Sakura is a popular hanafuda game in Hawaii for 2-7 players (though said to be best for 2-4). It is also known as Higo-Bana, Kumamoto-Bana, Hawaiian Hanafuda, Hawaiian Koi-Koi, or even just Hanafuda.
The name “Sakura” comes from the strongest card in the game, the 
Curtain card, which is worth 20 points and is a part of two Yaku in the game.
It uses unique point values for the cards, with Ribbons and Animals switching their usual points with the other. It also features unique Hiki rules and uses the 
Lightning as a wild card.
While most hanafuda games allow a maximum of three active players (with the remainder needing to drop out for the round), Sakura is unusual in being seemingly designed for large numbers of players. There are even options for team play!
¶ Setup
First, determine how many are to play and who will make up each team. For 2, 3, 5, or 7 players, each participant plays on their own. A 4-player game may be either played individually, or in teams teams consisting of 2 players each. A 6-player game can likewise be played individually, in 3 teams of 2, or 2 teams of 3. If playing in teams of 2, teammates should sit opposite one another; for teams of 3, players from each team should be seated alternately around the table.
It is also a good idea to establish house rules and come to an agreement over scoring and how long the game shall last at this point in time.
Next, determine who will be the first dealer. Any method may be used, but a traditional mode would be to have each player draw one card from the deck, and whoever draws the earliest month in the standard order of suits deals first. (In the case of a tie, the tied players may draw again until the matter is resolved.)
¶ The Deal
Once the cards have been shuffled and cut, the dealer passes out cards face down to each player and face up to the field according to the following chart.
| Number of Players | Cards to each Player | Cards to the Field | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 🧍🧍 | 8 | 8 |
| 3 | 🧍♂️🧍♂️🧍♂️ | 7 | 6 |
| 4 | 🧍🧍🧍🧍 | 5 | 8 |
| 5 | 🧍♂️🧍♂️🧍♂️🧍♂️🧍♂️ | 4 | 8 |
| 6 | 🧍🧍🧍🧍🧍 🧍 |
3 | 12 |
| 7 | 🧍♂️🧍♂️🧍♂️🧍♂️🧍♂️ 🧍♂️🧍♂️ |
3 | 6 |
Any remaining cards form the draw pile for the round and are to be placed in a single face down stack beside the field cards.
If four cards of the same suit have been dealt to the table, the dealer automatically captures them.
¶ Gameplay
As in most Hanafuda games, the dealer takes the first turn, followed by each player around the table in counter-clockwise order.
When playing with teams, each team shares a common score pile. Note that teammates are not allowed to reveal the contents of their hands to each other.
The winner of the round becomes dealer for the next round. If tied, the dealer (or the player closest to the dealer’s right if players other than the dealer are tied) wins the tie.
¶ Turns
On their turn, a player chooses a single card from their hand and plays it to the field.
- If it belongs to the same month as another card on the field, then the cards match, and this matching pair is moved to the player’s score pile.
- If the played card matches with two cards on the field, then the player may choose which one they capture.
- If the played card matches three cards on the field, then all three are captured along with the played card (this is to prevent cards from becoming ‘stuck’ on the table and unable to be captured). To help in recognising this case, three cards of the same month on the field are often collected into a small pile at the beginning of the round.
- If the played card does not match any card, then it remains on the field, and may subsequently be captured by other played cards.
If a card is played that matches something on the table, then the player must capture, as described above. However, there is no obligation to play a card that matches something, even if the player has one in their hand; they may, if they wish, elect to play a card that matches nothing on the table.
As is typical of hanafuda games, each player’s score pile should be kept face-up and laid out on the table, so that its contents are fully visible to all players. Ideally, the cards should also be arranged by type to make detecting yaku easier.
However, since Chaff are worth 0 points and play no role in any yaku, it is common in Sakura to discard all Chaff cards to a common junk pile.
¶ Hiki (Four of a Kind)
If a player sees all 4 cards of a given suit among the cards in their hand and those on the field (in any combination), this is known as a hiki (引き, lit. “to draw”). On their turn, the player may, instead of playing a card from their hand, declare the hiki and immediately capture all 4 cards. They then play a card from the draw pile as normal.
This rule will often cause the person claiming the hiki to run out of cards in hand faster than the other players; once that player runs out of cards, their remaining turns consist only of drawing a card on the draw pile and playing it.
Note that the concept of hiki in the game of Sakura does not have an exact equivalent in other hanafuda games, and overlaps with those games’ concepts of dealer’s privilege, lucky hands, capturing stacked cards on the field with one from the hand, and bombing the field.
¶ Gaji (Wild Card)
The Lightning card is known as Gaji in this game, and acts as a wild card. When played from the hand, it may pair with and thus capture any card on the field (even those of the Willow suit). However, if the Gaji is already on the field, it can only be captured by another Willow card.
Once captured, keep the Gaji with the card it was paired with. At the end of the round, if any other cards of the paired card’s suit are present on the field, they are automatically captured by the player who used the Gaji.
However, the Gaji cannot be used to capture a card that would complete another player’s hiki. In this circumstance, the owner of the hiki must announce it when the Gaji’s user tries to capture one of the hiki cards. The owner of the hiki takes the four hiki cards into their captured cards immediately, and the player of the Gaji must then target a different card, or simply leave the Gaji on the field.
In some variants of the game, if the Gaji is dealt to the field at the beginning of the round, then it is simply discarded.
¶ End of Round and Scoring
The round ends once all players run out of cards and the draw pile has been exhausted.
Due to the usage of a wild card, most rounds will end with two or more remaining cards on the field, one of which matches the suit of whatever card was captured by the Gaji (Lightning).
