Zen Master

About the game

What is Zen Master?

Each round in Yin Yang, a.k.a. Fifty-Fifty or Zen Master, players play a card from their hand. The highest card played on a turn receives light tokens, the lowest card dark, with the exact number of tokens determined by a scoring card revealed for that turn. Once the round ends, players eliminate pairs of light and dark tokens from their holdings, and their score for the round equals however many tokens remain. After a certain number of rounds, whoever has the lowest score wins. Yin Yang differs from its predecessor Relationship Tightrope in that only nine of the ten cards in hand are played each round — giving players some wiggle room when deciding what to play — and the scoring cards have differing numbers for the light and dark tokens received on a turn (whereas in the previous game the scoring cards were parallel — such as 9/9 or 8/8).

How it plays

Mechanics

On the shelf

Categories

Questions players ask

Questions to bring to BoardGameBrain

• How do setup and the first turn work in Zen Master?
• When does scoring happen and what ends the game?
• How should the table resolve an unusual timing or rules interaction?