that has become her trademark on the CBS sitcom "The Nanny."
Last, who is partners with her husband, Stephen Last, and Marjorie Troum in the Marjorie Troum Mah Jongg Tournament West Tour, says even when mah jongg is said in passing on the show, the ancient game's popularity seems to rise.
"Fran mentions mah jongg four, maybe five times a season on the show, and it really helps," said Last, co-host of the summer version of the Las Vegas Mah Jongg Tournament set for Wednesday through Friday at the Monte Carlo hotel-casino.
"Shows like that have helped revive the game. We are seeing more and more young people and men get involved."
Troum, the daughter of the late Dorothy Meyerson, who standardized the American rules for mah jongg in the late 1930s and ushered in the game's golden era in the 1950s, has been bringing tournaments to Las Vegas since 1990.
This is the second local summer event. In 1997, the eight-year-old tourney that previously has been held in the spring will move to December and will return to the Golden Nugget after a four-year absence. Last year's inaugural summer event and the last two spring classics were held at the Sahara hotel-casino.
Mah jongg, a tile game developed by the Mandarins 2,500 years ago, has had its fortunes bolstered in recent years by movies such as "Driving Miss Daisy" and "The Joy Luck Club" and television shows such as "The Nanny."
Drescher plays a flashy, streetwise woman from Queens who is put in charge of raising the three children of a wealthy, gentile Manhattan play producer and widower.
In one episode, the man's young son learns to play mah jongg with a group of elderly women who are relatives of Drescher's character. The boy then shocks his courtly father by occasionally uttering a little Yiddish he picked up from hanging around the women.
But the game also has enjoyed popularity among people of varying ethnic backgrounds.
"In China, the game is played mostly by men for very high stakes," Troum said. "In the United States, mah jongg also has long been popular among military wives in the South, the vast majority of whom are not Jewish."
The game is enjoying such a revival that even relatively small events like the upcoming Las Vegas tournament draw top players from across the nation.
"We have players coming in from Chicago and Texas," said Last, co-owner and operator of the Travel Wizard travel agency in La Mesa, Calif. "We expect about 90 players, including a good number of Las Vegans."
The entry fee is $55 and must be paid before 9 a.m. Wednesday, an hour before the first round is set to begin. The festivities begin Tuesday with registration and free social play sessions. Prize money will be paid to the top 10 finishers and other prizes will be awarded.
The tour, which includes stops in Palm Springs and San Diego, first hit Las Vegas in 1990 at the old Dunes hotel-casino. The event moved to the Imperial Palace in 1991, the Golden Nugget in 1992-93 and the Gold Coast in 1994 before its two-year stint at the Sahara.
Mah jongg usually is played by four players, with each contestant using 14 of the 152 small Chinese-symboled tiles and discarding unused tiles to opponents. A player says "Mahj" or "That's it" when making a winning hand. An average game takes 15 to 20 minutes.
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