How To Play Rummy

Learning how to play rummy takes only a few minutes but takes years to fully master. The game starts with the dealing of the cards; if two people are playing they get 9 cards each, if more than two then every player gets 7 cards. The player left of the dealer is first to act. The whole purpose of the game is to get rid or meld all your cards before everyone else. After the dealer deals all the cards to the players, he or she will then flip on card face up, this is the stock. The first person acts by taking the face up card from the stock or taking a face down card from the other pile. Once a player has chosen a card, they may meld a set of three cards or more. You can only meld at least three cards of the same number or a straight. You could, for example, meld 3 Kings, or 4 kings or a straight consisting of 9 to ace. After you meld (if your able to) you must then discard one of your cards into the discard pile. This ends your turn, forcing action on the player to your left. Players can also add their own cards to another players melded cards. For example, if a player layed down a meld of three Aces and you have the last ace, you can just simply add your ace to their existing three Aces. This continues until one player has no cards left in their hand, this is called going out.

In some rummy games, once someone goes out, all players are allowed to lay down any possible melds in their hand. You can lay down any sets or runs and can even add your cards to other players existing melds. At this point you basically just want to get rid of as many cards as you can.

After this phase is over, its time to calculate everyones scores. You get positive points for all your melds and negative points for any no-melded cards in your hand (cards you couldnt discard). You add up all the points (every card is valued at face value: an Ace is 1, face cards are 10, and a 7 is a 7 etc.). You then minus points from the cards in your hand; your resulting number is your score. Most rummy games are played to a set score, the overall winner is the first player to reach the set score.

An easy way to learn how to play rummy is to go online and find a free rummy site. There are many sites out there that are dedicated solely to teaching people how to play rummy. This is just a basic guide on how to play rummy and should be used as a reference on how to play basic rummy only. This does not apply to different variations of rummy.