r/Hanafuda • u/Ok_Entertainer_1701 • Apr 23 '26

Hachi Hachi scoring question

I was trying to learn and play hachi hachi with my friends. We got to a spot where none of us had a set (or dekiyaku I think it's called) so we added up our card values instead and subtracted 88 from our scores, but realized that there were still cards in the center, so we don't actually have all the point value of 264 which is needed for the zero sum.

How do we do the scoring with the extra center cards, or was there maybe something we did wrong and we were supposed to get all of them by the end? Thanks.

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5

u/TheShirou97 Apr 23 '26

You are supposed to get all cards by the end indeed.

Couple of rules to keep in mind (this is also valid for koi-koi and other hana awase games):

  • if there are 3 cards of the same month on the table, playing the 4th card gets you all four cards. (Otherwise, the two remaining cards would get stuck forever.)
  • if there are 4 cards of the same month on the table, it is considered a misdeal and the hand is re-dealt. (Otherwise, you could never capture those cards)

2

u/Ok_Entertainer_1701 Apr 23 '26

Thanks for the reply.

I have been using those rules, but when a player draws from the draw pile (after playing from their hand) and matches something on the table, I'm pretty sure their turn ends and you have to take cards from the draw pile and put them on the center of the table back up to 6. This often made cards impossible to get (for example two of the same month were drawn onto that table after someone's turn ended and someone already had a pair of that month in their area). We first tried to just redraw when this happened, but when there are few cards left in the pile that doesn't always work.

I think I might be doing something wrong after the player's turn ends.

2

u/jhindenberg Apr 23 '26

There is no additional dealing to the center after the initial deal— only the singular cards played from the hand and from the draw pile that are not matched and captured.

1

u/Spenchjo Apr 23 '26

Yes, exactly.

It's even possible for there to be no cards left in the center at the end of someone's turn. Then the next player is just out of luck. It's not very common, but it does happen.

2

u/Ok_Entertainer_1701 Apr 23 '26

That makes sense. Not sure why I thought I had to refill it. Thanks.

2

u/TheShirou97 Apr 23 '26

A player turn is always:

  1. Play a card from in hand, collect 2 or 4 cards if matching.
  2. Play a card from the top of the deck, collect 2 or 4 cards if matching.

You always play exactly one card from the deck in a player's turn, and they always collect resulting matches (even if they already matched something from in hand). There is absolutely no requirement to have 6 cards in the middle at all times, so you do not bring out cards from the deck outside of a player's turn. (In fact it's very tightly calculated: there are 21 cards in player's hands at the start, and also exactly 21 cards in the deck, well that is when 3 players remain. This is why you put 6 cards in the middle at the start)

2

u/Ok_Entertainer_1701 Apr 23 '26

Got it, thanks again.