That card is added to the scoring area of the player who used the Lightning to capture its mate. All other remaining cards are considered dead cards and will not be used during scoring.
Some people play such that all remaining cards will go to the player who used the
Then, the round is scored. Each player’s (or team’s) base score is the total value of their captured cards. They then subtract 50 points for each yaku (scoring combination) held by each of their opponents.
Thus, each player’s (or team’s) score at the end of the round will be:
Total Score = Total Value of Captured Cards - (50 x Total Number of Yaku Held by All Opponents).
The player with the highest score at the end of the round becomes dealer for the next round. In the event of a tie, the player who was earliest in the turn order becomes the dealer.
It is not mentioned who becomes the dealer among the players of a winning team during team play. This should be decided via a house rule.
¶ End of Game
The game ends after the agreed-upon number of rounds has been played. At this point, the player (or team) with the highest total score is the winner.
¶ Card Values
Note that in this game, the Rain Man is treated as an Animal rather than a Bright. Note as well the reversal from the usual values for Animals and Ribbons, and that the 
Yellow Paulownia has the value of a Ribbon.
| Value | Cards |
|---|---|
| 20 |    |
| 10 |            |
| 5 |           |
| 0 | All Chaff except Yellow Paulownia |
Thus, a complete deck contains 240 points.
¶ Yaku
There are 8 yaku in Sakura, each consisting of 3 cards. Each is worth 50 points, but unlike in most other fishing games, the points are subtracted from each opponent’s score rather than being added to one’s own.
The yaku in this game also seem to lack specific names; instead, each is typically assigned one of the first 8 syllables of the Iroha poem. In the Paradise Factors rule leaflet, they are instead simply numbered from 1 to 8, following the same order.
| Name of Yaku | Composition | Description |
|---|---|---|
| I - い | |
A.k.a ‘Drinking’ (Nomi) |
| Ro - ろ | |
The Bright or Animal of each month used in the ‘Ha’ yaku. A.k.a ‘Spring’ (Omote Sugawara) |
| Ha - は | |
Three Red Poetry Ribbons. (Akatan) |
| Ni - に | |
Three Blue Ribbons. (Aotan) |
| Ho - ほ | |
The Animal of each month used in the ‘Ni’ yaku. |
| He - へ | |
Three Red Ribbons without writing, excluding Willow ribbon. A.k.a. ‘Grass Ribbons’ (Kusatan) |
| To - と | |
The Animal of each month used in the ‘He’ yaku. |
| Chi - ち | |
A.k.a ‘Boar-Deer-Geese’ (Inoshikagan/Ganbo) |
¶ Notable Variations
¶ Victory Scoring
There are two main variations in overall scoring: the one which counts points cumulatively across rounds, used by Hanafuda Hawaii Style and is the one described in the main part of this page, and the one which instead counts round victories, used by Paradise Factors, which will be explained here:
Whenever a player wins a round, it is counted as a single victory, and once the agreed-upon number of rounds has been played, the player with the most victories wins the game.
There are several optional rules to make the game more exciting:
- Basa - If a player wins and their score is 100 (or more) points higher than their opponent(s), then it is counted as a double victory. If the player manages to do this during a round in which a Yaku isn’t formed, then it is called Shira Basa.
- Chu - If a player wins and their score is 50 (or more) points higher than their opponent(s), then it is counted as a double victory.
- Sometimes Chu and Basa are combined such that Chu counts as a double victory, and Basa counts as a triple victory.
¶ Oi-bana (追い花, “chasing flowers”)
Oi-bana is a Sakura variant which can be played by a maximum of 6 players, but only 2 players participate during the round; the rest are eliminated via an auction.
Each player is dealt 8 cards. Starting with the dealer counter-clockwise, each player must bid an amount. There is only one round of bidding per round in the game, and the two highest bidders win the auction.
The bidding process was not explained in detail; it is up to the players to decide how to do it, and what can and can’t be done during the bidding process.
The other players must shuffle back their cards into the deck and place 8 cards face up on the field, and the rest of the deck face-down as the draw pile. The two auction winners participate in a 2-player matching round, and the winner is paid by the loser.
Whether the loser pays the amount bid by the winner or by the loser is not specified. NEEDS MORE DOCUMENTATION
Basa and Chu rules can optionally be applied here: A double victor is paid by the loser twice the bid, and a triple victor is paid three times the bid.
¶ Strategy
There are four cards that contribute to 2 yaku each; thus, these should be considered more valuable than others and priority should be given to their capture. These are the Curtain, 
Boar, 
Sake Cup, and 
Deer. Among these, the Curtain is worth 20 points on its own as well, making it the most valuable card in the game.
That said, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; rather than indiscriminately aiming to capture the four most versatile cards, one should try to capture cards that synergize with those in their hand or those that they have already captured whenever possible.
Being that Chaff cards are not worth any points, one should refrain from matching two Chaff together, and instead attempt to hold onto any Chaff in the hand until one of its matching point cards appear on the board. But, it is usually better to discard a Chaff or match it with another Chaff than to discard a more valuable card and risk allowing another player to claim it.
Note that the Willow and Paulownia suit cards do not participate in any yaku.
¶ Bibliography
- “How to Play Hanafuda Hawaii Style.” Hanafuda Hawaii Style, Hanafuda Hawaii, LLC, hanafudahawaii.com/ginstructions.html.
- “A Japanese HANA FUDA (Flower Cards) Game.” Paradise Factors
- “Sakura.” Hanafubuki, web.archive.org/web/20120116011355/www.hanafubuki.org/sakura.html.
- Kupuna Power: Episode 19. K5