Hana-Awase

Hana-Awase 花合わせ ▶ flower matching is a complex hanafuda game for 2–4 players. The goal is to match and capture cards to score points and form yaku 役 ▶ set for additional points.

Hana-awase is an intermediate-level game, especially when compared to Bakappana, given the former’s inclusion of yaku.

Cards

Hanafuda § Cards

This game uses a 48-card hanafuda deck.

If you’re using a Junior Hanafuda deck, be sure to set aside its extra cards.

Setup

Shuffle the deck and deal cards to each player and to the field according to the following table.

Place the remaining deck adjacent to the field.

If all four cards of a single month are dealt into the field, shuffle and start over.

If all four cards of a single month are dealt into a player’s hand, they instantly win the round, scoring 5 points!

Choose a player to begin.

Gameplay

Goal

The goal of Hana-Awase is to match and capture cards from your hand with cards in the field to form yaku and score the most points possible.

Your Turn

When your turn begins, try to match a card from your hand with a card from the same month in the field.

If you find a match, you capture these cards. Place both cards face-up in front of you.

If you find two matches, you may only capture one of them with the card you introduced to the field. However, if the card matches three cards in the field, you may capture all four.

If you cannot make a match, you must surrender a card from your hand into the field.

Your captured cards are displayed face-up in front of you, away from the field. It’s best to organize them by rank (Hikari, Tane, Tanzaku, Kasu) rather than by month.

Next, draw a card from the deck into the field, following the same pattern as above.

After playing from your hand and playing from the deck, your turn is over. Now it’s the next player’s turn.

Continue until all cards are depleted.

Scoring

At the end of the round, each player tallies the points of their captured cards according to the following table.

Then, each player subtracts the par score from their subtotal. Refer to the following table for the appropriate par score.

Yaku

Then, each player adds any points from yaku they’ve formed during this round to their total. The result is their score for this round.

Hikari
			Sankō Any three Hikari, excluding Rainman		30
			With a fourth Hikari, excluding Rainman		+40
			With Rainman		+20
			With Warbler (Tane)		+10
Viewing
			Hanami Curtain, Sake		20
			Tsukimi Moon, Sake		20
Tane
			Ino-shika-chō Boar, Deer, Butterflies		20
Tanzaku
			Akatan 3 Poetry Tanzaku		40
			Aotan 3 Blue Tanzaku		40
			Kusatan 3 Plain Tanzaku, excluding November Tanzaku		20
Wild Tanzaku
			Rokutan Any 6 Tanzaku, excluding November Tanzaku		30
			With another Tanzaku, excluding November Tanzaku		+10
Full Month
			Fujishima April		10
			Yanagishima November		10
			Kirishima December		10

If your cards qualify for multiple yaku, you score points for each of those yaku, unless otherwise specified.

Series

Games are best played in a series of 3, 6, or 12 rounds. The player with the highest total score at the end of the series wins!

If the players have identical scores, rejoice in the shared victory!

Strategy

Hana-Awase is played until all the cards have been depleted. So while you should capture the most-valuable cards when you can, also balance your focus on possible yaku you can form. Keep in mind the months you have in your hand, and which possibilities might pop up. Yaku are worth a lot of points in this game.

Like Bakappana, this game has a par score for card points. Getting close to that par score—or exceeding it—is ideal. Earning more than par plus yaku is great. But if one has to make up for the loss of the other, you might not get ahead of your opponents.

Related

See also

• Hanafuda
• Junior Hanafuda
• Junior

Purchase