15/08/2008 by Alex.

If you are still doubting your online rummy skill then check this out its an online tutorial for Gin Rummy - Over the coming days I will upload the tutorials for all the other games as well.

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29/04/2008 by Alex.

Gin Rummy Strategy – An Introduction

Gin rummy is a very interesting and fun game to play. However, like some of the other card games, strategy plays an important role in deciding whether you win or lose a game. It is very important to be aware of gin rummy strategy, especially if you are a beginner, as without it your chances of winning consistently reduce drastically. If you are up against an experienced player, without knowing at least some basic gin rummy strategy, your loss would be more or less certain.

Basically, you can divide gin rummy strategy into two types:

• Basic gin rummy strategy
• Advanced gin rummy strategy

In this article, we will discuss some of the strategies you can employ to increase your chances of winning while playing gin rummy.

The Basics of Gin Rummy Strategy

The basic strategies in gin rummy are quite simple. You can easily learn them even as a beginner, and ensure you have the game going. Even as a beginner, you should know some of the advanced strategies as they are simple and enable you to increase your chances of winning greatly. First, we will see the basic gin rummy strategies you can employ.

The first thing you must learn to do while playing gin rummy is to meld cards such that you are able to create runs (sequences of cards) and sets. Once you start doing this, the next thing to do is to start discarding standalone cards, preferably the high ones. The idea is to finish your hand as soon as possible and then knock.

Some Advanced Gin Rummy Strategy

Once you are aware of the basic strategies for gin rummy, you are now ready to learn the advanced strategies. These are also relatively simple, and easy to pick up.

The first advanced strategy in gin rummy is to be aware of the importance of the middle cards. In gin rummy, the middle cards have high strategic importance, even more than the face cards or cards of low value. The card that you can use the most to form combinations is 7.

For instance, the ace may have a high value from the perspective of points, but can be used in a run with just a 2-3 combination. This is not the case with the 7-card, which you can use with different card combinations – at the end of a 5-6 sequence, in the middle of a 6-8 sequence, or at the beginning of an 8-9 sequence.

There is also the possibility of your opponent knocking lower to get an undercut. This is a distinct possibility if the game has meandered such that you are now nearing the end of the card deck. The decision to knock, also called ‘go for gin’, and depends on the number of cards left to draw that could potentially give you gin on your next draw. This number usually ranges from zero to five.

Another good strategy to follow is to retain your high cards at the beginning of a game, as your opponent is more than likely to drop them. You could pick up one of the high cards your opponent drops to create sets or runs, thereby reducing to a large extent the number of points you have left from your unmelded cards. However, you must understand this is a good policy to adopt at the beginning of a game. Holding on to them as the game progresses is a risk that you should not take, as it could mean your opponent is using high cards as well.

Right so there you go that is basic gin rummy strategy and now I have given you some of my wise knowledge, get out there and win some money

Good Luck!

Posted in Offline Rummy, Rummy Games, rummy strategy, online rummy | 3 Comments »

20/02/2008 by Alex.

As I play rummy online more and more I am finding that there are soooooo many different names for the same game but oddly the rules often also change depending on everything from which country you are in to the family you are playing against. In this post I am going to try and explain the main types of rummy, their common names and the basic characteristics.

The stats on the game of rummy itself are incredible for example did you know mahjong is a version of rummy and amazingly it is played by over 200,000,000 people and another 300 million rummy players to that and you have more than half a billion rummy players in the world which is huge and actually makes it the most popular online card game…..even bigger than poker! Much like poker though it isn’t just one game but is actually a whole bunch of different games that have spun off a core original game.

As mentioned the problem with rummy online is that there are no official rules posted anywhere however the basic fundamental principles of the game are the same, i.e. the style and strategy of each game. John McLeod from the game encyclopedia Pagat, advocates a method of separating Rummy games into a number of categories, including: Basic, Conquian, Knock, Contract, Asian, Meld Scoring, Canasta, and Manipulation.

Category 1 - Basic Rummy Games

Basic rummy games like standard rummy is about melding your whole hand as soon as you can thus making you the winner of the game. However as we have all found basic rummy still varies in its rules depending where you are, i.e. Kalooki (also kalookie, kaluki, kalukie) played in Europe and North America, Rummikub again played in North America which involves tiles as opposed to actual cards (FYI you can select using tiles in Rummy Royal if you like) Loba de Menos which is played in Argentina to name just a few.

Category 2 - Conquian Type Games

Conquian rummy also known as Panguingue stems form the early Spanish communities and although the objective is the same as basic rummy the method of play is very different. Instead of adding a drawn card to your hand  you have to use the last discard to add it to an existing set displayed on the table as soon as you pick the card up. If you don’t do this you must take the next card from the stockpile and put it on top of the discard pile for the next player to use.

Category 3 - Knock Rummy Games

The most common knock rummy game is of course Gin Rummy which like all knock rummy games allows you to only go out when your unmelded cards or deadwood add up to less than a predetermined point score, for example in Gin Rummy it is normally 10. The great thing is that if one of your opponents has less deadwood and therefore undercuts you they will score a bonus against you so you never really know who is the winner until the very end.

Category 4 - Contract Style Rummy

Contract Rummy is a type of rummy where the first meld follows a preset contract which then gets more and more complicated as each deal is made - Remember all Contract Rummy games have two decks. There are loads and loads of names for contract rummy including Shanghai Rummy, Liverpool Rummy, Joker rummy, Progressive Rummy, Carioca Kalooki, Push kalooki, Jamaican Kalooki, South African Kalooki and Telefunken. 

