Nobody plays Sushi Go Party! badly by accident. The mistakes below are all sensible decisions that happen to be wrong, which is why they survive several games before anyone notices.
Eight of them, in the order they usually cost you the most.
The eight
| The mistake | What it costs |
|---|---|
| Two sashimi and no third | 10 points, every time |
| Nigiri before wasabi | Up to 6 points, and the wasabi may not come back |
| Playing for a set that cannot finish | Every card you spent on it |
| Taking exactly one eel | Minus 3 points. It is a penalty, not a zero |
| A third tofu | 6 points, turning a good set into nothing |
| Chasing a competition you cannot win | Every maki card after the race is over |
| Finishing with no desserts | Up to 6 on pudding, up to 2 per fruit type |
| Expecting appetizers to carry over | A whole round of planning |
1. Two sashimi and no third
Three sashimi are 10 points. Two are worth nothing at all, not five.
This is the single biggest points swing available to a beginner, and it happens because the second sashimi feels like progress. It is not. It is a bet that only pays if you find a third.
The fix: decide at the first one, not the second. Early in a round, with plenty of picks left, taking a sashimi is a fair gamble. With three picks remaining and one sashimi in front of you, let it go.
2. Taking the nigiri before the wasabi
Wasabi triples the next nigiri you play. A 3 nigiri becomes 9.
The mistake is natural: a nigiri is worth points now and a wasabi is worth nothing. So people take the nigiri, and the wasabi goes round the table to somebody else.
The fix: take the enabler first. There are fewer wasabi than nigiri in a hand, so the nigiri is far more likely to come back to you than the wasabi is.
The related mistake is hoarding wasabi. A wasabi with no nigiri on it at the end of the round is worth nothing, so one at a time is plenty.
3. Playing for a set that cannot finish
Every round is a fixed number of turns, and you can count them. Ten cards each at two or three players, nine at four or five, eight at six or seven, seven at eight.
Once you know the number, the question answers itself. Four picks left and you need three more dumplings to reach the next step? Stop.
The fix: count the cards in your hand, not the turns gone. The hand size is how many picks you have left, which is the only number that matters.
4. Taking exactly one eel
One eel is minus 3. Two or more are 7.
This catches everyone once, because an appetizer that takes points off you is unlike anything in the original Sushi Go!, and because the card does not look dangerous.
The fix: either commit to a second eel or do not take the first. And late in a round, an eel is a card you can hand to the player on your left rather than take yourself.
5. The third tofu
One tofu is 2. Two are 6. Three or more are 0.
So the third tofu does not just score nothing, it destroys the six you already had. It is the only card in the game that actively undoes your own work.
The fix: stop at two, and remember that a tofu you do not want is still a card you have to pass to somebody.
A third tofu wipes out the whole set. So keep an eye on the tofu still going around the table, including the ones you passed, because they can come back to you.
It is always better to stay at one tofu than to go for two and end up with three.
6. Chasing a competition you have already lost
Maki, temaki and soy sauce are compared across the table. Only the top places score, and with 2 to 5 players maki only pays the top two.
Once somebody is clearly ahead on maki and the round is nearly over, every maki card you take is worth exactly zero. People keep taking them anyway, because the card still looks like points.
The fix: look at the table, not at your hand. If you cannot reach first or second, that card is a blank and almost anything else is better.
The flip side is worth knowing: if you are level with one other player on temaki, a single card swings 8 points, because it moves you from minus 4 to plus 4. Competitions are either worth a lot or nothing.
7. Finishing the game with no desserts
Desserts are the only thing that does not score at the end of a round. They sit in front of you all game and score once, at the very end.
Because of that, they feel optional during a round, and people skip them. Then the game ends and pudding takes 6 points off whoever has the fewest, or fruit takes 2 off for every type they have none of.
They also get scarcer on purpose. The rulebook shuffles 5 desserts into the deck before round one, then 3, then 2, for a 2 to 5 player game. The ones you skip early are not coming back.
The fix: take at least one dessert in round one, even when it feels like a wasted pick. It is insurance against a penalty you cannot fix later.
Finishing without dessert is a mistake, unless ignoring desserts has given you a huge lead. And by huge I mean something like 15 or 20 points, enough to be sure that having no dessert will not cost you the game.
Which is the honest size of the exception. A lead that survives a 6 point pudding penalty plus 2 for every fruit type is not a lead most games produce.
8. Expecting your appetizers to carry over
At the end of each round, everything except desserts is scored and then goes back in the deck. The rulebook is explicit: all cards, except for played dessert cards, are collected and re-shuffled together. You start round two with nothing in front of you.
The mistake is quiet: somebody takes a second tempura late in round one thinking they will finish the pair next round. There is no next round for that pair.
The fix: treat each round as a complete game, except for desserts. Near the end of a round, a card that only pays off later is worth nothing.
The mistake that is not a mistake
Taking a card purely to stop somebody else getting it is often treated as bad play by new groups, as if it is unsporting.
It is not a mistake. In a game where you pass your hand to the player on your left, what you leave behind is a decision too. If the only thing in your hand is a card that completes their sashimi, taking it is the correct play even when it is worth nothing to you.
My take: this is one of the games that almost never fails, and part of why is that none of this is required. 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.
Every mistake on this list costs you points and none of them ruin an evening. That is the whole reason this is a good first game.
What to read next
- Sushi Go Party! strategy for beginners, the positive version of this list.
- Sushi Go Party! scoring explained, where all of these numbers come from.
- Best Sushi Go Party! menu for your first game, a menu where half of these mistakes do not exist yet.
- 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!. Which mistakes are the most common, and the order they are in, is my own judgement drawn from how the scoring punishes each one.
I have played this game many times, physically and on Board Game Arena, though my original copy is Sushi Go, my brother’s version.
Using the Amazon links in this article helps me keep working on Board Game Newbie, at no extra cost to you.