How to Play Turkish Rummy (Okey)

One of the more unusual variations of rummy, which is popular in Turkey is known as Okey. It’s sometimes called Turkish Rummy or Rummy Okey or even Turkish Rummy Okey. Okey is played with tiles in place of cards, but the game is basically the same as rummy. Here’s how it’s played:

Played with 106 Tiles and Four People

While it is possible to play Okey with two or three people, traditionally the game is played with four people and that’s the way we do it here at Rummy-Gin.Org. The game, as noted above is played with tiles, 106 of them in total. These tiles are all placed face down on the table and thoroughly mixed up, kind of shuffling the deck of cards. Then, 21 stacks of the tiles are made up with one left over which the dealer holds for the moment.

You need to place six stacks of Okey tiles in front of the dealer. The other stacks can be placed in front of the various players (this is of course all done for you automatically when you play Okey here at Rummy-Gin.Org).

Throw the Dice

In a departure from Rummy, Okey is also played with dice (actually, a single die), but only for the beginning of the game.

The next step is for the dealer to throw the dice twice. The die, which is a six sided cube, will decide which of the six stacks the dealer deals first. The dealer counts from left to right to decide this. Once this is done, the dealer places the extra tile, face up on top of that stack.

The second throw of the die decides which tile in the stack will be pulled out and placed on top of the stack. Since there are now six tiles, you simply count up from the bottom. If the tile is a joker however, that tile is placed back in the stack and you keep throwing the die until you get a number tile. Otherwise, it is placed face up on top of the stack.

Random Number Wild

That face up tile which the dealer selected in the previous step now decided what the wild number will be. The wild number is the next number up from that tile but of the same suit (so for example if it was 3 blue, then 4 blue will be wild for the game).

Deal the Tiles

The player to the dealer’s right will receive 15 tiles total while the other players get 14 each. All of this again happens automatically in our Turkish Rummy game so that you don’t have to think about it while you’re playing.

How to Play

From here on, play continues in much the same way as it does in other Rummy games. You draw a tile from one of the stacks remaining in the center of the table and you can either leave it where it was, discarding it face up for other players to take or you can take it and discard a different tile.

How to Win

Okey is pretty much the same from here on in as Rummy – you need to create melds of either sets or runs. These are either three of a kind or four of a kind (i.e. the same number with different colors) or runs which are the same color of tile and consecutive numbers. The one exception which makes Turkish Rummy so interesting (other than playing with tiles) is that you can also win the game by getting seven pairs (i.e. two 2s, two three, two fours, etc.). So come on down and play Okey today. You’ll thank us later.