Rummy rules

The root of a very large family. Draw a card, try to arrange your hand into sets and runs, discard a card. Everything else in the family is a variation on this.

The deck

A 52-card deck. Ten cards each for two players, seven for three or four, six for five or six. One card is turned face up to start the discard pile and the rest is the stock.

The melds

A set: three or four cards of the same rank. A run: three or more consecutive cards of the same suit.

Aces are low, so ace-two-three is a run and queen-king-ace is not, unless you agree otherwise.

Your turn

Draw the top card of the stock or the top of the discard pile. Optionally lay down any melds face up in front of you, and optionally add cards to melds anyone has already laid down. Discard one card.

Going out

The first player to meld or lay off their entire hand and discard their last card goes out and ends the hand.

Going rummy

If you lay down your entire hand in one turn, having melded nothing beforehand, the score against everyone else is doubled.

Scoring

The winner scores the value of the cards left in the other players' hands: court cards 10, aces 1, and number cards their face value.

Game is 100 points, or an agreed number.

Everything that follows — gin, 500, canasta, contract rummy — changes one part of this and keeps the rest.

Rummy: an example game

One game of Rummy followed from the deal to the finish, move by move, with the reason for each choice.

The deal

Three players — you, Ada and Bo — so everyone gets seven cards. Bo deals, and you, on Bo's left, go first. Your hand: ♥ 4 5 6, ♣ 9, ♦ 9, K♠ and 2♣. 9♠ is turned up to start the discard pile.

You already hold a run, the four, five and six of hearts. Everything else counts against you if somebody goes out: 9, 9, 10 and 2, for 30.

Your first turn

9♠ on the pile makes a set with your two nines, so you take it instead of drawing from the stock. Then you throw K♠: it is worth 10 and has nothing near it.

You now hold a run and a set, with only 2♣ left over. You could lay both melds down now. Instead you keep them in your hand: if you can go out later in one turn, having laid nothing down, the hand counts double.

Ada and Bo

Ada holds K♥ and K♦, so she takes your K♠ from the pile and lays the three kings down. She throws Q♣, her highest loose card, and is left with four cards: 3♦, 8♦, A♣ and 5♠.

Q♣ is no use to Bo, who draws 3♣ from the stock. He lays down a run of spades, 10♠ J♠ Q♠, and throws 8♥. He keeps 7♦, 6♣, 2♦ and 3♣. Neither of them knows you are collecting hearts.

Going rummy

8♥ is one card too far from your run, so you draw from the stock: 7♥. That is the card you were waiting for. You lay down the run ♥ 4 5 6 7 and the set of nines, and throw 2♣ as your last card.

Your whole hand went down in one turn, and nothing of yours was on the table before it. That is rummy.

The score

Ada is caught holding 3♦, 8♦, A♣ and 5♠: 3 + 8 + 1 + 5 = 17. Bo is caught holding 7♦, 6♣, 2♦ and 3♣: 7 + 6 + 2 + 3 = 18. That is 35 between them, and going rummy doubles it, so you score 70. Ada and Bo score nothing.

Had you laid your melds down on the first turn and gone out now, you would have scored 35. Had Ada gone out first, though, you would have been caught with all seven cards, 44 points, and scored nothing.

What the hand shows

Holding back was a gamble that paid, because your hand was one card from finished and your leftover card was cheap. Ada's kings show the other side: she laid them down at once, and they could never be counted against her.

The next hand is dealt by you, and Ada starts. Hands are played until somebody reaches 100 at the end of one, and the highest score wins.