Within these different variations the amount and type of contracts used can vary massively. In Shanghai Rummy there is ten contracts, seven in Contract Rummy, five in Russian Rummy leaving only one in Continental Rummy.

 The most popular form of this version of the game is of course Contract Rummy itself followed Shanghai Rummy, Liverpool Rummy, and Russian Rummy.

Category 5 - Asian Style Rummy

Asian style rummy is played with both tiles and cards which vary a lot more than a normal set of playing cards creating a great number of variations - In addition the sets that you can go out on can vary depending on who or what version you are playing . In some versions you can pick up discards from others to make a set when it isn’t your turn and in other games certain matching sets can be viewed as more valuable than others.

The obvious and most common version of this game is of course Mahjong which as we have come to expect also goes under a bunch of different names including Mahjongg, Mah Jongg, Mah Jong, and Mah Jiang. Mahjong is played with tiles often called money cards across China and Taiwan and 99% of the time will involve some kind of gambling for money. Mahjong is more of a past time in Asia as opposed to simply a game.

Category 6 - Meld Scoring Rummy

Meld Scoring Rummy is very similar to Mahjong in that points are given for melds of which some melds are better than others and thus score higher. A good example of this game is Rummikub and Rummy 500 or 500 Rum, Romanian Tile Rummy, and Indonesian Remi which you probably worked out is Indonesian Rummy.

Category 6 - Manipulation Rummy

Although a different form of the standard game of rummy these games still employ many of the basic rules except that you can rearrange existing melds so that you can create new ones with your cards. Like basic rummy the objective is still to go out first but with this added twist it can get a little tricky. The most common types of this game include Rummikub and Carousel which also goes by Vatikan, Manipulation, and Sabre.

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24/08/2007 by Alex.

I think this is a really interesting question particulary because I am a poker player and that hasn’t been passed by law as a game of skill but gin rummi has, which means I can gamble on rummi in the USA legally but not poker.

Gin rummi was officially passed as a game of skill back in 1965 by the US District Court of Las Vegas based on tesimony from experts ranging from some of the best players around at the time through to statisticians. 

But why did they pass this leglislation? Firstly in Gin Rummi there are a total of 15,820,024,220 possible ten-card hands and because of this no player will play the same game consistently plus players can actually choose to play with the cards they “catch” in different ways which is where the skill comes in. Remember as you get better the idea of rummi is to force your opponents to play the cards you want them to play - I will go through this startegy in another artcile soon, but first back to the stats that make rummi a skill game:

• In Gin Rummi there are 52 three-card melds of three of a kind — three jacks, three fours, etc.
• There are 44 melds of three cards of the same suit in sequence 3-4-5 of diamonds, 9-10-Jack of hearts, etc.
• Once you have achieved a three-card meld in Gin Rummi, the chances of extending three of a kind are twice less likely than extending a running sequence.
• Most sequence melds can be extended at either end, however three of a kind can only be added to by one card. 
• A Sequence meld of four cards can grow into a much higher number by adding cards to the sequence, but four of a kind have no further possibilities.

So there it is - I still don’t quite get it but according to the facts these were the stats presented in court to prove this is rummi is a game that you can win through skill and strategy.

Keep reading this blog and you will learn more and more and of course win even more! I am learning everyday and it is showing in my winnings! I will update you on my rummi diary in the next few days once I have got the numbers up a bit more!

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06/08/2007 by Alex.

Gin Rummi is a classic skill-based card game that leaves much room for personal rummi strategy. The following tips can be seen as a list of basic guidelines that can help unravel some of the game’s basic elements that incorporate the use of skill.

A single standard deck of 52 cards is used in Gin Rummi. This determines certain aspects of the game as well as dictates some guidelines you want to pay attention to.

First, since only one deck of cards is being used, in case a card you need has been discarded onto the discard pile while you cannot pick it up, note that it is not likely to show up again in this round. Therefore, you might want to reconsider your melding strategy accordingly.
In addition, a Gin Rummi round is usually over after half way through the deck, therefore, at this stage you might want to get rid of any high cards that do not match any of your melds to reduce your deadwood count.

When drawing cards, it is advisable that you pick up cards from the stock pile rather than the discard pile. This way your opponents will have a much harder time keeping track of the cards in your hand. Another good reason to draw cards from the stock pile is related to the hands of your opponents. Since the cards discarded onto the discard pile are cards your opponents do not need, by picking up cards from the stock pile you may be preventing them from completing melds.

Pay attention to the cards your opponent draw from the stock pile so you can avoid throwing them cards they need to complete their melds.

To reduce their deadwood count, many players choose to avoid picking up card of high value. You can use this opportunity to form melds out of these cards easily.

In a multi-round Gin Rummi game catching your opponents off guard by knocking early during a round will pay off more than waiting for Gin in the long run.

* In both ring games and tournaments, it is advisable that you knock early to avoid the risk of undercut.

In case you achieved a significant advantage over your opponents during previous rounds, it is best to avoid any further risks, and so to maintain the current score status.

When forming melds you want to go for 4 card sets rather consecutive runs, to prevent your opponents from laying off their unmatching cards at the end of the round.

When it comes to ring games, the points are not accumulated after each round is over, and so it is advisable you go for a gin rather thank knock, since this move pays more.

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