Hwatu Fortune

My record

How it works

Shuffle the 48 cards and lay out four columns of five. Only the bottom card of each column is face up; the other 28 cards form the stock.
Press Turn a card to draw one card from the stock. If it matches the month of a face-up card, the two pair up and move to that month's slot, and the next card in that column is turned face up. If there is no match, it goes to the discard row below.
If a newly turned face-up card matches a card in the discard row, those two pair up as well.
When the stock is used up, every month with all 4 cards collected is your reading for the day.
In the old custom people shuffled the cards as many times as the day's date. Likewise, "Today's reading" uses a shuffle fixed by the date, so you get the same result no matter how many times you look today.

Month meanings

This fortune is just for fun. Meanings vary a little by family and region; these are the commonly shared ones. This is not a gambling game.

References: Encyclopedia of Korean Culture (한국민족문화대백과사전), "Hwatu" (luck reading and patience games); collected folk readings (Naver blogs "하루의 운세를 알아보는 화투점 보는 법" and "할머니에게 배웠던 화투 오관떼기", atoato.kr hwatu fortune notes)