500 Rummy
500 Rummy (sometimes called in 500 Rum in literature, and not to be confused with Five Hundred) is a member of the Rummy family for two to eight players. The main difference between basic Rummy and 500 Rummy is that, in the latter game, players score for the melds they lay down, rather than simply scoring for the points left in their hand, a feature also found in Canasta.
Object of 500 Rummy
The object of 500 Rummy is to be the first player to score 500 points by forming melds and laying off cards to other player’s melds.
Setup
500 Rummy uses a 54-card deck, a standard 52-card deck plus two jokers. If you’ve got a set of Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards, you’ll have all you need. If you are playing with five or more players, shuffle in a second 54-card deck, making a total of 108 cards in play. You will also need something to keep score with, like pencil and paper.
Shuffle and deal seven cards to each player. The remainder of the deck is placed face down in the center of the deck, forming the stock. The top card of the stock is turned face up next to it, forming the discard pile. As more cards are added to it, the discard pile should be kept neatly spread out, so that the indices of every card in the pile are visible, and the order that the cards were discarded should remain clear.
Game play
The player to the left of the dealer (or the non-dealer, in a two-player game) goes first. The first action a player takes at the beginning of a turn is to draw a card, either from the stock (in which case the player will not know what it is) or any card from the discard pile (in which case the player, as well as all of their opponents, will know what is being added to their hand). However, when drawing from the discard pile, the player must be able to immediately use the card drawn in a meld. When a card is drawn from the discard pile other than its the top card, the player must take all of the cards on top of it (i.e. that have been discarded more recently) into their hand as well.
After they have drawn, the player then has the option to meld. Melding is laying down a combination of cards called a meld face-up on the table in front of oneself. Valid melds include three or four of a kind (with no duplication in suits if the 108-card deck is being used; 5♣-5♠-5♥ is a valid meld, but 5♣-5♣-5♥ is not), or a run or sequence, such as 5-6-7, of the same suit. Aces count either low or high, kings are high, and a sequence cannot progress from one to the other (K-A-2 is not a valid meld). Melding is not compulsory; a player may choose to keep melds in their hand as long as they like.
After melding, a player has the opportunity to lay off on a pre-existing melds, if able. This is extending a meld already on the table, either yours or an opponent’s, by playing a legal card that would extend it. If an opponent has melded three of a kind and you hold the fourth card of that rank, you may lay off the fourth king onto the meld. Runs can also be extended; with a meld on the table of 9-10-J♦, you may lay off either the 8♦ or the Q♦ if you hold either of them. A player cannot move cards from one meld to another to facilitate laying off. A player may lay off as many cards as they are able to on one turn, but laying off is optional and is not required. Cards that have been laid off are kept in front of the player that laid them off (they are not actually placed with the meld they belong to, for scoring reasons), and the player must designate the meld that it belongs to, in order to prevent ambiguity in situations where the card could potentially belong to several melds.
Jokers are wild and may represent any card for the purpose of melding. At the time that it is melded, the player must declare the card the joker stands for, and this cannot be changed later (it is okay if the designated card is present elsewhere on the table; there can be several “copies” of a card in play). The card named must, of course, be able to be legally melded in order for the joker to be played.
Finally, a player ends their turn by discarding one card, face up, to the discard pile. The turn then passes to the left.
If, after a player has discarded, the discard pile contains any cards which could immediately be melded, i.e. either a card that could be laid off immediately, or a complete meld, not requiring any cards from a player’s hand, any player other than the one who just discarded may call out “Rummy!” That player is then entitled to draw the relevant cards from the discard pile (and any cards on top of them, as usual) and play them. They then take their turn as normal, performing any other melds and discarding one card. Play then passes to the left, as per usual.
Game play continues until one player, or the stock, has run out of cards. The hand then ends immediately, with no further melding possible. Each opponent then calculates the value of their melds and the deadwood (the remaining unmelded cards) in their hand. Aces and jokers are worth fifteen points each (except for in an A-2-3 sequence, where aces are worth only one point), face cards are worth ten points each, and all other cards are worth their face value. Each player scores the value of their melds minus the amount of deadwood in their hand.
The game ends when a player reaches a score of 500 or more. The player with the highest score at that point is the winner.
Piquet
Piquet is a two-player trick-taking game, regarded as one of the most skillful two-player card games in existence. It is one of the oldest card games still being actively played, with references to it in literature dating back to the year 1535. By 1650, Piquet’s rules had evolved to pretty much the form we know today.
Object of Piquet
The object of Piquet is to score the most points (ideally over 100) over the course of six hands.
