You have played Sushi Go Party! once or twice, you enjoyed it, and you lost. This is the article for that.
None of it is clever. It is five habits that come straight out of how the scoring works, and they are worth more than any individual card choice.
The thing nobody tells you first
Everyone learns this game thinking about their own cards. The players who win are thinking about the hand, not the cards.
Here is why. You pass your hand to the left and it comes back round the table. In a four player game you will see that same hand again, two cards lighter. The card you leave behind is a card you may well get another shot at, and the card you take is one nobody else will ever see.
So the question on every turn is not which card is best. It is which card is least likely to still be there next time.
Habit one: count the cards left, not the turns
The hand shrinks by one every turn. If you are four players you get nine cards, so the round is nine turns long and you know exactly how many picks you have.
| Players | Cards each | So a round is |
|---|---|---|
| 2 or 3 | 10 | 10 turns |
| 4 or 5 | 9 | 9 turns |
| 6 or 7 | 8 | 8 turns |
| 8 | 7 | 7 turns |
This matters because of thresholds. If there are three cards left in the round and you have one sashimi, you need two more sashimi from three remaining picks. That is usually not happening.
Knowing the number turns a hope into a calculation. Most beginner losses are a set that was never going to finish.
Habit two: take the thing that is scarce, not the thing that is big
A dish that scores 10 and a dish that scores 5 are not ranked by those numbers. They are ranked by how likely you are to see another one.
The clearest case is wasabi. On its own it is worth nothing. But there are far fewer wasabi than nigiri in a deck, so if you take the wasabi now you can almost certainly pick up a nigiri later. Take the nigiri first and the wasabi is gone.
The general rule: take the card that enables, before the card that scores. Enablers are rarer and the thing they enable is usually common.
Habit three: commit early or not at all
Sashimi is the whole lesson. Three are worth 10 and two are worth nothing.
What that means in practice is that the decision point is the first sashimi, not the second. Taking one early in a round, when there are plenty of picks left, is a reasonable bet. Taking your first one halfway through is usually just donating a card slot.
And once you have two, a third is worth 10 points on its own, which beats almost anything else you could take. Half committed is the worst place to be, so get out or go all in.
The same shape applies to tempura in pairs, to tofu, where a third card wipes out the first two, and to eel, where exactly one costs you 3.
Habit four: watch the competitions, because they are zero sum
Maki, temaki and soy sauce do not care how many you have. They care how many you have compared to everyone else.
That changes the maths completely. If one player has clearly run away with maki, every maki card you take afterwards is worth nothing, and you should be taking something else. If two of you are level on temaki, one card swings 8 points: 4 to you instead of minus 4.
These are also the cards where taking one away from somebody is a real move. Most of this game is parallel, and this is the part that is not.
Habit five: desserts are a whole game you are not playing
Desserts do not score at the end of the round. They sit in front of you for the whole evening and score once, after round three.
Two consequences, and new players miss both.
- They get scarcer. The rulebook shuffles 5 desserts into the deck before round one, 3 before round two and 2 before round three for a 2 to 5 player game. The puddings you skip early are not coming back.
- Having none can cost you. Pudding takes 6 points off whoever has the fewest, and fruit takes 2 off you for every type you have none of. Ignoring desserts is not neutral.
The practical habit: in round one, take a dessert at some point even when it looks like a wasted pick. In round three, if you are level with someone on pudding, that card is worth far more than its face value.
What to do on your next game
- Before picking, glance at the board. The menu tiles tell you what everything is worth. Winning players read them, beginners try to remember.
- Count how many picks are left. It takes a second and it decides every threshold question.
- Take the enabler over the scorer. Wasabi before nigiri, chopsticks early rather than late.
- Look at the table before taking a competition card. Maki you cannot win is a wasted pick.
- Do not finish the game with zero desserts.
I agree with all five of these.
My take: this is one of the games that almost never fails, and part of why is that none of the above is required to enjoy it. You can play it entirely on instinct and have a good evening.
Most people who try it fall in love with the cards themselves, all those little dishes, and never notice they are playing a drafting game at all. The strategy is there for when you want it.
What to read next
- Sushi Go Party! scoring explained, which is what all of the above is built on.
- Sushi Go Party! menu cards explained, because strategy changes with the menu.
- Best Sushi Go Party! menu for your first game.
- Easy board games for beginners, the main hub.
How this article was written
Every scoring value, hand size and dessert count above comes from the official Gamewright rules of play for Sushi Go Party!. The five habits are conclusions drawn from those numbers, and I have labelled them as advice rather than rules.
I have played this game many times, physically and on Board Game Arena, though my original copy is Sushi Go, my brother’s version.
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