Rummy

How to play Rummy

Rummy is the game that Gin Rummy, Canasta and many others grew out of. You hold ten cards and try to get rid of them all by putting them on the table in melds: sets of the same rank and runs in one suit. Each turn you take one card and throw one away. The first player to run out of cards wins the hand, and scores for the cards the other player is still holding.

Here you play against Otto. A game is six hands, and the higher total wins.

The deal

Each player is dealt ten cards. The next card is turned face up to start the pile, and the rest are the stock, face down beside it. You and Otto take turns to deal, and the player who did not deal plays first.

Melds

• A set is three or four cards of the same rank, such as three 9s.
• A run is three or more cards of the same suit in order, such as the 4, 5 and 6 of spades.
• The ace is always low: ace, 2, 3 is a run, and queen, king, ace is not.

Your hand sorts itself. Cards that make a set or a run sit together on the left with a band along the bottom. A card that could be added to a meld already on the table has a band of a different colour.

Your turn

1. Take one card: either the top card of the stock, which nobody has seen, or the top card of the pile, which is the card the other player has just thrown.
2. Put cards on the table, if you can and wish to. You may lay down a set or a run from your hand, but only one new set or run in a turn. You may also lay off as many cards as you like on the melds already there: a fourth 9 on three 9s, or the 7 of spades on the 4, 5, 6 of spades. It does not matter who laid the meld down, and you need not have laid one down yourself.
3. Throw one card away, face up on the pile. You may not throw back the card you have just taken from the pile.

Tap the stock or the pile to take a card. Then tap cards in your hand to choose them: they rise, and buttons appear for whatever those cards can do. Lay down puts three or more chosen cards on the table as a new meld, Lay off adds the chosen cards to melds on the table, and Throw it throws the one chosen card away and ends your turn. You can also drag a card onto the table to throw it. The card you have just taken is ringed until your turn is over.

Going out

The hand ends as soon as a player has no cards left. Usually the last card is thrown on the pile, but it may be laid down or laid off instead: you do not need a card to throw.

The player who went out scores for every card left in the other hand. Cards still in the hand count against it even if they would have made a meld, so a set or a run does you no good until it is on the table.

The count of your own hand is shown above the table all the time.

Going rummy

A player who goes out in a single turn, having put nothing on the table earlier in the hand, has gone rummy and scores double. Because only one new set or run may be laid down in a turn, this takes a hand that can go out with one meld and cards laid off on what the other player has put down. It is rare, and it is a reason not to leave Otto with a handful of high cards.

When the stock runs out

The stock is not turned over and used again. When a player has taken its last card and thrown one away, the hand is over. Both hands are counted, and the player whose cards count less scores the difference. If they count the same, nobody scores. It does not happen often: about one hand in fifty in our test games.

The game

A game is six hands, and the player with more points at the end wins. If the scores are level after six hands, extra hands are played until they are not. The Scores button shows the game hand by hand.

Tips for winning more often

• Lay your melds down as soon as you have them. A meld in your hand counts against you if Otto goes out, and holding melds back to go rummy seldom works. In our test games a player who held every meld back in the hope of going out all at once did not win one game in a thousand against Otto.
• Keep pairs and neighbours. Two cards of a rank, or two next to each other in a suit, are one card short of a meld. Throw the cards that go with nothing first, and of those the ones that count most.
• Middle cards make more runs. A 7 can sit in three different runs of three (5-6-7, 6-7-8, 7-8-9). A king or an ace can sit in only one.
• Do not hold high cards for long. A pair of kings is worth keeping early in a hand. Late on, with Otto down to three or four cards, it is twenty points waiting to be counted.
• Look at the table before you throw. A card that fits a meld on the table can be laid off, by you now or by Otto if you throw it. Lay it off yourself.
• Keep an eye on the stock. If it runs out, the lower hand wins. When it is down to a few cards, get rid of your high ones.
• Watch what Otto takes from the pile. He takes a card from the pile only when he can use it at once, so think twice before throwing its neighbours.

How good is Otto?

Otto plays fair. He sees his own cards, the table, the pile, and whatever he has watched you take from it, and nothing else: not your hand and not the stock. The Hint button uses exactly the same thinking for you.

He takes the card on the pile when it makes a meld with cards he holds or can be laid off on the table, and otherwise takes from the stock. He lays down every meld as soon as he has it and lays off every card that fits. For each card he might throw, he works out what the rest of his hand would count and how much the cards he has not seen could do for it over the next few turns, and throws the one he will miss least.

Over thousands of test games he won about 62 in 100 against a player who lays melds down as they come, takes from the pile only for a meld, and throws the highest card that is in no meld. Against the same player taught to keep pairs and neighbours before lone cards, he won about 56 in 100.

Rummy has a good deal of luck in the draw, and six hands is a short game. Half of the test games between two Ottos were decided by fewer than 20 points, which is one unlucky hand. A careful player will win plenty of games against him.

Other ways to play

Rummy is played by more house rules than almost any other game, and this table plays one plain version of it.

• Only one new set or run a turn. Many books give this rule, and some tables let you lay down as many melds as you like. We tried both. With no limit, it paid to keep every meld hidden until the other player was nearly out, and then to put the whole hand down at once for double: a player who did that won 70 games in 100 against one who laid melds down as they came, and more than a quarter of hands ended that way. With the limit, the same player won 10 in 100. Laying melds down as they come is then the better game, and going rummy is a rare treat.
• Six hands, not first to 100. Scores in two-player Rummy are small: about nine points a hand on average. A game to 100 ran to about nineteen hands in our tests, so a game here is six hands. Other tables play a fixed number of deals as well, or play to a lower target.
• The stock is used once. In some versions the pile is turned over to make a new stock when the old one runs out, and a hand can go round and round. Here the hand ends and the lower count scores the difference.
• The ace is low. Some tables also let it sit above the king, as in queen, king, ace, and count it as 15.
• Two players. Rummy is also played by three or four, with seven cards each. That is not here yet.

If you like Rummy, Gin Rummy is the same idea with the melds kept in the hand until someone knocks.