Setup
Piquet uses a special stripped deck, called a Piquet deck. Starting from a deck of Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards, remove all the 2s through 6s. You’ll be left with a 32-card deck, with 7s through aces in all four suits. Cards rank in their usual order, with aces high. You will also need pencil and paper to keep score with.
As the dealer has a distinct disadvantage in Piquet, and there is advantage to dealing first (because the player who deals first does not deal the sixth hand), the dealer of the first hand should be determined randomly. One player should cut the deck, and the other player claim one of the two halves of the deck; whoever has the highest bottom card on their half of the deck will deal first. Shuffle and deal twelve cards to each player. The remaining eight cards form the talon.
Game play
The exchange
Before game play begins, players exchange cards with the talon in hopes of bettering their hand. The non-dealer exchanges first, and may discard up to five cards and draw back up to twelve cards. Players must exchange at least one card. If the non-dealer elects to exchange fewer than five cards, they are allowed to look at the cards they did not draw and place them back on the talon in the same order (e.g. if the non-dealer only exchanges three cards, they may look at the top two cards of the talon).
After the non-dealer has exchanged, it is the dealer’s turn to exchange. As with the non-dealer, the dealer must exchange at least one card, and may exchange up to five, assuming there are five cards remaining in the talon. (The non-dealer’s discards are not recycled so the dealer may draw). If there are any cards left in the talon after the exchange, the dealer may, at their option, reveal the remaining cards to both players.
Carte blanche
A hand with no face cards prior to the exchange is called carte blanche (French for “white card”, probably because of the comparatively large amounts of open space on number cards). A player may declare carte blanche prior to the exchange to score 10 points. When carte blanche is declared, it must be revealed to the opponent.
If the dealer has carte blanche, they simply turn their cards face up after the non-dealer exchanges cards. If the non-dealer has it, they draw the number cards they wish to exchange from the talon and set them aside without looking, the dealer makes their exchange as normal, and then the hand is exposed and the dealer makes their exchange thereafter.
Declarations
After the exchange, players may declare certain combinations in their hands. As this reveals information about the hand to the opponent, a player may choose not to make a declaration (known as sinking the declaration), especially if they believe their opponent’s declaration to be higher, although once the opportunity has passed for the declaration, it cannot be made later if more information becomes available. Declarations always follow the format of the non-dealer declaring first, to which the dealer replies “Good,” if they are unable or unwilling to beat it, or offering a counter-declaration if they wish to. If they have an equal declaration, they say “equal”, upon which more information is exchanged to determine who, if anyone, has the better holding in that category. Players may request their opponent reveal the relevant cards to verify any declaration made that scores points or ties. In practice, however, this is rarely done, because of the relative ease in determining what cards a player holds based on their declarations.
The first declaration to be made is for “point”, which is the greatest number of cards in one suit. One point is scored for each card in the suit. Should the two players each hold the same number of cards in their longest suit, the dealer replies “How much?” and the value of the cards is computed, with aces counting as eleven, face cards as ten, and all other cards at face value. If the value ties, then neither player scores. (Note that the card values are used only for comparing declarations; the player who claims point still only scores one game point for each card held.)
The next declaration is for sequences (three or more cards of the same suit in sequence). Possible declarations are:
Name of declaration | Cards | Point value |
---|---|---|
Tierce | 3 | 3 |
Quart* | 4 | 4 |
Quint | 5 | 15 |
Sixième | 6 | 16 |
Septième | 7 | 17 |
Huitième | 8 | 18 |
*Quart is pronounced “cart”. Note that, if desired, the traditional French names may be dispensed with and quoted merely as a “run of 3”, or whatever.
Only the player with the longest sequence can score for sequences, but once it’s been determined who that player is, they may score for every sequence they hold. If two competing sequences tie in length, they are compared by their highest card (with the higher of the two scoring higher); if these tie, neither player scores.
The third and final declaration to be made is for sets (three or four of a kind, 10s or better). Four of a kinds outrank three of a kinds, and sets of the same length are compared based on rank. As before, the player with the highest set may score for any additional sets they hold, and the opponent scores nothing.
Play of the hand
If a player’s opponent has scored nothing, and the player has scored 30 or more points before the start of actual play (i.e. through declarations only), they score a 60-point bonus for repique. If a player’s opponent has scored nothing, and the player, having not scored for repique, scores 30 or more points during the hand, they score a 30-point bonus for pique.
The non-dealer leads to the first trick. If able to follow suit, a player must do so. If they are unable to, they may play any card. The trick is won by the highest card of the suit led. Collected tricks are not added to the hand, but rather kept in a discard pile in front of the player. Players may look through the captured-trick piles at any time. Since it is important to keep track of the number of tricks captured, each trick should be placed onto the pile at right angles, so that the tricks can be easily separated after the hand. The player that won the trick leads to the next one.
