Luck Pillars: How to Read 10-Year, Annual and Monthly Luck
If your birth chart is the map you were born with, luck is the seasons and weather passing over it. 10-year luck pillars, annual luck and monthly luck flow on top of each other, waking or shaking the characters of your chart.
Three kinds of luck
| Luck | Length | Where it comes from | What it shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-year luck (大運) | 10 years | Steps on one pillar at a time from your month pillar | The season of your life: its big stage and theme |
| Annual luck (歲運) | 1 year | The pillar of the year (2026 is 丙午, 2027 is 丁未) | The events and concerns of that year |
| Monthly luck (月運) | 1 month | The pillar of the month, divided by solar terms | When to start things and when to rest |
If 10-year luck is the season, annual luck is the day's weather. Spring rain and monsoon rain are different, and the same annual luck reads differently depending on the decade you meet it in.
Forward or backward
Luck pillars start from your month pillar and step through the sixty-pillar cycle one at a time. Whether they run forward or backward depends on the stem of your birth year and your sex.
| Yang year (stem 甲, 丙, 戊, 庚, 壬) | Yin year (stem 乙, 丁, 己, 辛, 癸) | |
|---|---|---|
| Male | Forward | Backward |
| Female | Backward | Forward |
For example, with a 丙寅 month pillar, forward luck runs 丁卯 → 戊辰 → 己巳…, and backward luck runs 乙丑 → 甲子 → 癸亥….
The starting age
The luck number says at what age your first luck pillar begins. Count the days from your birth to the moment the solar term changes and divide by three — the traditional reckoning in which three days stand for one year. Forward luck counts to the next solar term, backward luck back to the previous one.
If the next solar term is 14 days away, 14 ÷ 3 ≈ 4.7, so the luck number is 5, and luck pillars change at 5, 15, 25 and so on. That number is traditionally a Korean age, which counts the year you were born as age 1, so in Western age the changes fall about a year earlier — at 4, 14, 24…. Our English reports show Western ages.
Reading one luck pillar
A luck pillar is also one stem and one branch. The ten gods of those two characters show the theme of the decade: Wealth luck tends to centre on money and results, Officer luck on responsibility and work, Resource luck on study and qualifications.
Whether the characters are your useful or least favourable element shows whether the decade will flow gently or roughly. Traditionally the stem is weighed more in the first five years and the branch in the last five; this site applies both characters across the whole decade.
Flow score and change index
We calculate two separate numbers for every period, because a single number cannot tell "good change" from "hard change".
| Number | Meaning | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Flow score (0–100) | How much of the energy you need (useful and favourable elements) comes in | 65 or more: a gentle flow; 35 or less: a rough flow; in between: an ordinary flow |
| Change index (0–100) | How many clashes, combinations and punishments the incoming characters form with your chart | 75 or more: a period of big change (about the top 12% across sample charts) |
Read together:
| Little change | Big change | |
|---|---|---|
| Gentle flow | A comfortable time to build | A time to move with good opportunities (job changes, moves, marriage) |
| Rough flow | A time to hold steady without overreaching | A time to double-check big decisions and prepare |
The life-flow chart
The life-flow chart in our complete reading zooms in three steps. First it shows the flow of your 10-year and annual luck across your whole life; tap a decade to see each of its years; pick a year to see its twelve months. Years and months of big change are marked.
How old are people when their first luck pillar starts?
We calculated the luck number for everyone born on every day from 1960 to 2009, women and men (36,526 charts). The average is 5.1, and 2 through 9 each take almost exactly 10%.
| Luck number | Share |
|---|---|
| 1 | 14.8% |
| 2 | 9.9% |
| 3 | 9.9% |
| 4 | 9.9% |
| 5 | 9.9% |
| 6 | 9.9% |
| 7 | 9.9% |
| 8 | 9.9% |
| 9 | 9.9% |
| 10 | 6.4% |
The ends differ. A luck number of 1 is the most common (14.8%) because a result of 0 — when the solar term is only a day or so away — is rounded up to 1. A luck number of 10 is the rarest (6.4%): solar terms sit about 30 days apart, so it needs more than 28 days to the next one.
Who changes luck pillars in 2027?
Luck pillars change every ten years, so roughly one person in ten starts a new one in any given year. In the same group, 10% change luck pillars in 2027. Forward and backward luck split exactly in half (50%): yang-year men and yin-year women run forward, yin-year men and yang-year women run backward, so a mixed group always splits evenly.
How this site calculates it
The flow score comes from the role scores of the incoming stem (40%) and branch (60%): useful +2, favourable +1, neutral 0, unfavourable −1, least favourable −2, mapped onto 50 ± 45. The role of any element created by a combination, and the Heavenly Noble, count for a little too.
An annual flow blends that year's luck (65%) with the current 10-year luck (35%); a monthly flow blends the month (50%), the year (30%) and the decade (20%). Months are divided at the exact moments of the solar terms, from Lichun to Xiaohan.
The change index adds up weighted relations between the incoming characters and your chart's four positions: branch clash 3, stem clash and punishment 2, break, harm, Yuanjin and combination 1, with position weights of day branch 1, month branch 0.8, hour branch 0.6 and year branch 0.5. For annual luck, clashes, combinations and punishments with the current 10-year pillar are added too. Your luck number, direction and the flow from a lifetime down to a single month are under "Life" in your reading.
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