Rummy: How to Play a Popular Family Card Game

Seven-card rummy is played with two packs and any number can play - provided that a reasonable number of cards remains in the un-dealt stack in the middle of the table. This is unlike Gin Rummy, which is played with only one pack and is best suited to two people.

The object of each player is to compile sets of three or more cards of the same value ( for example, three sevens) or three or more cards making a sequence in the same suit (for example, the five, six,, seven and eight of hearts).

Aces can count high or low in sequences; two's are 'wild' and may be used to represent any card. The dealer shuffles the two packs and deals cards face down and one by one round the players until each has seven. The rest of the pack is placed face down in the middle of the table, and the top card is turned face up beside it.

Starting with the player on the dealer's left, each player in turn has the choice of taking the top card from the unexposed pack or the exposed card beside it, to try to improve his hand.

After he has taken his card, he must discard one onto the exposed pile. The next player then has the choice of that card or the top one from the unexposed pack as play moves round the table.

Once the player has at least six of the cards in his hand organized into sets or sequences, and if any remaining card is a seven or lower, he may 'go down' declaring his hand and ending that round of play. A player may not go down in a turn when he has already changed a card. He must wait for his next turn.

When one player goes down, he and all the other players must lay their hands face up on the table, so that scoring can begin. If the player going down has one unplaced card - say a six- other players with spare sixes not included in a set or sequence can add them to his; they do not then count in the scores.

The cards in each player's hand not forming part of a set or sequence are added up and count against him. Picture cards count as ten, aces as one and two's as nothing. Each player's score is recorded and the next round of play begins. If a player should achieve a seven-card sequence, this is 'Rummy" - and removes any points so far counted against the player.

Each player is eliminated when his score reaches a previously agreed figure, usually 100 points, until a winner emerges. When seven-card rummy is played for money, each player must put an agreed stake into a central kitty, or pot, at the start of each round he plays in (sometimes the person going down is exempt from the stake for the next round). The winner then takes the pot.

In some variations of seven-card rummy, the pot is divided between the two last players remaining, in proportions agreed in advance.