Players score one point every time they lead a card, and one point for each trick taken. When one player takes seven tricks, they score ten points for “the cards” (these points can count toward a pique). If a player manages to take all twelve tricks, they score an extra 30 points for capot (which cannot be counted toward a pique, although they score 40 points together with the ten for the cards).
Scoring
Score in Piquet is usually kept verbally, with each player calling out a running total of their points for the hand as they score. The total hand scores are written down on the score sheet at the conclusion of each hand.
After the sixth hand, the player with the higher score is the winner. The margin of the win is then calculated by subtracting the loser’s score from the winner’s score and adding 100. Example: if a game was won 128 to 119, the margin would be 109 (128–119+100). However, if the loser failed to score at least 100 points (an act which is known as crossing the Rubicon), regardless of whether the winner did the same, the two scores are added to 100 to produce the margin. Example: if a game was won 117 to 96, the margin would be 313 (117+96+100).
Tonk
Tonk (also known as Tunk) is a quick-playing member of the Rummy family, best for two to four players. Because each hand is so short, it is often played in places like break rooms where players might have to leave on short notice. Tonk is often played for money to avoid the need for actual scorekeeping.
Tonk dates back to at least the 1930s, when it was played by members of Duke Ellington’s orchestra.
Object of Tonk
The object of Tonk is to be the first player to run out of cards, by discarding, spreading, and hitting other players’ spreads.
Setup
Tonk uses one standard 52-card deck of playing cards. Playing with Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards is always an excellent choice.
Before playing, it should be established whether the game is being played for money, and if so what the value of one stake is. If the game is not being played for money, each hand can simply be considered its own game.
Shuffle and deal five cards to each player. The deck stub is placed in the center of the table and forms the stock. The top card of the stock is turned face-up next to it; this card, the upcard, is the first card of the discard pile.
Game play
Each card in Tonk has a point value which is used to determine the value of the player’s hand. These values are the same as those in Gin Rummy, i.e. aces are worth one point, face cards are worth ten, and all others their face value.
Upon receiving their cards, players immediately calculate the total score of their hand before any cards have been played. If a player has been dealt a count of exactly 50, or a count of 11 or lower, they may show their cards and declare “Tonk,” which is considered an instant win, and all other players pay double the stake to that player. If multiple players have a tonk, the hand is considered a draw with no winner.
If nobody has a tonk, the player to the left of the dealer plays first. A usual turn will begin with the player drawing one card from either the stock or the discard pile, either spreading or hitting, then discarding.
A spread is equivalent to a meld in most other rummy games. A valid spread is three or four of a kind, or a run of three or more cards of the same suit in sequence. Aces may be either low or high, but a sequence cannot use it as both (K-A-2 is not a valid meld). When a player forms a spread, they may lay it face-up on the table in front of them. Once a spread has been laid down, it is no longer considered part of the hand. Laying a spread down is not mandatory; a player may keep the spread in their hand if they so desire.
A player may also hit their opponents’ spreads. A hit is extending a spread already on the table, either yours or an opponent’s, by playing a legal card to it. If an opponent has spread three of a kind and you hold the fourth card of that rank, you may lay off the fourth king onto the spread. Runs can also be extended; with a spread on the table of 9-10-J♣, you may lay off either the 8♣ or the Q♣ if you hold either of them. A player cannot move cards from one spread to another to facilitate laying off. A player may hit as many spreads as they are able to on one turn, but it is optional and is not required. When a player has one of their spreads hit, they may not hit or lay down any spreads on the next turn they take.
When a card is discarded, any player may slap it, a la Slapjack, if they can immediately play it to a spread. If multiple player slap the same card, the player whose hand is on the bottom wins the slap. The slapping player takes the card and plays their turn as normal, essentially skipping all of the players before them. Turn order continues with the player to the left of the slapping player.
Going out
There are many ways that a Tonk hand can end. Each of them has different requirements to fulfill and consequences to the game.
A player may drop on any turn, even on their first turn. To drop, a player simply spreads their cards face-up on the table prior to drawing, and all other players must then also reveal their hands. The player is essentially betting that they have the lowest total in unmatched cards in their hand. If they do, they win the hand, with each opponent paying the stake to them. If another player ties with them, or has a lower score, they are said to be caught and must pay the stake to each of their opponents with a lower or equal score. Additionally, each player must pay the stake to the player (or players, if there is a tie) with the lowest score.
If the stock runs out before anyone ends the hand in any other way, the players reveal their hands and compare the totals of their unmatched cards. The player with the lowest total wins the hand, and is paid one stake by each of their opponents. If there is a tie, the hand is considered a draw and no stake is paid.
