Sushi Go!

Check the deck and deal

Use the original 108-card deck: 14 tempura, 14 sashimi, 14 dumplings; 6 one-icon, 12 two-icon and 8 three-icon maki cards; 10 salmon, 5 squid and 5 egg nigiri; 10 puddings, 6 wasabi and 4 chopsticks. Keep the printed rules nearby. Do not add Party! cards or promotional cards to this format.

Seat two to five people around a table with room for each person's face-up collection. Make a score sheet with a column for each player, three round rows and a final pudding adjustment. Choose a scorekeeper. Shuffle all 108 cards. Deal everyone a private hand: 10 each at two players, 9 at three, 8 at four or 7 at five. Leave the undealt cards face-down in the center for later rounds.

Explain each dish's score before the first choice, particularly incomplete sets and pudding's delayed scoring. For a demonstration, show a tempura pair and a wasabi with one nigiri, then return those cards and reshuffle before the real deal. No starting player is needed: everyone chooses simultaneously.

Pick, reveal and pass

Score the dishes after each round

• Tempura: 5 points for each complete pair. Three cards score 5; four score 10. A leftover single scores zero.
• Sashimi: 10 points for each complete group of three. One or two score zero; four or five score 10; six score 20.
• Dumplings: the whole pile scores 1, 3, 6, 10 or 15 for one, two, three, four or five-or-more cards. Five score 15 total, not the sum of every earlier value.
• Nigiri: egg scores 1, salmon 2 and squid 3. A nigiri paired with wasabi scores 3, 6 or 9 instead. Unfilled wasabi and unused chopsticks score zero.
• Maki: count the small roll icons across your maki cards, not the number of cards. Most icons earns 6 points; second-most earns 3. A tie for most splits 6 equally, dropping any remainder, and cancels the second-place award. With one leader, tied runners-up split 3 equally and drop the remainder. For example, icon totals of 5, 3, 3 and 2 award 6, 1, 1 and 0 points.
• Pudding: score nothing yet. Keep every pudding for the end of round three.

Zero-maki table clarification: require at least one maki icon to receive a maki award. If only one person has maki, only that person scores 6; if nobody has any, award nothing. The English rulebook omits this edge case; this declared clarification follows the linked community discussion of other editions.

Announce and record each person's round total. Keep their puddings face-up in a separate area; discard all other collected cards beside the deck. Deal new hands of the same size from the remaining undealt deck for rounds two and three. Do not shuffle the discards back in. Continue passing left in all three rounds unless you chose the Pass both ways variation before starting.

Score dessert and find the winner

After recording the third round, compare the puddings collected across all three rounds. Most puddings earns 6 points. Fewest puddings loses 6 points, including players with zero. Tied leaders split the 6-point award equally; tied last-place players split the 6-point loss equally. Drop fractional remainders: four tied for fewest lose 1 each. If everyone has the same pudding count, nobody gains or loses pudding points.

With two players, nobody loses points for fewest puddings. Only the most-puddings award applies, and equal pudding counts still score nothing. Add the dessert adjustment to the three round totals. Highest final total wins; among tied players, most puddings wins. If both points and puddings remain equal, declare shared winners as this guide's suggested house resolution; the booklet gives no further tiebreak.

Ignore any undealt cards. For another game, gather all 108 cards, reset scores and shuffle the complete deck again.

Keep the table moving and settle close calls

Show how passing works with one unscored choice before starting. Keep the scoring section visible and total one player's cards aloud the first time. A four-player example collection of two tempura, three sashimi, two dumplings and one squid nigiri scores 21 before any maki award; puddings wait for the final adjustment. Players can inspect everyone's revealed collections, so remind them to look beyond their own hand.

Wait for every face-down choice before revealing. Do not choose a second chopsticks card after seeing other people's new cards; the original game's choice happens before reveal. The chopsticks return to the hand being passed, not the discard pile. If the final card is chopsticks, keep it and score zero. Incomplete tempura and sashimi do not carry into the next round; only pudding does.

Agree totals before discarding. For an accidental early reveal or wrong-way pass, this friendly house remedy pauses play, restores the identifiable hands and choices, and resumes without a point penalty. If the current turn cannot be reconstructed, the table agrees how to continue before another choice; do not invent a supposedly official penalty. Check the booklet for a disputed mechanic and distinguish any agreed house change from the base rules.

Two-player play here is the ordinary two-person, ten-card-hand game. The booklet's separate dummy-player variant is optional and is not being silently used. A sixth person needs another table or a different edition, rather than an extra hand from this guide's deck.

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Ideas & Twists

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