Kobayakawa is a game of bluffing and deduction. In this stylish new game from Jun Sasaki, components are kept at a minimum - there are only 15 cards, 32 tokens and the start player marker.
The rules are simple:
At the start each player is given 4 tokens. In addition 8 tokens are placed in the middle of the table. Spare tokens are set aside.
The deck is shuffled and each player is dealt one card face down, an additional card is dealt face up next to the deck (this card is called the Kobayakawa).
Each player takes a turn and either:
- Draws a card to their hand and discards one of their 2 hand cards face up in front of them.
Or
- Turns over the top card of the deck to replace the current Kobayakawa.
After all players have taken their turns, each must decide if they want to stay in and 'fight' by betting a token.
All players that decided to fight reveal their card. The player that has the lowest value card adds the value of the current Kobayakawa to their own card. The player with the highest number (their own card; or their own card + the Kobayakawa) wins the round and they take all the tokens that players bet, plus a bonus token from the middle, they take the start player token for the next round.
On the 7th round (when only 2 tokens remain in the middle) the stakes and the bonus are doubled to 2 tokens.
After this 7th round the game ends and the player with the most tokens wins the game.
Example Round:
Kobayakawa: 8
Player A: 9
Player B: Pass
Player C: 15
Player D: 12
Player C has the highest card value (15), but Player A is declared the winner as the results of the lowest card (9) and the Kobayakawa (8) is 17.
- Small deck enables card counting strategy
- Betting creates psychological elements
- Quick to play
- Mathematical decision-making combines with player psychology
- Card comparison
- River
- Abstract
- Poker
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Ante Up — Players place tokens into central pot to bet they have highest card
- Betting — Risk decision-making based on psychology and mathematics
- Card Counting — With only 15 cards, players can count and calculate odds
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- the reason I wanted to talk about this topic was one was because I've just picked up the quacks of qward Lindbergh expansion the herb witches which is a really good expansion just to add some more of the same really more variety to that game which was my favorite game of last year
- so push your luck or press your luck games as they tend to be called in America
- it's looking at the odds and trying to make a mathematical decision is it worth me taking this risk or is it not and of course the presence of other people around the table changes that because it's not just about the maths it's also about knowing the psychology of those other people
- I love all the messin about you doing captain carcass you turn over one card it allows you to do something else and then you can use this special power to do something else
- the pushier luck stuff is strong in throne that's where the fun in the game is it's recognizing how many does to throw
- I love this honour of games I wish there were more of them
- thank you very much for watching I hope this was interesting for you if you enjoyed it please watch some of my other videos on BoardGameGeek I'm Adam 78 on YouTube I'm Adams Borg in wales on twitter i'm at board game wales