Casting method
The Three-Coin Method
Hold three coins of the same kind and think of your question. Toss them together. Heads counts 3 and tails counts 2. The sum of the three coins is the line value. Make six tosses and build the figure from the bottom upward, so the first toss is the bottom line.
| Value | Line | Fraction | Chance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | Old yin (changing) | 1/8 | 12.5% |
| 7 | Young yang (stable) | 3/8 | 37.5% |
| 8 | Young yin (stable) | 3/8 | 37.5% |
| 9 | Old yang (changing) | 1/8 | 12.5% |
In The Free I Ching you toss physical coins yourself and enter heads or tails for each line. The app does not toss for you in this mode.
What the odds mean
- A line is changing 25% of the time (old yin 1/8 plus old yang 1/8).
- Old yin and old yang are equally likely, unlike the yarrow method.
- The chance that a six-line cast has no changing lines at all is 17.8%.
- Every one of the 64 primary hexagrams is equally likely (1/64).
| Changing lines in a cast | Chance |
|---|---|
| 0 | 17.8% |
| 1 | 35.6% |
| 2 | 29.66% |
| 3 | 13.18% |
| 4 | 3.3% |
| 5 | 0.44% |
| 6 | 0.02% |
Reading the result
- Find the primary hexagram from the six lines.
- If no line is changing, read that hexagram on its own.
- If lines are changing, read the line text for each changing line.
- Change those lines to their opposite to find the relating hexagram, the direction the situation is moving.
Compare with the other method or look up any figure in the library.
Cite this page
The Free I Ching. "The Three-Coin Method." https://thefreeiching.com/methods/three-coin (updated 2026-10-07).
The I Ching is a tool for reflection, not a prediction. Nothing here forecasts events or replaces professional advice. Short quotations with a link back are welcome. Please do not republish a page in full. The open data files at /data are licensed CC BY 4.0.
Updated October 7, 2026. Markdown version