Azuma (1992)

About this game

Azuma is similar to Spoons It comes with plastic sticks about 8 inches long, with stickers to mark the colors. There is one fewer stick than the number of players, so each round, one player will not get a stick. Players are dealt a hand of 7 cards. All players pass a card to their neighbor when the dealer calls out "Azuma". If no one has a "winning" hand, the dealer calls "Azuma" again and another card is passed. This repeats until one player gets either: one set of 4 and one set of 3 matching cards or 3 bomb cards When a player has a "winning" hand, she quietly grabs a stick and other players must suddenly rush to grab the remaining sticks. Points are scored by who got which color sticks. There is also a penalty for "faking", which is pretending to start grabbing a stick to get other players to grab early before anyone has a "winning" hand.

Does it fit your group?

• Group size. Works with 3 to 6.
• Rules load. At 1.0/5 this is a light game — explain it in a few minutes, good for a table that has not played much.
• Age. The publisher suggests 8 and up. That rates the rules rather than the artwork, so judge the box yourself for younger players.