shiritori

しりとり

A Japanese word game in which players take turns saying words whose first kana is same as the last kana of the previous player's word. For instance, someone might start with ringo (りんご) and the next person might follow with gomasuri (ごますり). A player who repeats a word is out. As there are no words that start with n (ん), a player who uses a word ending in it, such as mikan (みかん) is out.

Strategies

Letter frequency

A major shiritori strategy is to use words that end in a letter that appears much more frequently at the end of words than at the beginning. This makes it harder for the opponent to come up with words and easier for you. By repeatedly using such a letter, the hope is that your opponent will run out of words.

In Japanese, popular letters to use with this strategy include ru (る), nu (ぬ), pu (ぷ), and a few others. They are referred to as the "ru attack" (る攻め), "nu attack" (ぬ攻め), and so on.
To take pu as an example, [1] says there are about 700 Japanese words ending with pu but only 160 starting with pu.

In English, y works well with this strategy. [1]

Countering

If your opponent is attacking you with a particular letter, then you can attempt to counter them using a word that both begins and ends with that letter. [2]

Examples

Links

[1] English shiritori analysis

[2] A surefire way to win Shiritori

  • Blog post talking about Shiritori strategies, including nu, ru, and pu attacks.