Players:
2-6
Ages:
Kindergarten & up depending on game variation
Place:
Table or any flat surface
Equipment:
2 decks of VoWac Alphabet Playing Cards
A
good game of rummy requires a lot of strategic thinking.
Paying attention to what the other players are doing and having the
flexibility to rethink positions constantly are the two most important
paths to success in this game.
Everyone
picks a card, and the one who draws the “a” or closest to it shuffles
and deals one card at a time, facedown, to all the players.
If there are two players, each gets ten cards; if there are three
or four players, each gets seven; if there are five or six, each gets six
cards. The rest of the cards
are then placed facedown in a stack in the middle.
This is the “stock” pile.
The top card of the stock pile is turned over and set alongside the
stock to start a discard pile.
Each
player’s object is to get rid of all her cards during the game. The only way to do this is to collect certain combinations of
cards called “melds”. Melds
include any group of three or four cards of the same letter, or any
sequence of three or four cards in alphabetical order.
In other words, both symbols of “c” and the “c” saying, or
the symbols and/or sayings for the sequence of: “d” through “g”.
(Alphabet sequencing is easier for older children.)
The
player to the dealer’s left begins by picking the top card from either
the facedown stock pile or the face-up discard pile.
He then discards any card from his hand onto the discard pile.
(If he has picked a card from the discard pile, however, he can’t
discard the same card.) Play proceeds clockwise, with each player picking and
discarding a card. Whenever a
player gets meld, she lays it face up on the table.
A player may even have a meld to lay out right after the initial
deal, and that’s fine.
As
players begin putting out their melds, the other players on their turns
may “lay off” cards onto those melds, adding a fourth card to a
three-of-a-kind or to the high or low end of a three-in-a-row sequence. (A
fourth sequence may not be added to.)
Players may lay off as many cards as possible during a turn.
If
the stock runs out and the player does not want the top card in the
discard pile, the discard pile is turned over and used as new stock.
A player does not have to discard when he goes out, unless he wants
to.
Scoring
is typically done in rummy games. One
way to score would be to simply count the cards, and the person with the
most melds, wins!
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