How to Play Rummikub

Believe it or not, Rummikub was created in Israel back in the 1940s. The very first sets of tiles were all hand made by a Romanian Jewish man who moved to Mandatory Palestine in the 1930s. Eventually however, the game became widely known the world over and today is one of the most popular Rummy variations available anywhere.

Played with Tiles

Like Mahjong and Okey, Rummikub is played using a series of tiles rather than cards. The tiles are randomized and then dealt to the players in much the same way as they are dealt in rummy. Each player gets a total of 14 tiles to play the game with and with those tiles, they need to make melds, just like in traditional rummy games.

Melds

Melds can be one of two types in rummikub – either sets or runs. Just like in traditional rummy, a set is three or four of the same numbers from different colors of tiles. This means that you could have the blue, yellow, black and red 5 tiles in order to make a set.

You can also create melds by getting consecutive numbers within the same color set. So for example, you could have 5,6,7 and 8 of blue in order to form a meld. However, unlike sets, these melds can theoretically run the length of your entire 14 tiles, though that would be somewhat difficult to achieve.

The Twist

Unlike in traditional rummy however, rummikub is played by placing your melds on the table. The initial meld must be at worth least 30 points so that you cannot for example put down a run of 2,3 and 4 of yellow. Jokers can however be used to substitute for any other tile and they get the value of the tile they replace (i.e. in the above scenario, if you were to add the joker to the meld, it would be valued at 5 points).

In addition to this, you also must build on the melds that have already been created and placed on the table. This means that for example if you have placed the 4,5 and 6 of blue on the table you can then build on that by putting down the yellow, black and red 5 tiles to complete a second meld.

Object of the Game

The object of Rummikub is to be the first player without any tiles left at all. Once that happens, the total value of the melds that have been created is added up and the value of left over tiles from the other players are added up as well. The tiles from the other players’ left over tiles are added to the winner’s total while the those players have their total subtracted from their total points. Jokers are scored as thirty points for the purpose of scoring in Rummikub.