Rummy Rules — How to Play and Keep Score
Rummy is the plain ancestor of a very large family. Players draw and discard, building sets of matching ranks and runs of consecutive cards in the same suit, and race to be the first to get rid of everything. Each hand produces one number per player, so a rounds sheet with a running total is all the bookkeeping the game needs.
Overview
Rummy is the plain ancestor of a very large family. Players draw and discard, building sets of matching ranks and runs of consecutive cards in the same suit, and race to be the first to get rid of everything. Each hand produces one number per player, so a rounds sheet with a running total is all the bookkeeping the game needs.
Setup
Two to six players and one standard 52-card deck, or two decks shuffled together with five or more players. Deal ten cards each with two or three players, seven each with four, and six each with five or six. Place the rest face down as the stock and turn the top card face up to start the discard pile.
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.
Scoring
Card values for anything left in hand when the hand ends:
- Ace: 1 by default, or 11 or 15 depending on the setting
- King, queen, jack and ten: 10 each
- All other cards: their printed number
- Joker: the joker penalty, 15 by default
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.
Going rummy. A player who lays down every card in one single turn, having melded nothing in any earlier turn, doubles the hand score. In winner-takes-all mode that doubles what they collect; in penalties mode it doubles what everyone else is charged.
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.
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.
Scoring at a glance
| Who wins | First to target |
|---|---|
| Played to | 100 points by default |
| Score sheet | One number per player per round, with a running total |
| Typical round score | 0 – 120 |
| Negative scores | Possible |
| Worth knowing | With the default winner-takes-all setting only one player scores each hand and everybody else records zero. |
Rummy — score sheet
Worked example
Settings: targetScore: 100, scoringMode: winnerTakesAll, aceValue: 1,
goingRummyDoubles: true, goingOutBonus: 0.
Players: Anna, Ben, Cara.
Under winnerTakesAll, the player who goes out scores the total value of the cards
left in every other hand; the others score nothing. High total wins.
| Hand | Went out | Anna's deadwood | Ben's deadwood | Cara's deadwood | Anna | Ben | Cara |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anna | — | 24 | 31 | +55 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | Cara | 18 | 12 | — | 0 | 0 | +30 |
| 3 | Ben (rummy) | 21 | — | 15 | 0 | +72 | 0 |
| 4 | Anna | — | 9 | 26 | +35 | 0 | 0 |
Hand 3 was a rummy — Ben laid his entire hand in one turn without previously melding.
With goingRummyDoubles: true the hand value doubles: (21 + 15) × 2 = 72.
Running totals:
| After | Anna | Ben | Cara |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 55 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | 55 | 0 | 30 |
| 3 | 55 | 72 | 30 |
| 4 | 90 | 72 | 30 |
Expected standings after hand 4: Anna 90 (rank 1), Ben 72 (rank 2), Cara 30 (rank 3).
finished: false — nobody has reached 100.
What this catches:
The entry is not the same as the score. What gets written on paper is each
player's deadwood; what the winner scores is the sum of everyone else's. Whether
the app asks for deadwood per player or the winner's total directly is a UI decision,
but the stored entries must be the raw values so that toggling scoringMode to
eachPlayerScoresOwn recomputes without re-entering anything.
The rummy multiplier applies to the whole hand value, not per opponent. 72, not 42 + 30 computed separately with different rules.
Ace value is a setting for a reason. At aceValue: 1 an ace in deadwood is worth
1; tables that play aces high score it 11 or 15. The same deadwood produces a
different total, which is exactly why it is configurable rather than hard-coded.
House rules and settings
Every table plays Rummy a little differently. These are the 9 rules groups argue about. Each one is a setting in the app — and changing it recalculates a match that is already in progress, which is the thing no other score keeper does.
Play to: what is the default in Rummy?
The game ends once a player's running total reaches this number at the end of a hand.
Default: 100. Adjustable from 25 to 1000 in steps of 25.
In the app: “Play to”.
Who scores: what are the options in Rummy?
In the first mode the player who goes out banks the value of everyone else's unmelded cards and the highest total wins. In the second, each player is charged for their own leftovers and the lowest total wins, which flips the whole game around.
Default: Winner takes everyone's leftovers. Two options:
In the app: “Who scores”.
Ace counts: what are the options in Rummy?
How much an ace stranded in your hand costs. Low aces keep hands cheap; high aces make holding one a real risk.
Default: 1 point. Three options:
In the app: “Ace counts”.
Going rummy doubles the hand: on or off in Rummy?
Doubles the score for a hand when a player lays down their entire hand in one turn without having melded anything earlier.
Default: on.
In the app: “Going rummy doubles the hand”.
Laying off allowed: on or off in Rummy?
Lets you add single cards to melds already on the table in front of other players, which is the main way to dump expensive leftovers.
Default: on.
In the app: “Laying off allowed”.
Bonus for going out: what is the default in Rummy?
A flat reward on top of the leftovers for being the player who empties their hand. Leave at zero for the plain game.
Default: 0. Adjustable from 0 to 50 in steps of 5.
In the app: “Bonus for going out”.
Number of decks: what is the default in Rummy?
How many 52-card packs are shuffled together. More decks suit larger groups and make long runs easier to build.
Default: 1. Adjustable from 1 to 3 in steps of 1.
In the app: “Number of decks”.
Jokers are wild: on or off in Rummy?
Adds jokers that can stand in for any card in a meld. A joker left in your hand is expensive.
Default: off.
In the app: “Jokers are wild”.
Joker left in hand costs: what is the default in Rummy?
What an unused wild card is worth against you when someone else goes out.
Default: 15. Adjustable from 0 to 50 in steps of 5.
In the app: “Joker left in hand costs”.
Variants of Rummy
Block Rummy
The stock is never turned over. If it runs out before anyone goes out the hand is dead and nobody scores.
500 Rum
Players score the value of the cards they have melded as well as being charged for what remains in hand, and the game runs to 500.
Boathouse Rum
Drawing rules are looser and only the player going out scores, but the loser is charged for every card in hand whether melded or not.
Rummy is also known as
Straight Rummy, Basic Rummy, Sai Rummy. These are the same game — the rules and the score sheet above apply to all of them.
Keep score offline
The sheet above works in your browser. Cardzo for iPhone remembers your players, survives a closed tab, and works in a field with no signal.
Coming to the App Store.