Basic Rules of Kyogi Karuta

Basic Rules of Kyogi Karuta

These rules should be enough to help you understand how to play an in-person practice match. If you are planning to enter an official Karuta tournament in Japan, be sure to review the rules for tournaments and etiquette!

Number of players

Each game is played with two players and a reader. The reader's role is to read the 100 poems randomly throughout the game. There is generally no referee watching each individual match, unless it is an important match, such as a Queen or Meijin match. This means if there is a dispute between players - for example, when it is unclear who took a card first - the players must confer with their opponent and mediate the dispute between themselves.

Pre-pre-game: Learning the 100 Poems and their Kimari-ji

Aspiring Kyogi Karuta players usually try to memorize the 100 poems of the Hyakunin Isshu anthology before playing. The reason they need to memorize the poems is because the playing cards, or tori-fuda, only have the second half of each poem written on them. Meanwhile, the players are expected to touch the correct tori-fuda as soon as the reader reads the first half of the corresponding poem.

Example of yomi-fuda (left) and its corresponding tori-fuda (right).
The yomi-fuda is used by the reader and contains the whole poem.
The tori-fuda is used by the players and only shows the second half of the poem.

However, if learning the full poems is a bit difficult, there's a short-cut: 決まり字 (kimari-ji) which can be translated to "decisive syllables". Basically, for every card, there are just a handful of beginning syllables that you need to hear to recognize exactly which poem is being read. I'll explain more about kimari-ji in another post, but for now just know that at the very least, players must memorize the kimari-ji for all 100 cards beforehand in order to play Kyogi Karuta competitively. 

Pre-game: Setting up the cards

Before the match begins, the players are given 50 tori-fuda cards, which they shuffle upside-down and divide equally between the two players. The two players then arrange their 25 cards however they like within their own "territory". The space for each players territory is fixed: it must have a width of 87 cm, and cards are arranged in 3 rows with 1 cm of space between each row. At the top row, there should be 3 cm of space between your cards and your opponent's cards.

On regular tatami mats, this means that there is one tatami "row" between each row of cards, and between the two players fields, there are three tatami rows. Players generally estimate the 87cm width of the field using their forearms, so it's a good idea to practice measuring out this distance accurately on your own before playing. Within these parameters, the players can place the 25 cards on their own side however they like. Players orient their own cards "right-side up", so the cards on your opponent's side will appear upside-down to you. Therefore, players should also get used to recognizing the cards in either orientation.

Screen Shot from the app "Competitive Karuta ONLINE".
Here, you can see how the cards are oriented for each player.

After the players have placed their cards, there is a 15 minute memorization period. During these 15 minutes, players memorize all the cards on their own side along with all the cards on their opponent's side. Someone will announce when there is 2 minutes left before the end of the memorization period, and during this time, players can practice "swiping" at the cards. Players shouldn't actually hit any cards at this time; they just practice aiming for certain cards to reinforce their memory of where the cards are placed. 

After the full 15 minute memorization period is up, the players bow to their opponent and say "yoroshiku onegaishimasu", then they bow and say this phrase again to the reader. The reader then reads an introductory poem not in the Hyakunin Isshu. This poem can be thought of as a count down, where players get used to the pacing of the reader and the readers' voice. The reader will read the first half of the intro poem, pause, read the second half, pause then repeat the second half of the intro poem. After this intro, they will read the first card and the game begins. 

Game play

Throughout the game, the reader will read cards randomly from the 100 poems. If the poem being read corresponds to one of the 50 cards in play, then the players will race to "take" that card before their opponent. There are two main ways to take a card: one is by touching the card directly. 

Players can take a card by touching it directly with any part of
their hand, including the back of the hand

The other is by quickly pushing other cards in the same area to move the correct card out of the boundary of the territory it is placed in; in this case, the card must completely leave the boundary of the territory before the opponent can touch the card directly. If a player starts to push the cards out of bounds, but the card they're trying to take only makes it halfway out of bounds by the time the opponent touches it directly, then it counts as a "take" for the opponent.

