Fighting top game (by Kolorado)

When I was a 8-12 years old boy, our most exiting game was a fighting top game.

To join the game, he had to have an armored top that had an iron ring outside of the wooden body. The best ring was of ball bearing. Its massive, solid and brighting feeling was wonderful. In addition, when sparring at the other top, it gave out many sparks. I used to heat up my iron ring by bath boiler, because the top with bearing was not sold in any toy shop.

I can still recall the exiting scene in which the heated iron ring hit the wooden body of the top with smoke.
The fighting top game started by deciding an order of spinning by JANKEN (to be explained later). The worst loser (A) in JANKEN had to spin his top at first. Next loser (B) could spin his top in aiming at As top to hit it. If Bs top could keep to spin longer than As one, A will be the worst loser in the next turn. If not, B will become the worst loser in the next turn. During spin competition, B could spar his top against As top by use of his string which is also used for spinning his top. Then the third loser could spin his top in aiming at surviving top and so on.

Usually the game went on like that, but if any guy failed to spin his top, he would be the first player in the next turn and a penalty SUEGOMA was given to him. SUEGOMA means that any player could aim at convicts top that is fixed on the ground. The convict used to turn his back to his top and cover his ears during the execution.

JANKEN is a Japanese game using three shapes of hand. Players must expose their hand at the same time with one of the specified shape as follows;
closed hand = stone,
2 fingers open hand = scissors
and
full open hand = paper.

Stone wins to scissors because it can break scissors,
scissors wins to paper because scissors can cut paper
and
paper wins to stone because it can wrap stone.

















Kolorado