"Hanafuda" is Japanese for "flower cards." The Korean name is "hwa-tu," which also means "flower cards" (go figure). These fun little cards are popular in Korea and Hawaii, and can be used to play a variety of games: Koi-Koi (AKA Go-Stop), Hachi-Hachi ("Eighty-eight"), Flower Matching, and Higo Bana, to name a few.
In these pages, I share with you the Japanese and Korean rules for one of those games. The Japanese name is "Koi-Koi," and the Korean name is "Go-Stop" or sometimes "Godori." The game is practically a national pastime in Korea, yet it's not played by any of my friends in Japan (the country of the cards' origin). In Japan, the game may be stigmatized as a game played mainly by yakuza (gangsters) - although I have gotten emails from some folks who've played the game in Japan (and they say they still have all their fingers)...
Click the links below (or in the nav frame at left) to read the different chapters.
Korean Go-Stop
The Cards
Rules of Go-Stop
Scoring
Strategy and Conflicts
Japanese Koi-Koi
Koi-Koi Rules
Scoring (yaku chart)
The yaku, shown in pictures
Strategy and Conflicts
Variations
MORE about Hanafuda
Links to other Hanafuda sites
Pagat.com is an awesome resource for info about card games, including Flower Cards (Hanafuda) and Go Stop.
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