Rummy Rules — How to Play and Keep Score

Overview

You may also know it as Rum, Straight Rummy or Basic Rummy, and in other languages as Rami or Remi — the same draw-and-discard skeleton under different names. Block Rummy is this game with one rule changed: the stock is never turned over. If your table also scores the cards you meld and plays to 500, 1500 or 5000 points, you are playing 500 Rum, which has its own page.

Setup

Two to six players and one standard 52-card deck. Deal the hands face down, place the rest as the stock and turn the top card face up to start the discard pile.

Cards dealt by number of players

Those are the standard counts. Plenty of tables fix the deal instead — seven cards each or ten cards each whatever the player count — and what people call "7 card rummy" or "10 card rummy" is usually just this game with that deal. With five or six players many groups shuffle two decks together so the stock lasts, which is the Number of decks setting on this page.

Two, three or five players

Two players get ten cards each and the game is at its sharpest, because every card you throw goes to your only opponent; the two-player specialist is Gin Rummy, which has its own page. Three or four players get seven each, and three works perfectly well — nothing in the rules needs an even number. Five or six get six each, usually from two decks, and the hands are short enough that somebody often goes out within a few turns.

How to play

On your turn, draw either the top of the stock or the top of the discard pile, optionally lay down any melds and lay off cards onto existing melds, then discard one card to finish. A meld is three or more cards of the same rank, or three or more cards in sequence in one suit. A player goes out by melding or discarding their last card, which ends the hand immediately.

Sets and runs

A set is three or four cards of the same rank, such as three eights. A run is three or more cards in sequence in one suit — 4-5-6 of hearts, never the 4 of hearts, 5 of clubs and 6 of hearts. The ace is low by default, so A-2-3 is a run and Q-K-A is not; many tables allow it at either end but never both, and only the "round the corner" house rule lets a run wrap through K-A-2. Tables that play the ace high usually charge more for one caught in hand as well — that is the Ace counts setting.

Laying off

Once a meld is on the table, anyone may add matching cards to it on their own turn — a fourth eight to the set, the 3 or the 7 to a 4-5-6 run — whether or not they laid it down. This is how expensive cards leave your hand late in a deal. Some groups forbid it; the Laying off allowed setting turns it off.

Going out: do you have to discard?

In the basic game you go out the moment you have melded, laid off or discarded your last card. A common house rule says the last card must be a discard — you may not meld everything and have nothing to throw — and it changes how you plan the final turn, so agree on it before you deal.

Floating

Under that must-discard rule, a player who has melded every card but has nothing left to throw is floating: still in the hand, drawing each turn, laying off anything playable and going out the first time they draw a card they cannot use. A floater who is beaten to it holds no cards, so under winner-takes-all scoring they are charged nothing, but they collect nothing either.

"Rummy on the board" and calling rummy

A house rule rather than part of the basic game. If somebody discards a card that could have been laid off on a meld already on the table, or misses a play that was sitting there, the first player to call "rummy" may take that card and play it. The details vary from table to table — whether the caller then plays a full turn out of sequence, whether only the missed card is picked up — so settle them before the first deal. It is not among this page's settings because it changes nothing about the arithmetic.

When the stock runs out

Turn the discard pile over, without shuffling, to make a new stock and carry on; some tables shuffle it first. Under Block Rummy the discard pile is never reused: if the stock is gone and the next player does not want the top discard, the hand ends there and nobody scores.

Scoring

Only the cards still in a hand count; melds on the table are worth nothing either way in this game.

Card values

How to keep score

Two methods, and the Who scores setting picks one.

Winner takes all (default). Add up the values left in every other player's hand and give that whole total to the player who went out. Everybody else scores zero for the hand. Running totals only ever climb, and the highest total wins.

Penalties mode. Each player scores the value of their own leftovers as a positive penalty, the player who went out scores zero, and the lowest total wins. Set the sheet to low-score-wins when this mode is on.

What a "rummy" is

Going rummy. A player who lays down every card in one single turn, having melded nothing in any earlier turn, has gone rummy and doubles the hand score. In winner-takes-all mode that doubles what they collect; in penalties mode it doubles what everyone else is charged. Some tables pay a flat 10-point bonus instead of doubling: the Going rummy doubles the hand setting is the double, and Bonus for going out is a flat reward for going out at all.

Playing with two decks

Shuffle two 52-card decks together — the Number of decks setting — for five or six players, or simply for longer hands. Sets can then run past four cards and long runs are easier to build; agree whether two identical cards, say two sevens of spades, may sit in the same set. Card values do not change.

A dead hand

Dead hand. If the stock runs out, the discard pile is turned over and reused. Under the block rummy variant the hand simply ends with nobody scoring and no round is recorded.

Ending the game

Finish the hand in which any player reaches the target, then stop. In winner-takes-all mode that player is normally the winner, but if two players cross in the same hand the higher total takes it. In penalties mode the game ends when anyone reaches the target and the lowest total wins instead.

What score do you play to?

This sheet defaults to 100, the Play to setting; 250 or 500 makes a longer evening. Some groups play an agreed number of hands instead and take the highest total at the end. The 500-point game most people mean is 500 Rum, which also scores the cards you meld and is a different sheet.

Common variations

Playing to 250 or 500 stretches a session out. Some groups forbid laying off entirely, which makes holding high cards much more dangerous. Others require a player to have melded at least once before they are allowed to go out. Round-the-corner rummy lets a run wrap from king through ace to two.