If a player has no cards in their hand after discarding, they are said to have run out. They win the hand, and each of their opponents pays a single stake to them. However, if a player runs out of cards before discarding (i.e. they play their last card by laying down a spread or by hitting another player’s spread), they may call out “Tonk,” and are said to have tonked out. When a player tonks out, they are paid a double stake by each of their opponents.
Jack Change It
Jack Change It is a shedding-type game for two to six players. Its simplicity makes it a popular game for children. Like the commercial game Uno, Jack Change It takes the basic gameplay mechanic of Crazy Eights and extends it by adding special abilities to the other cards in the game.
Object of Jack Change It
The object of Jack Change It is to be the first player to run out of cards.
Setup
Jack Change It uses a standard 52-card deck of playing cards. You want the best for your game, so you want to use a deck of Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards.
Shuffle and deal seven cards to each player. Place the deck stub in the center of the table, forming the stock, and turn its top card face-up next to the stock. This card, the upcard, is the first card of the discard pile.
Game play
Play begins with the player to the dealer’s left. They may play a card from their hand to the discard pile so long as it matches the upcard in either suit or sequence. After they do so, play passes to the next player to the left, who must then match the new upcard. If a player has no legal plays, they draw one card from the deck and the turn passes to the left.
Additionally, several cards are classified as trick cards, which have a special effect on game play. A player may not play a trick card as their final card of the hand; if a trick card is the only card remaining in a player’s hand, they must draw. The trick cards are:
- 2s: When a 2 is played, the next player must draw two cards from the stock. However, if they possess a 2 themselves, they may play it instead, and the next player after them must draw four cards (two for each 2 played), and so on until someone is unable to avoid drawing cards.
- 8s: When an 8 is played, the next player’s turn is skipped.
- Jacks: When a jack is played, the player calls “Jack change it to…” and names one of the other three suits. The next player must play a card of that suit, as if the upcard was a card of that suit.
- Queens: Queens are only considered trick cards in games of three or more players. A queen reverses the order of game play, so that if play is proceeding to the left, it proceeds to the right after the queen is played, and vice versa.
- A♥: When the A♥ is played, the next player must draw five cards from the stock. The A♥ may be played in combination with a 2 (the only time two cards may be played at once) to cause the player to draw seven cards. The A♥ may be blocked by playing the 5♥; in this case, no cards are drawn.
Should the stock be depleted, set the current upcard aside, shuffle the rest of the discard pile and turn it face-down to form the new stock.
Game play continues until one player has discarded all of their cards. That player is the winner.
See also
Bourré
Bourré (pronounced, and sometimes spelled, Booray) is a gambling trick-taking game of French origin popular in Louisiana. It is best for seven players, but can be played by as few as two (though at least five is recommended) or as many as eight.
Object of Bourré
The object of Bourré is to accurately gauge whether your hand is likely or not to be a winner, and if so, to capture the majority of the five tricks in the game.
Setup
Bourré uses one standard 52-card pack of playing cards. Anything other than Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards simply can’t compare. You’ll also need something to bet with, such as poker chips.
All players ante. Shuffle and deal five cards to each player, one at a time, face down. The final card dealt, the dealer’s last card, is dealt face-up. The suit of this card determines the trump suit. The deck stub becomes the stock.
Game play
Determining pass or play
Each player looks at their hand and determines whether they would like to play or pass (and therefore forfeit the ante and sit out of the hand). The player to the left of the dealer must declare whether they will pass or play first, with the turn proceeding clockwise around the table until it reaches the dealer. If a player opts to pass, they simply discard their cards face down into a central discard pile. Should a player elect to play, they may discard any number of cards from their hand (from zero to all five), and are immediately dealt the appropriate number of replacement cards from the stock. If the stock runs out of cards before a player may act, the discard pile is shuffled (with the cards from the active player set aside so as to prevent them from getting them back) and the replacement cards dealt from that.
If the face-up trump card is an ace, the dealer is compelled to play (since it is impossible for them to lose every trick with the highest trump possible). If only one player decides to play, all other players choosing to pass, then that player wins the pot by default. If all players have passed but the dealer, then the dealer should, of course, choose to play and take the pot.
Play of the hand
The next active player to the left of the dealer leads to the first trick. If able to follow suit, a player must do so. If they are unable to, they must play a trump, if able; otherwise, they may play any card. The trick is won by the highest card of the suit led, unless a trump is present, in which case the highest trump wins the trick.
A player must always play a card that will take the trick, if they have one, while also abiding by the rules of following suit. If a player can play the highest card so far of the suit led, they must, unless a played trump renders it moot, in which case they can play a lower card of the suit led. If a player cannot follow suit but can trump, they must, and they must play the highest trump so far if able.
