Traditional Rummy is played with a 52 deck of cards, no jokers, and hands consist of 10 cards. The remaining cards are placed face down as the stock pile and one card is placed face-up on the table to start the discard pile.
The object of the game is to dispose of your hand by creating melds of 3 or more cards of runs or sets which can then be discarded or laid down face up on the table. You create your melds by taking a card either from the stock pile or the discard pile and then disposing of a card. You must dispose of a card to complete your turn.
If you have any melds you can lay them down on the table face up at your turn instead of discarding a card.
When, and if, the stock pile runs out, the discard pile is shuffled and placed face down as the new stock pile. The player who took the last card of the old stock pile turns over the top card to create a new discard pile.
There are two ways to win Traditional Rummy: Going Rummy and Going Out. Going Out is when a player manages to discard or lay down his last card. Going Rummy, is when a player gets rid of his whole hand as melds in one go, without having previously laid down any melds. The cards’ are scored by their numbers with the jack, queen and king all scoring 10; the highest combined score of the melds wins the game.
Penalty points are awarded to the losing players. For opponents beaten by a Going Out hand it’s the value of the remaining cards in the defeated players’ hand. For those beaten by Going Rummy it’s the value of the remaining cards in the defeated players hand plus 25 penalty points.
The winner of a tournament is the last player in the game who has not exceeded the penalty point elimination level, or the first player to accumulate the required high score.
