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HAWAIIAN HANAFUDA (SAKURA)

GOAL

Score the most points over the course of 4 rounds by capturing cards of the same suit AND by causing your opponents to lose points by creating special card combinations (yaku).

CARDS

There are 48 cards in the deck, consisting of 12 suits. The 12 suits correspond to the 12 months of the year, and each month is represented by a plant. (Hanafuda means "flower cards")

There are 4 cards per suit. Card types include Brights, Banners, Animals and Junk. Cards are described below.

GAMEPLAY

Begin your turn by playing one card from your hand onto the playing field.

If your card matches suit with:

• 1 CARD: capture that card and move both cards to your scoring area
• 2 CARDS: pick one to capture
• 3 CARDS: capture all the cards. Alternately, if you have 3 cards of the same suit in your hand and you match suit with the final card in the playing field, all cards of that suit are captured. Capturing all the cards of a suit in a single turn is called a HIKI.
• DOESN'T MATCH SUIT WITH ANY CARDS? Leave your card in the playing field.

• If your card matches suit with 1 or more cards in the playing field, you must capture a card. It's not optional.

Next, the top card of the draw deck is flipped up to see if it matches suit with any cards in the playing field. If so, follow the rules above.

ROUND END

The round ends when all players have played all the cards in their hand.

• If you played a hiki, you may run out of cards before the other players. In that case, on your turn you will only flip up the top card of the draw deck.

Whoever has the highest score at the end of the round becomes start player for the next round.

GAME END

At the end of 4 rounds, whoever scored the most points wins! In case of a tie, the dealer wins, or whoever is closest to the dealer's right.

CARD VALUES

BRIGHTS = 20 pts (crane, curtain, moon and phoenix)

BANNERS = 10 pts (yellow pawlonia also scores 10)

ANIMALS = 5 pts (rain, cup, bridge and butterfly cards are considered animals and score 5)

JUNK = 0 pts (lightning is a junk card)

WILDCARD

The lightning card can be used to capture any card in the playing field if played from the hand or flipped up from the deck.

The wildcard cannot be used to complete a hiki.

NOTE: At end of round, all cards left in the playing field that match the suit captured by lightning are awarded to the person who played the lightning card.

SPECIAL CARD COMBOS (Yaku)

When you capture all the cards in a yaku, your opponents each lose 50 points.

An in-game yaku list is provided.