Collected tricks are not added to the hand, but rather kept in a discard pile in front of the player. Since it is important to keep track of the number of tricks captured, each trick should be placed onto the pile at right angles, so that the tricks can be easily separated after the hand. The player that won the trick leads to the next one.
A player who is certain to end the hand with at least three of the five tricks captured, no matter how the cards are played, is said to have a cinch hand. This can happen before any cards have been played, or midway through the hand if a player’s actually-captured tricks and the remaining tricks certain to be captured by them adds up to three. A player with a cinch is required to always lead with their highest trump, and must play their highest trump when they are able to trump.
Penalties and awarding the pot
The pot is awarded to the player who has taken the most tricks. Three tricks always wins the pot; two tricks may be enough if the other players each took one trick each. If no player takes a majority of the tricks (i.e. there is a tie), the pot remains for the next hand, with all of the players who didn’t tie adding their ante to it for the next hand.
If a player chose to play and took no tricks at all, they are said to have gone bourré. A player who has gone bourré antes the entire amount of the pot at the beginning of the next hand.
When a player is found to have failed to follow the rules of play (e.g. by failing to follow suit or by not playing the highest card of the suit led when able), the player must pay the amount of the pot the same as if they went bourré.
Authors (Go Fish)
Authors is a classic game for two or more players. A variant with slightly different rules, Go Fish, is probably the best-known version of the game, and one of the first card games that many children learn to play.
Object of Authors
The object of Authors is to be the player to collect the most books (sets of four of a kind).
Setup
Authors uses one standard 52-card deck of playing cards. If a set of Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards is handy, so much the better. Shuffle and deal seven cards to each player. The deck stub is placed in the center of the table and becomes the stock.
Game play
The player to the dealer’s left goes first. They ask any other player, by name, for a particular card, e.g. “Martin, do you have the Queen of Spades?” A player must have at least one card of the rank they are asking for in their hand. If the player being asked does have the card named, they are required to hand it over, and the player who asked continues with their turn, asking another player for a card.
If the player being asked doesn’t have the card, they simply say they don’t, and the player who asked unsuccessfully draws a card. If they happen to draw the last card that they asked for, they reveal it and continue to play. Otherwise, the turn passes to the next player to the left.
When a player manages to collect four of a kind in their hand, they place all four cards face-up on the table in front of them, forming a book. They then continue with their turn as normal.
When the stock is depleted, the game continues, with players unsuccessful in asking for cards simply ending their turn without drawing. The game ends when all thirteen books have been assembled. The player with the most books is the winner.
Go Fish
Go Fish is an easier variant of Authors that is frequently played by children. The main difference between Authors and Go Fish is that in Go Fish, the player asks for all of the cards of a given rank, e.g. “Jon, do you have any jacks?” If the player asked does have the cards of the rank specified, they hand all of them over; otherwise, they tell the other player to “go fish”. Should the player draw any card of the rank they asked for, they get to continue with their turn.
If you’re playing with very young children, you can make Go Fish even easier to play by requiring only a pair to be laid down, rather than four of a kind. As before, the game ends when all 26 pairs have been played, and the player with the most pairs is the winner.
Hand and Foot
Hand and Foot is a North American variant of Canasta. Like its parent game, it is best for four players in partnerships. Hand and Foot adds a twist to the basic game of Canasta by introducing more cards—a lot more cards—and giving each player two hands to have to contend with. It gives a partnership more specific requirements to fulfill before going out.
Object of Hand and Foot
The object of Hand and Foot is to score more points than your opponents by forming melds of three or more cards and piles, which are melds of seven cards.
Setup
The players divide into two partnerships, sitting across from one another, so that the turn of play alters between partnerships when going clockwise. Set aside an area of the table for each partnership’s melds, and a neutral area accessible to all players for the stock and the discard pile.
Hand and Foot requires a 270-card deck consisting of five standard 52-card decks plus jokers, a truly impressive number of cards for a non-casino game. If you’ve got five sets of Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards, well, you’re one of our best customers and we love you. Shuffle the decks together (it might help to use the multiple-deck shuffling technique). Split the deck in two, forming the stocks, with a gap between the two halves of the deck for the discard pile.
Unlike in most games, in Hand and Foot, the players are responsible for dealing their own cards. Each player takes a small portion of one of the stocks and deals two piles of eleven cards face down in front of them. If a player managed to pull exactly 22 cards from the stock, they immediately score a 100-point bonus. Otherwise, any excess cards are returned to the stock. Each player selects one of the eleven-card piles as their hand, and the other eleven cards are passed to their right, forming that player’s foot. The foot is kept face-down in front of the player.
