Rummikub Online Guide

Now that we have established the initial meld of the game, let’s talk about the play of the game after that. After a player makes their initial meld, they can make melds of any value after that. These may be new melds, or tiles added to other melds on the table. As long as the player has a turn they can continue to meld tiles or hold onto the tiles for strategic purposes later on in the game.

Another option open to a player after he has made his initial meld is instead of drawing a tile from the pool available to all players, they can also pick up the top tile of the discard stack of the payer on their left. However, he may pick up the discard only if he can use the tile immediately for a meld. A player cannot pick up the discarded tile to put in their rack.

The discarded tile is always the last tile put on the table which means that his turn is completed. The tiles in the rack, added to the tiles that have already been melded, plus the discarded tile must add up to 14. The player places the discarded tile on the table face up, to his right, and stacks subsequent discards squarely on top of it so that only the uppermost tile is visible. No player is permitted to peek at the tiles underneath the top tile, not even if the discard pile is your own.

At the end of the game, you’ll notice that there is one tile left face up at the end of the pool. This is called the trump and may be picked up by any player who can use it to win the game. At the player’s last turn, instead of drawing a tile from the pool, he takes the trump and melds it with his final set, declaring himself “Rummikub”. You can add the trump to a run or to a set, as long as you play it on some meld that you already have.

The scoring on the American Rummikub is very simple. After one player has called “Rummikub” the losing players add up the values of the tiles remaining on their racks. All tiles have face value, with tile 1 being scored as 1 point, and the joker counting as 30 points. The score of each player is entered in their column on the score pad as a minus or negative number. The loser’s scores are added up and their sum is entered in the winning player’s column as a plus or positive score. At the end of the game session, the player’s columns are added up vertically. The totals, including the entire plus and minuses, will determine the final winners and losers, and the exact amounts won or lost by each player. If there are no mistakes in the arithmetic, the plus scores should equal the minus scores in each game, and in the final tally.