About Koi-Koi
What Koi-Koi is
Koi-Koi is a Hanafuda card game from Tamaki Technologies. The name means “come on.” You say it when you have a scoring set and want to keep the round going. Two players share the 48-card deck. Each month has four cards. You capture cards by matching the month, then build those captures into scoring sets called yaku.
Objective
Score more points than your opponent. The standard match is 12 rounds, and the higher score wins. You can also play 3 or 6 rounds, race to 50 or 100 points, or leave the tally open.
How a round works
Each player starts with eight cards, and eight cards are face up. The rest of the deck is the mountain. The dealer plays first. A turn has three beats. Play a card from your hand, then tap the matching card on the table. If two cards of that month are out, choose one. If three are out, tap any of them to take the whole month. If nothing matches, the card stays on the table. Then draw from the mountain. The draw can match a card you just placed. After the draw, if your captures make a yaku, you may stop and score, or call Koi-Koi and continue. Capturing all four cards of one month is not a yaku by itself. The field is shuffled again when it is four of one month, or four pairs from four different months.
How scoring works
Stop, called Agari, adds the yaku points to your score and ends the round. Call Koi-Koi and the next score is doubled. Call it again and the score doubles once more. You can choose again only after your points have grown. If you call Koi-Koi and your opponent scores first, they take the round and your points for it are gone. If both hands are played out and no one has stopped, the round scores nothing. The deal passes after every round.
The yaku are the five Lights (Gokō, 10), four Lights without the rain man (Shikō, 8), four Lights including the rain man (Ame-Shikō, 7), three Lights without the rain man (Sankō, 5), boar, deer, and butterflies (Ino-Shika-Chō, 5), three red poetry ribbons (Akatan, 5), three blue ribbons (Aotan, 5), five or more animals (Tane, 1 plus 1 for each extra), and ten or more chaff (Kasu, 1 plus 1 for each extra). The rain man does not count toward Sankō. The boar, deer, and butterflies also count toward Tane.
Number of players
Koi-Koi is a two-player game.
Strategy
A small yaku is often worth stopping. Koi-Koi doubles the next score, and it also hands the round to your opponent if they score first. Watch the Lights and the ribbons before you chase a bigger set, and remember that a month of four cards scores nothing on its own.
Local and online play
Play against Tamaki on Easy, Medium, or Hard, or sit together for pass and play. You can also host or join a room and play a friend. No account is required. Names, the sound setting, and a seat id stay on the device. A room keeps the display names, the room code, and the cards only while that sitting is open.
Where to play
Play in the browser at koikoi.tamakitech.com, or install Koi-Koi on Google Play.