One card from one of the stocks is turned face-up and placed between them. This is the top card of the discard pile, otherwise known as the upcard. If the upcard is a joker, 2, or red 3, discard it face-down into one of the stocks and draw another card.
Game play
Card ranks and scoring
The following are the scores and special properties of all of the cards in the game:
- Red 3s: Red 3s serve as a bonus card and are simply laid in front of the player and a new card is drawn to replace them. 100 points.
- Jokers: Jokers are wild. 50 points.
- Twos: Twos are also wild. 20 points.
- Aces: 20 points.
- K–8s: 10 points.
- 7s–4s: 5 points.
- Black 3s: Cannot be melded. 5 points.
Other than the colors of the 3s, suits do not matter. Both jokers are likewise equal.
Play of the hand
Before game play actually kicks off, any red 3s the players hold in their hand are placed in the partnership’s melding area and new cards are drawn to replace them. Likewise, any red 3s encountered throughout the game are laid down and new cards drawn to replace them.
The player to the left of the dealer goes first. The flow of the turn is to draw, meld if able and willing, and end the turn by discarding.
A player begins their turn by drawing. They may draw either the top two cards of one of the stock piles or the top seven cards of the discard pile (or the whole pile if it contains less than seven cards). In order to draw from the discards, the player must be able to immediately meld the top card of the discard pile with two cards from their hand. (The other six cards are inaccessible to them until they demonstrate that they can legally meld the top card.) If this is the partnership’s first meld for the hand, additional cards from the hand may be melded alongside it in order to satisfy the opening-meld requirement. Because black 3s cannot be melded, a player may never draw from the discard pile if the upcard is a black 3. If the top card of the discard pile is a wild card, then the player can only draw from the discard pile if the player is holding two other cards of the same rank (e.g. if there is a joker on the discard pile, you need two other jokers to draw from it, you cannot substitute twos for the jokers).
After drawing, the player may meld, if able. A partnership’s first melds of the hand must meet a minimum value, depending on the round of the game:
- First round: 50 points
- Second round: 90 points
- Third round: 120 points
- Fourth round: 150 points
A meld consists of three to seven cards of the same rank (traditionally fanned out so that the indices of all of the cards in the meld are visible). A meld can contain no more than one wild card in a meld of three, four, or five cards and no more than two in a meld of six or seven. A player can also make a meld that consists of all wild cards.
After a meld has been laid down, further melding by that partnership on that hand is not subject to the minimums. When a meld has been laid down, it can be extended by either player in the partnership, either by adding more natural cards to it or by adding wild cards. Players cannot move cards between melds, or establish two separate incomplete melds of the same rank. Players cannot contribute to their opponents’ melds.
A meld of seven cards is called a pile, so called because it is traditionally denoted by squaring the meld up into a pile. A pile with no wilds, or a pile with only wilds, is called a clean pile, while a pile with a mix of natural cards and wilds is called a dirty pile. This distinction is important because clean piles score higher. The type of pile is traditionally indicated by its top card; clean piles are squared up with a red card on top, and dirty piles with a black card on top. A pile cannot contain more than seven cards; once a pile has been completed, a new meld of the same rank can be established.
Picking up the foot
When a player has exhausted their hand, they may then pick up their foot pile and play with it. If the player manages to run out of cards before discarding (i.e. through melding), they may simply pick up their foot at that time and continue their turn. If the player gets rid of their final card through discarding, they pick up the foot at the beginning of their next turn.
Depletion of the stock
In the uncommon event that the stock is depleted before someone goes out, the game simply continues without a stock; play continues with players drawing from the discard pile, melding if able, and discarding, until a player goes out as normal, or is unable or unwilling to draw from the discard pile, at which point the hand ends and is scored as outlined below.
If, however, the final card of the stock is a red 3, special rules apply. The player taking the 3 declares it as usual, then does any melding possible, after which play ceases. This player is not entitled to discard.
Going out
In order to go out, a partnership must meet the following conditions: they must have completed two clean piles, two dirty piles, and one wild pile, both players must have played at least part of one turn with their foot piles, and the player wishing to go out must have received permission to go out from their partner.
Permission to go out is received by simply asking the partner “May I go out?” This is done to ensure that the partner does not hold an unduly high total value of cards, which will be charged against the partnership at the end of the hand. The answer given is binding. The only answer permitted is “Yes” or “No”—if any further information is given, the opposing partnership is entitled to answer the question “May I go out?” for the offending partnership, and their answer is binding, often with disastrous results.
After a player has gone out, the hand is scored. Each team scores the value of the cards it has melded, and the value of cards held in hand is deducted against the partnership’s score. The following bonuses, if applicable, are also scored:
- Wild piles: 1500 points each.
