Rummy otherwise known under the card game category as Straight Rummy, is said to have made its appearance in the 18th century. The game can be played by two players to six players and just requires a standard 52 card deck, where the ace is the lowest and the king is the highest. The goal as a player is to be the first one to play all your cards. The process is quite simple.
The first part is the deal, here the first dealer is chosen at random and the turn to deal is done alternately in the case of two players and dealt clockwise in the case of more than two players. The cards are evenly distributed among players and are dealt one at a time with them kept facedown and the rest of undealt cards are kept facedown as stock. The players then sort their cards.
This card game’s objective is to dispose off all the cards in your hand, this can be done by melding, laying off or discarding. Melding otherwise means taking a certain combination of cards and placing it face up on the table. This can be a sequence or a group. Laying off means adding a card or more from your hand to the table cards for a valid meld. Discarding means playing a card from your hand on top of the discard pile, this is one way to discard a card at the end of each round of the card game.
Playing this card game where there are two players sees them take alternative turns. Each player has the draw where the player begins by taking a card from the stock or the top most card on the discard pile. The difference being stock has cards facing down and discard pile facing up. This card is added to the ones in the hand without revealing to the other players. This is followed by melding, if there is a valid sequence of cards in hand or laying off which is optional. The discard is done at the end of your turn, where you must discard one of your cards.
In this card game the player wins an individual hand by one of the above method. Getting rid of the last card in your hand is known as going out. This going out also signals the end of the card game play and that person is declared winner, even if the rest still have cards in their hands. Scoring is done by adding the value of cards, face cards the king, queen and joker are worth ten points, aces worth one point each, and number cards are worth their face value. Total of these values is the winner’s score. The game can continue till the necessary scoring points that were pre-decided have been made or the agreed number of deals has been played.
Rummy is a great card game that has many variations to it. There are types of rummy such as gin rummy, 500 rum, dummy rummy etc. The rules and process do vary but the basics remain the same.
This article was written by Caroline.
Tags: Card games, Card Games Online, rummy