Indian Rummy rules: a complete guide for beginners

How to play 13-card Indian Rummy: the deal, drawing and discarding, sequences and sets, and what makes a valid declaration.

Indian Rummy is a 13-card draw-and-discard game played at family gatherings, festivals and weekend card nights across India. It’s quick to learn: you draw a card, you throw a card, and you try to be the first to arrange your hand into runs and groups. The depth comes from what you keep, what you give away, and when you choose to declare.

This guide covers the standard rules most tables play. House rules vary from one family to the next, so agree on any differences before the first deal.

What you need

• Players: two to six at one table is the classic game. Bigger groups can play with an extra deck.
• Cards: two standard 52-card decks plus their printed jokers, usually 106 or 108 cards in all. Add a third deck for seven or more players.
• A way to keep score: a sheet of paper, or a score tracker that adds up the totals for you.

The aim of the game

Your goal in each deal is to arrange all 13 cards into valid groups, called sequences and sets, and to be the first player to declare. A declaration needs at least two sequences, and at least one of them must be pure, meaning it uses no joker.

Every card you can’t fit into a group counts against you as points, so in rummy a low score is a good score. Over a series of deals each player builds a running total. In pool games, anyone whose total reaches the agreed limit is out, and the last player left wins.

Dealing the cards

1. Choose the first dealer. A common way is for everyone to pick a card from the shuffled deck, with the lowest card dealing first. After each deal, the next player around the table becomes the dealer.
2. The dealer shuffles and the player beside them cuts the deck.
3. The dealer gives each player 13 cards, one at a time.
4. The rest of the cards go face down in the middle. This is the closed deck. The top card is turned face up beside it to start the open deck, the discard pile.
5. A card is drawn at random from the closed deck and placed face up beneath it. Every card of that rank, in every suit, becomes a wild joker for this deal. If the drawn card is a printed joker, aces are usually wild instead.

Taking a turn

The player next to the dealer goes first, and play continues around the table. Every turn has two steps:

1. Draw one card, either the top card of the closed deck or the top card of the open deck.
2. Discard one card face up onto the open deck.

You always end your turn holding 13 cards. Taking a card from the open deck shows everyone what you’re collecting, so experienced players usually draw from the closed deck unless the open card completes a group. If the closed deck runs out, shuffle the open deck, keeping its top card aside, and use it as the new closed deck.

Sequences and sets

Pure sequence

Three or more cards in a row of the same suit, with no joker standing in for a missing card. For example, 4♥ 5♥ 6♥ or 9♣ 10♣ J♣ Q♣. A wild joker used as its own natural card still counts as pure: if sevens are wild, 5♦ 6♦ 7♦ is a pure sequence.

Impure sequence

Cards in a row of the same suit where a joker fills a gap. For example, 9♠ 10♠ Joker Q♠, where the joker stands in for the jack.

Set

Three or four cards of the same rank, each from a different suit. For example, 8♣ 8♦ 8♠. A joker can complete a set, as in 8♣ 8♦ Joker. Because two decks are in play you may hold two identical cards, but a set can’t include the same suit twice: 8♣ 8♣ 8♦ is not a valid set.

An ace can sit at the bottom of a sequence (A 2 3) or at the top (Q K A), but sequences don’t wrap around, so K A 2 is not valid.

Declaring your hand

When you draw a card and can arrange 13 of your 14 cards into valid groups, place the extra card face down to finish and lay your hand on the table. This is called making a show. A valid show needs:

• at least two sequences;
• at least one of those sequences to be pure;
• every other card to be part of a valid sequence or set.

Here is a valid 13-card hand:

• 5♥ 6♥ 7♥, a pure sequence
• 9♠ 10♠ Joker Q♠, an impure sequence
• 8♣ 8♦ 8♠, a set
• K♥ K♣ K♦, a set

That’s 3 + 4 + 3 + 3 = 13 cards. If a show breaks the rules, for example because it has no pure sequence, it’s a wrong show. The player who made it takes a penalty, usually 80 points, and the deal ends or continues without them depending on your table’s rules.

Scoring a deal

After a valid show, the declarer scores 0 for the deal. Everyone else lays out their best groups and counts the cards left over:

• Aces, kings, queens and jacks are worth 10 points each.
• Number cards are worth their face value, so a 7 is worth 7 points.
• Jokers, printed or wild, are worth 0.

You only get credit for groups if your hand is close to complete. With a pure sequence and a second sequence, only the cards outside your groups count. With a pure sequence but no second sequence, everything except the pure sequence counts. With no pure sequence at all, every card in your hand counts. Most tables cap a single deal at 80 points, often called a full count.

Dropping out of a deal

If your cards look hopeless, you can drop rather than play on. Dropping before your first draw costs less than dropping later, because you haven’t had the chance to improve your hand. In a 101-point pool game a first drop usually costs 20 points and a later drop 40. Once you’ve dropped, you sit out the rest of that deal.

Keeping score across deals

In pool rummy, each player’s points are added to a running total after every deal. Common limits are 101 and 201, and many home games use their own, such as 320. When a player’s total reaches the limit they’re eliminated, and the game continues until one player remains.

A score tracker saves you the arithmetic: enter each player’s points at the end of a deal and it keeps the running totals, shows who is close to the limit, and marks eliminations as they happen.