- Clean piles: 500 points each.
- Dirty piles: 300 points each.
- Red threes: 100 points each.
- Going out: 100 points.
After all of the above has been accounted for, all cards are shuffled, and the deal passes to the left. The game ends after four hands have been played. The partnership with the highest score at that point is the winner.
Penalties
Throughout the game, various penalties can occur, as set out below:
- Attempting to go out anyway when a partner says no: –100 points.
- Not being able to go out after having asked “May I go out?”: –100 points.
- Attempting to draw from the discard pile when unable to use the upcard: –50 points.
See also
Rummy
Rummy is the basic game underlying a whole family of card games. As such, it is sometimes referred to as Basic Rummy or Straight Rummy to disambiguate it from the other games of the Rummy family, many of which have eclipsed their parent game in popularity. Rummy is ideal for two to four players, but you can squeeze in six if you want to.
Object of Rummy
The object of Rummy is to be the first player to get rid of all of your cards by melding them or laying them off on your opponents’ melds.
Setup
Rummy uses one standard 52-card deck of playing cards. We highly suggest using Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards to ensure your cards will stay in good condition, game after game. You will also need some sort of scorekeeping equipment, such as pencil and paper.
It should be agreed upon at what point the game ends. A game may end after a certain number of hands, or after a player has reached a given point threshold. When that point is reached, whoever has the highest score wins.
Shuffle and deal the following number of cards, one at a time, to each player:
- For two players: deal ten cards.
- For three or four players: deal seven cards.
- For five or six players: deal six cards.
Place the deck stub in the center of the table, forming the stock. Turn the first card of the stock face-up, forming the discard pile.
Game play
The player to the left of the dealer (or the non-dealer, in a two-player game) goes first. The first action a player takes at the beginning of a turn is to draw a card, either from the stock (in which case the player will not know what it is) or from the top of the discard pile (in which case the player, as well as all of their opponents, will know what is being added to their hand).
The player then has the option to meld. Melding is laying down a combination of cards called a meld face-up on the table in front of oneself. Valid melds include three or four of a kind, or a run or sequence, such as 5-6-7, of the same suit. Aces are low, and kings are high, and a sequence cannot progress from one to the other (K-A-2 is not a valid meld). A player may only meld once per turn (with one exception, see “Going rummy” below). Melding is not compulsory; a player may choose to keep melds in their hand as long as they like.
After melding, a player has the opportunity to lay off on a pre-existing melds, if able. This is extending a meld already on the table, either yours or an opponent’s, by playing a legal card to it. If an opponent has melded three of a kind and you hold the fourth card of the same rank, you may lay off the fourth king onto the meld. Runs can also be extended; with a meld on the table of 9-10-J♦, you may lay off either the 8♦ or the Q♦ if you hold either of them. A player cannot move cards from one meld to another to facilitate laying off. A player may lay off as many cards as they are able to on one turn, but laying off is optional and is not required.
After melding and laying off if they so desire, a player ends their turn by discarding one card, face up, to the discard pile. If the player started their turn by drawing from the discard pile, they cannot discard the same card they drew (i.e. they cannot cause the discard pile to have the same card on top of it as was there at the beginning of their turn). The turn then passes to the player to the left.
Game play continues until one player has run out of cards. Each opponent then calculates the value of the deadwood (the remaining unmelded cards) in their hand. Aces are worth one point each, face cards are worth ten points each, and all other cards are worth their face value. The winner of the hand scores the combined deadwood scores of all of the opponents.
Going rummy
A player may, instead of melding when they are able, keep their melds in their hand until they are able to play them all at once and go out on the same turn. This is called “going rummy”. A player scores double points on a hand where they successfully go rummy.
See also
Escoba
Escoba is a Spanish game in the “fishing” family that plays very similarly to the Italian game Scopa. Escoba is popular in Spain, Argentina, and Chile, and can be played with two to four players. The four-handed game may be played either as a partnership game or with four individual players. Escoba is Spanish for broom, probably referring to the “sweep” that occurs when a player takes all of the cards on the board.
Object of Escoba
The object of Escoba is to capture cards from the table with a combined value of fifteen.
Setup
Escoba is traditionally played with a 40-card Spanish deck, with suits of batons, coins, cups, and swords and rey (king), caballo (horse), and sota (jack) as court cards. An equivalent deck can be made by removing all of the 8s, 9s, and 10s from a deck of Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards, leaving a 40-card deck with the king, queen, jack, ace, and 2 through 7 in each of the four suits. Diamonds take on the role the coin suit plays in the Spanish game; the suits are otherwise irrelevant.
