Today's Rokuyo day

The Rokuyo meaning of those two kanji together is bad luck in the morning, good luck in the afternoon. (See what Rokuyo considers to be 'the afternoon'.)

An alternative meaning: If you set off too quickly, then you'll lose; just as Aesop says in the Hare and Tortoise. We should be modest and calm in everything we do.

You'll notice that the first kanji (先) is the same for this Sakimake day (先負) and the Sensho day (先勝). For the Sakimake day, 先 is read as "Saki", but for Sensho day 先 is read as "Sen". Just as the English words are riddled with homonyms, homographs, homophones and heteronyms, Japanese is blessed with 'on' readings (imported Chinese) and 'kun' readings (native Japanese), and most kanji have both on-readings and kun-readings.

In this example, 'Sen' is the on-reading and 'Saki' is the kun-reading. Adding to the fun is that 先 also means previous or prior, which is a wider meaning of 'early'.

But don't worry. None of that is of interest to Rokuyo.

Just remember that the early bird gets the worm (Sensho), but the second mouse gets the cheese (Sakimake).

Also known as
Senmake, Sakeke, Senbu, Senpu