Oicho-Kabu
A kabufuda ace card | |
| Origin | Japan |
|---|---|
| Type | Banking |
| Players | 2+ |
| Skills | Card counting, Probability |
| Age range | adult |
| Cards | 40 |
| Deck | Kabufuda |
| Rank (high→low) | 九 八 七 六 五 四 三 二 一 十 |
| Play | Counter-Clockwise |
| Chance | High |
Oicho-Kabu (おいちょかぶ) is a traditional Japanese card game that is similar to baccarat. It is typically played with special kabufuda cards. A hanafuda 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" derived from Portuguese "Oito-Cabo" which in English means "Eight-End". 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 is the hand's score: a 15 counts as 5, a 12 as 2, and a 20 as 0.
The worst hands in oicho-kabu have a value of 0. One of these worst hands is an eight, a nine and a three, phonetically expressed as "ya-kyu-san". This is the origin of the Japanese word for "gangster", yakuza.