You will also need something to keep score with, such as pencil and paper, or a replica of Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine.
If playing a four-handed game with partnerships, players on the same partnership should sit directly across from each other, so that when going around the table players alternate partnerships.
Shuffle and deal three cards, face down, to each player. After all players have received their hands, deal four cards, face up, to the center of the table. The remainder of the deck becomes the stock.
Game play
Each card in Escoba has a numerical value for the purposes of capturing. Kings are worth ten, queens are worth nine, and jacks are worth eight. Aces are worth one. All other cards are worth their face value.
In the event that all of the board cards have a value totaling fifteen, all of the cards are immediately captured by the dealer, who scores for an escoba. If the board cards total 30, the dealer scores for two escobas (see below).
Game play in Escoba begins with the player to the dealer’s right and continues on to the right, the opposite of most other games. On their turn, each player simply places one card face-up on the table. If the value of the card played plus any of the other cards already on the table equals exactly fifteen, the player captures those cards. The captured cards, as well as the card used to perform the capture, are all moved to a face-down score pile in front of the player (if playing with partnerships, one score pile is formed from the captured cards of both players on the partnership).
If all of the cards on the table are captured at once, this is called an escoba (sweep). To record the escoba, the capturing card is placed face-up in the score pile .
After three rounds of play, each player will have run out of cards. Three more cards are then dealt from the stock to each player. Play continues in this manner, with more cards dealt to each player after every three rounds, until the deck is depleted. Play continues until each player’s hands are empty. Any remaining cards on the table are scored for the last player to successfully perform a capture (but this does not count as an escoba).
Scoring
At the end of the hand, the score piles are examined to determine the score for the hand:
- collecting the most cards*
- collecting the most diamonds*
- capturing the siete de velo (7♦)
- la setenta (see below)
- one point for each escoba
*In the event that the players are tied for the most cards in these categories, neither player gets the point.
In order to be eligible for la setenta, a player must have collected cards of all four suits. A player then finds the highest-scoring card in each suit according to the following ranking: (high) 7, 6, A, 5, 4, 3, 2, face cards (low). Setentas are compared as in poker, with the highest card compared first, then going to the second-highest card in case of a tie, and so on.
After scoring, the deal is passed to the right. The game ends when a player or partnership has reached 21 points; whoever has the highest score at that point is the winner. If there is a tie, keep playing until the tie is broken.
See also
FreeCell
FreeCell is a popular solitaire game that, like several games of that category, achieved popularity by being included in the Microsoft Windows operating system. FreeCell appears there as a more strategic alternative to the popular Klondike (which is simply titled “Solitaire”); it is sometimes said that every FreeCell deal is winnable. While this is not exactly the case, and luck does play a factor, FreeCell is certainly a game in which skill is necessary to pull off a win.
Object of FreeCell
The object of FreeCell is to move all 52 cards to the foundation piles.
Setup
FreeCell uses one standard 52-card deck of playing cards. It would be pretty awesome if you used Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards. Just sayin’.
Shuffle and deal a row of eight cards. Then deal another row of eight cards overlapping the first, and so on until the entire deck is exhausted. You will be left with a tableau with four columns of cards with seven cards each and four columns with six cards each.
Above the first four columns are four empty spaces referred to as free cells. To the top right are four empty spaces called the foundations. Refer to the diagram for an example layout.
Game play
The majority of the game involves moving cards within the tableau and to and from the free cells. The free cells, as their name implies, are free to contain any card; a card may be moved from the tableau to the free cells at any time, and cards may be moved from the free cells to any other legal location at any time. Each free cell can only contain one card at a time (so a total of four cards may be in the free cells at any given moment).
Card movement in the tableau follows similar rules to those in Klondike. Cards rank in their usual order, with aces low (K, Q, J, 10, … 2, A). Face-up cards may be moved so that they are on top of a card of the opposite color and one higher rank. For example, the J♦ may be placed on either the Q♣ or the Q♠. Empty spaces formed in the tableau may be filled by any card.
Cards may only be moved one at a time. To move a series of cards, the cards must be moved one at a time into the free cells, then moved back out in reverse order. For example, to move a 5-4-3 run onto a 6, the 3 must be moved into a free cell, then the 4 into a cell, then the 5 moved onto the 6, then the 4 from the free cell onto the 5, then finally the 3 onto the 4. Therefore, it is a good idea to keep the free cells as clear as is practical to make the movement of long strings of cards possible.
The first card that is moved to each foundation pile must be an ace. Foundation piles are built up by suit and sequence thereafter; the A♣ may have the 2♣ played upon it, then the 3♣, and so on up to the K♣. The game is won when the entire deck has been played to the foundations.