🌸
Hard Standard

Koi-Koi

Match the flowers — say "Koi-Koi" to risk it all.

👥 2 players · Hard difficulty

Koi-Koi is played with the beautiful 48-card Hanafuda (flower cards) deck, where each of the 12 suits represents a month and a plant. Match cards from the table to build "yaku" (scoring combinations). Calling "Koi-Koi" lets you keep playing for more points — but risks your opponent going out first.

🎯 Objective

Score the most points across multiple rounds by completing "yaku" (flower combinations).

🃏 Setup

  1. Uses a 48-card Hanafuda deck (12 suits/months × 4 cards each: 2 plain, 1 ribbon, 1 special).
  2. Deal 8 cards to each player face-down; deal 8 cards face-up to the table.
  3. Remaining 24 cards form the draw pile.

▶ How to Play

  1. On your turn, match one card from your hand to a card on the table of the SAME suit (month). Both go to your capture pile.
  2. Then flip the top draw card. If it matches a suit on the table, capture both; otherwise it stays on the table.
  3. After each capture, check if you have completed a yaku (scoring combination). If yes, you may either CALL OUT (take your points and end the round) or say "KOI-KOI" (continue playing to score more).
  4. If you say Koi-Koi and your opponent completes a yaku first, they score DOUBLE for winning after your Koi-Koi.
  5. Round ends when a player calls out, or all cards are played (dealer scores 6 pts for a drawn round).

📊 Scoring

Key yaku: Five Lights (highest 5 special cards) = 10 pts; Four Lights = 8 pts; Flower Viewing (Sake cup + Cherry blossoms) = 5 pts; Boar-Deer-Butterfly = 5 pts. Koi-Koi doubles the winning score if the Koi-Koi caller loses. First to 50 pts (or agreed total) wins.