Game rummy - the various rummy types played in countries

Game rummy - the various rummy types played in countries

The game rummy originally seems to have evolved from China and later worked its way to other countries. Today it has become one of the most popular games played in the United States. However, that hasn’t stopped the game from being played in other countries. The game rummy is known by different names in different countries. However, the basic rules of the game and methods used remain the same till date.

Basic rules of rummy

Rummy in all its forms essentially follows the same rules. Each player is dealt a certain number of cards (this will depend on the number of players playing). Then the players arrange their cards into sets or runs and the player making a meld first gets to win the game.

Variations of the game rummy

The game has been tweaked in several countries depending on the popularity and consensus. For example:

• Conquian group: This is a forerunner of all the typical western variations of game rummy. The game is played in the same way except that cards drawn from the discarded pile can never be used to add to a players hand. Instead the card drawn must be immediately used in a meld exposed on the table. Or else the next card from the top of the discard pile can be turned over and used the same way.
• Panguingue: In this form, the game is played with 8 decks of cards out of which all 8s, 9s, and 10s have been eliminated. This leaves a total of 320 cards on the table. The objective of this type of game rummy is to make melds comprising 11 cards and finally go out. The beauty of this game is that the best hand need not win and any hand can be potentially a winner.
• Pitty Pat: This is the national card game rummy of the country of Belize. It is played by 2-4 players and involves a standard deck of 52 cards. Each player is dealt 5 cards and the objective of the game is to end up discarding all the cards in your hand.
• Si Se Pai: This is another name used for Chinese four color chess cards. The pack of cards comprises 28 cards of different colors each – green, white, yellow and red. These depict the seven Chinese chess pieces. The game is quite similar to Mah-Jong. The objective of the game is the same as in the game rummy i.e. to make winning hands comprised of melds.

cube rummy

• Quan Dui: The term means ‘complete pairs’ and is a form of rummy involving up to 6 players in the game. However the exact number of players is not very critical to the game. The objective of this game if to make a hand comprising 16 cards with 8 pairs each.
• Kap Tai Shap: The term means ‘collecting tens’ and it is very similar to the game rummy. Instead of cards, however, dominoes are used for this purpose. Also, rather than making melds of 3 or four card sets, the objective is to make pairs of two cards each.
• Mah Jong: This is a very popular card game rummy. This game consists of 144 cards or tiles – 3 suits of tiles numbered from 1 to 9 making a total of 108 suit tiles, 16 tiles comprising ‘directions’, 12 tiles depicting ‘dragons’ and 8 bonus tiles. 13 cards are dealt to each player and the objective of this game rummy is to make runs and groups of melds.

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