Card Game: Min Hwa-tu

We weren’t in Seoul for long before Anjel’s family started teaching us how to play the traditional Korean card game of Min Hwa-Tu.

I’d seen the deck of small cards before, Anjel and I even had one around the house, but we had never played – until now. I am  hooked on it and Anjel’s Aunt (or “Emo”) has done a great job of slowly ratcheting up the difficulty of the game as we start to understand more and more. The biggest hurdle is just learning to keep all the sets straight… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Min Hwa-Tu is played with a deck of 48 cards divided into 12 sets of 4. There seem to be any number of variations on the game – the more we play the more additional rules are introduced. Anjel’s aunt has even introduced a gambling aspect to it too. Currently we’ve only been playing for low stakes (10 won a point – less than one cent) but we’re here for another week and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that go up.

The biggest stumbling block at first was actually learning to recognize the 12 sets of cards. Once they’re all laid out, it’s pretty easy to see how they match up.

At first glance several of the sets have similar features, but it only takes a couple of games to spot the basic differences. The only set that really presents the most difficulty is the last one in the picture above. You just sort of have to memorize that one on its own.

Eat set of 4 cards has a name and corresponds to a month of the year. For playing the basic game that I’ll be explaining the names aren’t critical but the cards pictured above are in order with the January set at the top and December at the bottom.

As you can see most of the sets contain two cards that have only the background pattern, one card with a banner (either with or without text) and one card with some sort of animal. In addition you’ll notice that some of the cards have a red dot with a white character inside.

The point values are as follows:

“Blank” Cards (background pattern only): 0 points

Scroll Cards (with or without text): 5 points

Illustration Cards (with an animal or other element): 10 points

Red Dot Cards: 20 points

The Deal
How many cards are dealt depends on how many people are playing.

2 Players
4 cards face up in the center, 5 to each player, 4 more face up in the center, a final 5 to each player. Game point is 120.

3 Players
3 cards face up in the center, 4 to each player, 3 more face up in the center, a final 3 to each player. Game point is 80.

4 players
4 cards face up in the center, 3 to each player, 4 more face up in the center, a final 2 to each player. Game point is 60.

The remaining cards are placed face down in the center of the table and become the “stock.”

Gameplay
The dealer goes first.

The first player takes a card in his hand and matches it to a card on the table from the same set – placing it face up on top (but leaving it on the table until his turn is over). If there isn’t a matching card, the player discards a card from his hand face up to the center of the table. Then the top stock card is turned face up. If there is a matching suit on the playing field, the player takes those two cards (along with his first match if he made one), otherwise the stock card is added to the playing field.

Play then moves to player two.

Object of the Game
To score as many points as possible by matching cards.

At the end of the game (when all the cards are gone from the stock pile, the table and players hands), points are totaled.  In the simplest version of the game, the person with the highest number of points wins. When we played this way, in the event of a tie, there was a game of rock-paper-scissors.

Now go play
The above instructions cover the game in a nutshell. It’s certainly enough information to get you started without bogging you down. Anjel’s Aunt and Uncle (Emo and Emo-bu) did a fantastic job of slowly ratcheting up the difficulty of the game as we became more familiar with the basic rules. It’s always easier to learn a game by playing it, rather than reading about it, so in trying not to confuse you too much I’ve included a few clarifications below, along with some additional rules you can add in once you get the jist of the game.

Gameplay Clarifications

Being Dealt a Full Set: If a player is dealt all 4 cards from a set (or all 4 cards from a set are face up on the table at the start of the game) the game is void and the cards are shuffled and re-dealt. I’ve seen alternate rules where being dealt all four cards results in an automatic win, but that’s up to you.

Three Cards from a set on the Table: If three cards from one set are dealt face-up on the table, the person to play the 4th card from that set takes them all down.

Alternate / Additional Rules

Non-Gambling “Slap” Victory: You can’t always play for money, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t hurt to lose. This only works when playing with 3 or 4 people. Whoever came in second places their hand on the floor (we always played sitting on the floor, not at a table). The person in 3rd places their hand on top and the person who came in last places their hand on top. The winner then gets a chance to slap down hard on the stack of hands. The losers try to pull their hands out of the way to avoid being slapped. It is perfectly acceptable for the slapper to feign or fake a slap, but if he goes for a slap, everyone moves their hands out of the way and he hits the floor, he’s lost his chance.

Turning over the Third Card: If there is one card from a set on the table and a player puts down a card from the same set, but then turns over an additional card of that set from the stock pile (so that there are now 3 on the table) he may not pick up any of the cards and the Player to put down the 4th and final card of the set picks them all up.

[Bonus Points 1] Collecting Full Sets: Players can earn 20 bonus points for collecting all 4 cards of certain sets. When we started playing with these rules, bonus points would only be awarded for collecting all of the “December” cards.

After a while we expanded it to include bonus points for the May and October sets as well.

At the end of the game if Player One has earned 20 bonus points for collecting a full set, player 2 must give him 20 points worth of cards from their own hand (one 20-point card, two 10-point cards…). Points are exchanged before final points are totaled.

[Bonus Points 2] Collect Scroll Sets: On top of bonuses earned for collecting full sets, players can earn points for collecting the 3-card sets of matching scroll cars (red with black writing, red, and blue with black writing). Each set is worth 30 points and are collected in the same way as the full set points. (NOTE: the scroll from the December set, the one not featured below, is not included in the set of three, although it appears to be the same as the scrolls in the middle row. It is not.)