Kobayakawa
- Board's Eye View
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Jun Sasaki's Kobayakawa was originally published by Iello in 2013. This new edition from Oink Games isn't just a reprint, however. Jun Sasaki has adapted the game to better accommodate higher player counts, so this edition caters for 3–8 players.
The core of this gambling game remains the same. There's a deck of numbered cards. Each player is dealt one card face down and one card is flipped face up as the Kobayakawa. Players then in turn either draw a card and choose which of their two cards to discard face up or they flip a card from the draw pile to replace the Kobayakawa. They then each decide whether or not to compete in the round (ie: bet) with the win going to the player holding the highest card, except that the player with the lowest card gets to take the Kobayakawa and add it to the value of their card...
If you decide not to compete, you're still in the game because you can place a bet on who will win among those still in contention.
This then is a push-your-luck gambling game based on imperfect information. You may well draw inferences about the value of the cards other players hold by seeing their face-up discards but, as in Poker, a player may be bluffing...
The original version of Kobayakawa came with just 15 numbered cards and that meant that at higher player counts a relatively high proportion of cards were on view. This new edition has a deck of 27 cards so you can adjust the size of the deck to accommodate each different player count. It's only with eight players that you should play with all 27 cards; you should only play with cards 1–24 in a seven-player game, 1–21 with six players; reducing similarly all the way down to 1–12 for a three-player game. That said, this is a game that's at its best with at least five players (1–18).
The game plays very quickly: the rules suggest playing for five rounds but that's unlikely to run to a total of more than 15-20 minutes. Oink include in the compact box markers for each round and markers to show whether you're in or out in betting for the round, as well of course as a generous supply of cardboard chips with which to gamble.
