Read the Directions? Good Idea?

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... or not? I've been a member of Pogo.com for a while now but only recently started playing again (in between myLot!). I've been playing a lot of Mahjong Safari and I love it! I've been stumbling along, making all my quick little animal matches and racking up those points and thought I was doing a bang-up job of it - until I read the directions last night. I am ashamed to admit that I found out some wonderful new things, just by reading instead of going along my merry old way on my own. I found that matching the stars is what gives you the powerups (I knew I saw little lightning bolts or something, but never stopped to look at what they did. And here I thought that the powerups just popped up at a certain time in the game!) I found that matching two sets of animals in succession gives you lots more points. (i.e., match two kangaroos and then another two kangaroos before matching anything else). I found that you get more points for the matches that are further away instead of those right next to each other. Am I the only dunce that didn't know these things?Now my dilemna ... I've always been pretty quick on making my matches, but now I find myself looking for the things that can potentially bring more points, therefore I am slowing down some and I'm not sure the extra points I might get are fully compensated for the lack of speed. So was my reading the directions worth it? I play for fun and not really all that concerned about my points, but it is irritating to me that I didn't know this all along and could have been honing my skills properly and would probably be a master player by now (ha! Big chance of THAT happening, LOL). So - do you always read the directions fully, with tips and tricks?If you're a pogo player, did you know all this stuff? (Someone please tell me you didn't know either, even if you have to lie - not!)