Japanese Culture
How competitive karuta works: the 100 poems, the 50 cards on the tatami, kimariji, faults, the 15-minute memorisation, ranks and titles, and the skills it trains.
Competitive karuta (kyogi karuta) is a card game played on tatami at a sprinter's pace. A reader chants the first half of a classical poem; two players, kneeling across from each other, lunge for the single card that carries the second half. The best players move before the second syllable is finished. The game is built on a thirteenth-century anthology, governed by a national association, and has a ranking ladder from beginner to the title matches held each January at Omi Jingu shrine. The manga and anime Chihayafuru carried it to a new generation, and club memberships rose accordingly.
The game uses the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu: one hundred waka poems, one each from one hundred poets, compiled by Fujiwara no Teika around 1235. Each poem is a 31-syllable verse in the classical 5-7-5-7-7 form. The game splits every poem in two: the reader recites the first three lines (the kaminoku), and the card on the floor shows only the last two (the shimonoku), written in flowing hiragana with no poet name and no picture.
So the first requirement is simply to know all one hundred poems by heart, well enough to hear the opening of any one and know which ending is on the floor. Beginners learn them in a few weeks with flashcards; the hard part comes after.
There are two decks. The reading cards (yomifuda) carry the full poem with the poet's portrait; only the reader uses them. The grabbing cards (torifuda) carry the last two lines and are the ones on the floor. A match uses 50 torifuda chosen at random; the other 50 poems are still read aloud, which is where the game's cruelty begins.
Each player takes 25 cards at random and lays them face up in three rows in their own territory, a space 87 cm wide with a 3 cm gap between the two sides. Players may arrange their 25 cards as they like, and most follow a personal system: short-kimariji cards where the hand naturally falls, similar-sounding cards separated, cards that are easy to take on the right for a right-handed player.
Then the memorisation period begins: fifteen minutes to learn the position of all 50 cards, yours and your opponent's. The last two minutes may be used for practice swings. When the reader begins, no card may be moved.
The reader sings an introductory poem (the joka, not one of the hundred) so that players can settle into the rhythm, then reads the first card. The reading is chanted: the last line of the previous poem, a pause, and then the first lines of the new one. Both players listen for the earliest sound that identifies the poem, and if that card is on the floor, they strike it. Touching the correct card first, or sweeping it out of its row, takes it.
Faults (otetsuki): touching a card in the wrong territory when the correct card was in the other, or touching any card on a dead poem, means you receive a card from your opponent. Faults are how leads evaporate. A common tactic is to bait a nervous opponent into a fault by feinting toward a card.
The match ends when one player's territory is empty. That player wins, and the margin is counted in cards remaining on the loser's side.
Fifty cards, fifteen minutes to learn where they are, and then a poem read at a speed that leaves you one syllable to decide.
The skill that separates ranks is the kimariji, the shortest opening sound that uniquely identifies a poem. Seven poems are decided by their very first syllable (the ichiji kimari: mu, su, me, fu, sa, ho, se); many need two or three; a few pairs of near-identical openings need six syllables to separate. Players do not listen for the poem, they listen for the kimariji, and they move as it lands.
The kimariji also changes during the match. Once a poem has been read, its twin can be identified by fewer syllables, because the first one is no longer in play. Tracking those changes in real time, while listening and while remembering fifty positions, is the mental load that makes the game a sport.
MyRin's Karuta game is card-matching from the Hyakunin Isshu against a timer, and Reaction Speed measures the raw reflex underneath it. Ten games run free in your browser.
Test your reaction speedThe All-Japan Karuta Association ranks players from E class (beginner) up to A class, with dan grades within A. Tournaments are held nearly every weekend from autumn to spring. The season peaks in January at Omi Jingu in Otsu, where the Meijin (men's title) and Queen (women's title) matches are held; challengers who won the qualifying tournament play the reigning holder in a best-of series broadcast live. It is the same shrine dedicated to Emperor Tenji, whose poem opens the anthology.
Karuta compresses three trainable skills into one motion. Auditory attention: the decision is made on a sound fragment, under a rhythm designed to lull. Spatial memory: fifty positions learned in fifteen minutes and updated every time a card is sent across. Reaction time: the strike itself, which good players deliver in the range a sprinter needs off the blocks. The Chihayafuru effect is not only romantic; clubs report that players who train a season measurably improve their listening and recall on unrelated tasks, which matches what research on skill practice generally predicts: specific gains, with some transfer to similar skills.
MyRin's Rin Karuta keeps the essential loop, hear or see a cue and strike the matching card before the timer, across 600 levels, and pairs it with Reaction Speed and Memory Match for the two underlying skills. The level structure is described in the Rin Karuta guide.
Learn the seven one-syllable poems first; they are the free points of every match. Then read the Karuta chapter in The Mind Games of Japan, the free ebook inside MyRin, which lists all one hundred poems with their kimariji. For the other great card game of Japan, with a very different rhythm, see Hanafuda Koi-Koi rules and strategy.
A thirteenth-century anthology of one hundred waka poems, one by each of one hundred poets, compiled by Fujiwara no Teika. Competitive karuta uses the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu: the reader recites the first half of a poem and players take the card printed with the second half.
The decisive syllables: the shortest opening sound that identifies one poem uniquely. Some poems are decided by a single syllable, others need six. Strong players move on the kimariji rather than waiting for the full first line.
50 of the 100 grabbing cards are used in a match: each player takes 25 at random and arranges them in three rows on their side. The other 50 poems are still read, so players must recognise "dead" cards and not move.
By clearing all the cards from your own territory first. Taking a card from the opponent side lets you send one of your cards over to them. A fault (touching the wrong card, or any card when a dead poem is read) means you receive a card from the opponent.