How to Play 21 Card Rummy: Rules of the Game

Played all over in India at weddings and social gatherings, it is a totally different rush when friends gather to play 21 card rummy game. It requires two to four players, all of whom are dealt a fixed number of cards. Although as many as 10 players can play 21 card rummy game at a time, this is not considered interesting enough since so many players cannot sit around a table normally.

Rules to Play 21 Card Rummy Game

Deal
All the players pick cards from their shuffled decks, randomly. The player who draws the highest value sits the highest, and hence, to the right of the player with the lowest value, who deals first. The player seated to the left of the dealer draws a card from his deck and places it face up on the table. The Joker is chosen, and the player seated to the left of the dealer cuts the cards that remain and the dealer then distributes the cards in an anti-clockwise direction. Players are dealt 13 cards each. In the next hand, the turn to deal is transferred to the person on the right, and this goes on till everyone has dealt once. Change in seating is done only after the completion of a round.

Sequences and Sets
The aim of the game is to form sequences and sets from the cards dealt to each player. The rules for rummy to make these sets are:
• A sequence consists of 3 or more consecutive cards of the same suit.
• A set comprises of 3 cards of the same rank in different suits.
• Combinations should not overlap.
• Wild cards are used to substitute any card in a sequence or a set. However, a straight run cannot be formed with wild cards.
• To be able to declare rummy and therefore win, it is mandatory to have at least two sequences, out of which one should be straight.
Playing
Whenever you get ready to play 21 cards game, take care of the following directions:
The player seated to the right of the dealer gets to play 21 card rummy first, and the round continues in an anti-clockwise fashion. If a player takes a card from the top of the discard pile, that card cannot be discarded by him in the same turn. The game continues until a player has 13 cards forming legitimate combinations. Discarding the 14th card, the player then declares “Rummy” and places the 13 cards face up, proving his call, and hence wins the game.
No sequences or sets are laid out while the game is in progress. If no cards remain in the stack and no player declares “Rummy” till the end of the turn of taking the last stock card, the game is said to be void.

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