is a traditional Japanese

card game A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card ga ...

that is similar to

Baccarat Baccarat or baccara (; ) is a card game played at casinos. It is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup (round of play) has three possible outcomes: "player" (player has the higher score ...

. It is typically played with special ''

kabufuda ''Kabufuda'' () are Japanese playing cards used for gambling games such as ''Oicho-Kabu''. ''Kabufuda'' cards, like the related ''hanafuda'' ("flower cards"), are smaller and stiffer than Western playing cards. A deck contains 40 cards, with des ...

'' cards. A ''

hanafuda are a style of Japanese playing cards. They are typically smaller than Western playing cards, only , but thicker and stiffer. On the face of each card is a depiction of plants, ''tanzaku'' (短冊), animals, birds, or man-made objects. One single ...

'' deck can also be used, if the last two months are discarded, and Western playing cards can be used if the face cards are removed from the deck and aces are counted as ''one''. ''Oicho-Kabu'' means ''8-9'' and uses the Japanese kabufuda names for the numbers one to ten. As in baccarat, this game also has a dealer, whom the players try to beat. The goal of the game is to reach 9. As in baccarat, the last digit of any total over 10 makes your hand: a 15 counts as 5, a 12 as 2, and a 20 as 0. Having two of the same card makes it the card number: a 10 and a 10 = 10, 1 and a 1 = 1. The worst hand in ''oicho-kabu'' is an eight, a nine and a three, phonetically expressed as "ya-ku-za". This is the origin of the Japanese word for "gangster," ''

yakuza , also known as , are members of Transnational crime, transnational organized crime, organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . ...

''.

References

Hanafuda card games Gambling games Japanese card games {{japan-culture-stub