Players can also take a card by pushing it out of bounds 
instead of touching that card directly

Since it's hard to touch a single card quickly without disturbing the cards around it, the game is designed so that it's ok to touch cards that are not the correct card, so long as the cards you touch are in the same territory as the correct card. For example, if you accidentally touch cards in the opponent's territory while you are aiming for a card on your top row, this would be considered a foul. (I'll explain more about this later!)

Example of a foul where a player touches cards
in both territories at the same time

How to win

When you successfully take a card from your own territory, the number of cards in your territory will naturally go down by one. If you manage to take a card from your opponent's territory, the rule is that you can choose a card from your own territory to give to your opponent to make up the difference. This is called sending a card. The game continues in this way and the winner is the first person to have zero cards left in their own territory.

"Dead" cards and Fouls

There are a few ways that players can commit a foul. One is by touching a card when a 空札（kara-fuda), - also called a "dead" card - is being read. A "dead" card refers to a card that is not one of the 50 cards in play at the beginning of the game. Recall that since only half of the 100 poems are in play, about 50% of the cards read during a game will be dead cards.

If a player mistakenly touches a card when a "dead" card is being read, this is considered a foul, or "otetsuki" and they will receive a card from their opponent as a penalty. If you happen to touch cards on your own side, and cards on your opponent's side when a dead card is read, that will count as a "double" foul, and you will receive two cards as a penalty. 

Another type of foul is if you touch cards in the wrong territory when a poem is being read. For example, if a card in your own territory is being read, but you touch a card in your opponent's territory on accident, this is a foul. Alternatively, if you touch cards in your own territory when the card being read is in your opponent's territory, this is also a foul.

The number of cards you receive as penalty will depend on if you are able to also take the correct card or not. For example, imagine you take a card from your opponent but commit a foul while doing so (ex: accidentally touching your top row of cards while aiming to take a card on your opponent's top row). In this case, no cards would be sent, because the card you would have sent for taking a card from your opponent is cancelled out by the foul you made. 

It is also possible for both players to commit a foul on the same play. This is called "tomo otetsuki", and generally no cards will be sent in this case; the only time cards might get sent after a tomo otetsuki is if one player committed a double foul, or if a player was still able to take the correct card from their opponent's territory after committing the otetsuki. 

Example of tomo otetsuki. In this case, the correct card
 is not in the territory the two players touched.
No card will be sent as penalty because both players committed a foul.

Finishing the game

The game ends when one player has no cards left. The player who reaches zero cards on their side first is the winner. When the game is finished, both players will bow to each other and say "Arigatō-gozaimashita", then bow again to the reader and repeat the phrase. If other games are still in progress, players should quietly try to collect their cards while the reader is not reading a card. After collecting the cards, players usually bow and say "Arigatō-gozaimashita" one more time before standing up to leave. 

Screenshot showing the end of a Karuta match.
Video is of the 2020 Meijin Challenger Decider Match

Additional Resources for Learning the Rules

Probably the best way to learn the rules and get used to playing the game is to join a Karuta club (there are even clubs outside of Japan! Click the link to see if there's a club near you!); if that isn't possible, then here are some resources you can use:

・World of Kyogi Karuta
This is a website created by a Japanese Karuta player who has been actively promoting Karuta internationally for almost twenty years. It includes a detailed English guide to the rules of Kyogi Karuta.

・YouTube
While there are very few Karuta tutorials in English on YouTube, you can learn a lot through watching and by watching in Japanese you can also start to pick up useful Karuta terms. The All Japan Karuta Association (全日本かるた協会) has its own channel where you can view the Queen and Meijin matches. There are several Japanese Karuta Youtubers; in particular, I think the Youtuber アデノシン(adenoshin) makes good videos and has a bunch of videos geared towards new players. The videos are in Japanese, but there are a lot of visuals which can help you to grasp the meaning. 

・Chihayafuru

If you already know about Karuta, it's likely you've at least heard of the anime "Chihayafuru". It's been adapted from manga, to anime, to live action movies and its main story revolves around Kyogi Karuta. It's a good reference for beginners to get familiar with the game, so I recommend checking it out!

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