Kakeya Toranpu

Hey there! Have you ever heard of Kakeya Toranpu? It’s a super fun card game that can be played by 4 or 6 players. You’ll need to team up with a partner, as it’s played in partnerships of 2 players. The main goal of the game is to score more stones or chips than the other teams. And how do you do that, you ask? Well, it’s all about winning face cards from the tricks!

If you’re playing with 6 players, only 2 partnerships will compete in each round. The team that’s not playing will take a break and be the dealers for the next round.

SETUP

Before we get started, each team needs to have 5 stones or chips. Make sure you distribute them evenly.

For the first deal, choose a random partnership to become the dealers. In the following rounds, the losers from the previous round will become the dealers.

When it comes to dealing cards, the process is quite straightforward. The dealers will evenly split the deck between them. Each of them will then shuffle their half, ensuring a fair distribution of the cards. Then, one of the dealers will start dealing one card at a time to each player, working their way through the deck until they have reached the end of their portion. After that, the other dealer will take over from where the first dealer left off, continuing to deal the remaining cards until all players have received their hands. By following this method, every player should end up with a total of 13 cards.

Understanding Card Ranking

Now, let’s talk about the ranking of the cards. The Ace card is considered the highest-ranking card, followed by the King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2 in descending order. The cards from Ace to Jack are also known as face cards, and they are the ones every player aims to win in order to score points. Remember, the goal is to have the highest-ranking cards in your hand!

So, first things first. Let’s talk about something called the trump suit. In the beginning, it’s always spades, but here’s the thing – one of the dealers can actually change it before anyone sees the cards. And guess what? In the next rounds, the trump suit stays the same as the previous round, but it can also be changed again. Now, in a game with 4 players, the dealers are the ones who can change it, but if you’re playing with 6 players, it’s the previous dealers who get to make that call.

Now, there’s this one special card called the Rensho. It’s pretty cool. If spades aren’t trumps, then the Rensho becomes the ace of clubs. But hey, if spades happen to be trumps, then the Rensho becomes the ace of spades itself. And listen to this – the Rensho is like the godfather of cards because it’s the highest-ranking card in the whole game! But here’s the twist – it doesn’t actually belong to the trump suit. Nope, it belongs to the suit that it says on it. And get this, it’s like a boss because it can win any trick it’s played on. But, just like any boss, it’s gotta follow some rules. Wanna know what they are? Well, keep on reading.

GAMEPLAY

When playing a 4-player game, I’ll be one of the non-dealer players who leads the first trick. If it’s a 6-player game, the player to the left of the dealer on my team should lead. After that, a player from the winning team will take the lead in future rounds. We can talk about who should lead the first trick, but we can’t say exactly what cards we have.

As the first player to lead, I can choose any card I want, and then the other players will play cards in a counterclockwise order. If they have a card of the same suit, they have to play it. If they don’t have a card of the same suit, they can play any card they want.

If I play a Rensho card, I win the trick automatically. If not, the highest trump card, if there is one, wins the trick. If there are no trump cards, then the highest-ranked card of the suit I led wins. The winner of each trick gets to lead the next one.

I take any face cards I win in the trick and keep them faceup in my score pile. The remaining cards are turned facedown in the middle of the playing area.

SCORING

In this game, the objective is to win more than half of the face cards, which are special playing cards. If my team wins nine or more face cards, we win the round. However, if both teams win eight face cards each, the team that doesn’t have the Rensho card is the winner. It’s an intense battle!

Now, here’s the exciting part. The losers have to pay some of their precious stones to the winners. The number of stones they have to give away is determined by the cards we have in our hands at the beginning of the game, as well as the face cards we win during gameplay. So, strategy and skill are essential!

If we, the winners, start the game with no aces in our hands, we get to take four stones from the losers. That’s a mighty haul! But if we hold onto our ace of trumps or the Rensho card, we only get two stones. We have to play smart and choose our moves wisely!

And if we don’t have any aces, Rensho, or the ace of trumps, we’ll only receive one stone. That’s a bummer, but it’s better than nothing! However, if we manage to win between 12 to 15 face cards, we’ll get two stones, which is a solid victory. And brace yourself, because if we manage to win all 16 face cards, we’ll be rewarded with a whopping four stones! Our opponents won’t know what hit them!

END OF GAME

When you play the game, it eventually comes to an end. How? Well, it’s simple – one team runs out of stones. If you’re playing with four people, that means the other team wins. But if you’re playing with six people, things get a little different. In that case, the team with the most stones wins. Of course, there can always be a tie. If that happens, the game is tied between the two teams.

Let me introduce myself – I’m Amber (They/Them), a writer from Austin who knows a thing or two about gaming. Some even call me a gaming master! But my passion doesn’t stop there. I’m also a big fan of dogs, plants, and D&D.

Kakeya toranpu – learn how to play with