What’s This?
This page is dedicated to a Rummy variant I had played with friends and acquaintances before we had physically moved our separate ways. Featured here are the variant's rules and various in-group jokes and references.
The Rules
What to Bring
The game is played with the standard deck of 52 french-suited cards (this excludes the jokers). Ideally, the deck's back art is black, bearing the name of the attraction it was purchased from, and is brought to the table in a transparent container.
The game is played with at least two people. A game consisting of a single player will not result in a crash, but the experience won't be the same.
Setup
The designated dealer deals 7 cards to each player. What remains of the deck becomes the draw pile, with the space next to it designated as a discard pile. The game starts with the player left of the dealer.
Objective & Scoring
Players publicly play melds or add on to existing melds. The game ends when one player has played all the cards in their hand.
Points are awarded for cards a player has played. This includes cards added on to another player's meld. Points are deducted for cards remaining in a player's hand. The resulting difference is the total each player has earned for the round.
The points values of the cards are as follows:
- Numbered (2-10): 5
- Face (J,Q,K): 10
- Aces: 15
Melds
Melds are made within a player's turn while additions can happen at any time. Melds fall under two categories:
Cards of the same rank.
Cards of the same suit in sequential order. The sequence follows the deck's traditional order and allows wrap-arounds where Aces succeed Kings and precede Twos.
Melds must be made with at least three cards, but additions to melds can be made with at least one card. In the case where an add-on can be applied to two melds, the player can choose which one to add their card to.
Draw & Discard
A player's turn always starts with a draw and ends with a discard. Between these two actions, the player may create melds or do nothing.
The turn which results in the game's end must also end with a discard, so a player cannot end the game with a meld.
When drawing, the player may choose to do the following:
They may choose to draw the top card from the face down draw pile or the face up discard pile.
They may take any other card of interest from the discard pile as long as they do the following:
- The player takes every card on top of the card of interest into the hand, and
- The card of interest must be played
And yes, that means the player can pick up the entire discard pile if they need to play the bottommost card.
Ideally, the discard pile is left in a way where players can see all the cards in the pile. Some trickery can allow one to obfuscate the discard pile's cards but players are allowed to look through the discard pile if they need to.
Once there are no more cards in the draw pile, the dealer (or someone who is good at shuffling cards) shuffles the discard pile, making it the new draw pile.
(To reiterate, players must play the card drawn from the discard pile and keep all cards above it, with the exception being the topmost card, which is treated normally as a draw pile draw.)
Rummy
The cards visible in the discard pile may be added on to a meld (or in a rare case contain a meld). In this case, players may call a "rummy". This is done by saying the name of the game out loud first, with the first to call it out claiming the add-on or meld. The claim is then moved from the discard pile to the table and its points going towards the claimant's score.
A player may not claim a rummy silently. Doing so will invalidate the claim.
More
I'm looking through archived sites to find some crazy gifs and stuff to add on to this page and make it more of a shrine.
Until then, if you wish, you can become a disciple by using the rules and playing the variant.
