Hanafuda Koi-Koi Rules: Every Yaku, Scoring and Strategy

October 2, 2026

Hanafuda Koi-Koi is one of the most rewarding card games you can learn in an afternoon. This guide covers the complete hanafuda rules exactly as our free online Koi-Koi game plays them: the 48-card deck, how a turn works, every yaku with its points, the koi-koi decision, and the strategy that wins matches against the computer.

What are Hanafuda and Koi-Koi?

Hanafuda means “flower cards”. It is a traditional Japanese deck that has been played for centuries, and Koi-Koi is its most popular two-player game. Instead of suits and numbers, the cards are grouped into twelve months, each represented by a flower or plant — pine for January, cherry blossom for March, maple for October, paulownia for December. The game takes its name from its signature call: “koi-koi” means roughly “come on!”, the shout you make when you decide to keep playing for a bigger score instead of cashing in.

The deck: 48 cards, twelve months

A hanafuda deck has 48 cards: twelve months with four cards each. Matching only ever cares about the month. What a card is worth when scoring depends on its type, and every deck has the same fixed mix of four types:

Brights (Hikari) — 5 cards. The most valuable cards: the crane (January), the curtain (March), the moon (August), the rain-man (November) and the phoenix (December).
Animals (Tane) — 9 cards. One in most months, including the butterfly (June), the boar (July), the sake cup (September) and the deer (October).
Ribbons (Tanzaku) — 10 cards. Three red poetry ribbons (January, February, March), three blue ribbons (June, September, October) and four plain red ribbons.
Plains (Kasu) — 24 cards. The ordinary flower cards, also called chaff. On their own they are worth the least, but ten of them form a yaku.

How a round is dealt

Each round the deck is shuffled and dealt: eight cards to each player and eight face up to the field in the middle. The remaining 24 cards form a face-down draw pile. You see your own hand, the field and both capture piles, but never your opponent’s hand. That hidden information is why our Koi-Koi is played against the computer rather than as a same-screen game for two people.

How a turn works

Play a card from your hand. If it shares a month with a field card, you capture both into your pile. If nothing matches, your card stays on the field, where either player may capture it later.
Choose when two match. If two field cards share the month, you pick which one to take — usually the more valuable. If three share it, you sweep all four cards of that month at once.
Flip the draw pile. Turn over the top card of the draw pile; it captures or lands on the field in exactly the same way. So every turn moves two cards: one you chose and one you did not.
Check for yaku. If your captures now complete a new yaku, the round pauses for the big decision. Otherwise play passes to your opponent.

Koi-Koi yaku list and points

A yaku is a scoring set of captured cards. These are the twelve yaku our game scores, with their exact points. The four bright yaku are mutually exclusive — only your best one counts — while every other yaku stacks, so a strong round can combine several:

Five Brights (Gokō) — 10 points. All five brights.
Four Brights (Shikō) — 8 points. Four brights, not including the rain-man.
Rainy Four Brights (Ame-Shikō) — 7 points. Four brights including the November rain-man.
Three Brights (Sankō) — 5 points. Three brights without the rain-man. Three brights that include the rain-man score nothing.
Boar-Deer-Butterfly (Ino-Shika-Chō) — 5 points. The July boar, the October deer and the June butterfly.
Animals (Tane) — 1 point. Any five animals, plus 1 point for each extra animal.
Red Poetry Ribbons (Aka-tan) — 5 points. The January, February and March poetry ribbons.
Blue Ribbons (Ao-tan) — 5 points. The June, September and October blue ribbons.
Ribbons (Tan) — 1 point. Any five ribbons, plus 1 point for each extra ribbon.
Plains (Kasu) — 1 point. Any ten plains, plus 1 point for each extra plain.
Flower Viewing (Hanami-zake) — 5 points. The cherry-curtain bright (March) with the sake cup (September).
Moon Viewing (Tsukimi-zake) — 5 points. The moon bright (August) with the sake cup.

Stop or Koi-Koi?

This is the heart of the game. The moment you complete a yaku, you choose. STOP banks your points and ends the round at once — you win it. KOI-KOI keeps the round going so you can add more yaku. Each koi-koi call in the round, by either player, doubles the winner’s score: one call makes it ×2, two calls ×4, three ×8. The catch is that the doubling helps whoever wins. If your opponent completes a yaku and stops while you are pressing your luck, they collect the multiplied score instead of you. After a koi-koi you are only offered the choice again once your total grows beyond what you already had.

Stop when you are ahead in the match, few cards remain in your hand, or the computer’s capture pile is one card away from a yaku of its own.
Koi-koi when plenty of cards remain, you are one capture away from a bigger set such as Ino-Shika-Chō or a ribbon trio, and the cards your opponent needs are already in your pile.
Remember the clock. Each player plays only eight hand cards per round. If both hands run out before anyone stops, the round is a scoreless draw — a koi-koi that never pays off is worth nothing.

Scoring and the match

When a player stops, their round score is the sum of their yaku points, doubled once for every koi-koi call made that round. That amount is added to their match total. A match lasts up to twelve rounds and ends early as soon as either player reaches 30 points; the higher total wins. You deal the first round, the deal alternates after every round, and the dealer always plays first. This version uses the koi-koi multiplier as its only multiplier — the optional house rule that doubles hands worth seven or more is not applied — so the points in the table above are exactly what you bank.

Beginner strategy

Capture with a plan. Pick two or three yaku that your hand and the field make realistic, and steer your captures toward them instead of grabbing whatever matches.
Value brights, ribbons and the sake cup. When a played card matches two field cards, take the one that feeds a yaku. The sake cup is worth fighting for because it links to three different sets.
Capturing is also defending. Every card you take is one the computer cannot use. If its pile already holds two blue ribbons, the third one is worth taking even if it does nothing for you.
Mind the rain-man. The November bright spoils Sankō, so once you hold it your brights score nothing until you have four of them — and even then only the lower Ame-Shikō.
Do not feed the field. A card you play without a match becomes a target for both players. Avoid leaving a valuable card on the field when your opponent may hold its month.

Play Koi-Koi online against the computer

Our Hanafuda (Koi-Koi) game runs free in your browser with no download and no sign-up, and it keeps working offline once loaded. Choose from three computer levels. Easy captures loosely and always stops at its first yaku, so beginners can outscore it. Normal takes the strongest captures and calls koi-koi while its pot is still small. Expert also builds deliberately toward its own yaku and keeps pressing while cards remain, banking once it holds 7 points or more. Win a whole match to earn ranking points — 10 on Easy, 30 on Normal, 100 on Expert — and sign in to put your best result on the leaderboard.

Ready to try it? Open Hanafuda (Koi-Koi) from the AppFreeGame games list and start on Easy while you learn which flower belongs to which month. Keep the yaku list above at hand for your first few rounds; once the months feel familiar, you will be ready to test your koi-koi nerve against Expert.

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