Winning an Open game pays the least amount of points. It is a mere 100, compared with anywhere from 300 to 2600 for winning with a closed Hand. However, playing Open does ensure that you will lose only a modest amount if an opponent should win. Once you have melded, all you will lose is the value of the tiles left on your rack. If an opponent goes while your 14 tiles are still on your rack, you lose the exact amount that he wins, and that can be anywhere from 300 to 2600 points, so you don’t want this to happen.
At the same time, winning an Open game is usually easier than winning a Hand and it may be your only way to end with a winning score, no matter how small. Winning is always better than losing, so there are certain times that you do want to play an Open game so that you can rest assured you will get some points.
Sometimes the discards of your opponents will tell you that you cannot possibly win a Hand. If you cannot reasonably switch to a different Hand, then you should switch to an Open game. As the game progresses, if you feel that one of your opponent’s is about to declare Rummikub, that is certainly a time to switch games and cut your losses. Don’t forget, even if you do this, you will still have the 50 points for the initial meld.
Your tactics will also be influenced by the fact that one or more of your opponent’s has melded. Each time one of them switches to an Open game, it gives you more reason to hold out for a big Hand. That is, it decreases your chances of losing a large number of points since an Open player can only win 100 points, and that is all you will lose.
Strategy of the Foot Game
As soon as an opponent has melded, you should re-examine your tiles to see if you can convert a Hand game which still lacks several tiles into a winning Foot game. Unless you are quite close to winning a large Hand, and think that your chances are good, it may be a wise choice to take a win with fewer points. The Foot game is worth 200 points and rather than gamble on your big win, that will also accompany a big loss if your do lose, then you may want to switch to the Foot game.