Rummikub
The game of Rummikub (pronounced "Rummy Cube" or "Rummy Cub") is essentially a version of rummy played with tiles instead of cards. As such it is similar to the Turkish game of Okey.
History
Rummikub was invented by Ephraim Hertzano whilst he was living in Romania. It is said that the game's invention was prompted by a law forbidding the use of playing cards. The new game allowed Romanians in the 1940s to play card games lawfully - by not using cards!The popularity of Rummikub grew and the game spread throughout the world. It eventually took America by storm in the 1970s and was the USA's best selling game in 1977. In 1978 Hertzano's Official Rummikub Book was published and in 1980 the game won the prestigious German Spiel Des Jahres (Game of the Year) Award.
Mariana and Micha Hertzano - Ephraim's children - established Lemada Light Industries in 1978 to market their father's game. Today you can buy Rummikub in numerous different editions around the world.
How to Play Rummikub
The basic Rummikub set consists of 106 tiles. 104 of these are formed by combining the numbers 1 to 13 twice each with the colours black, red, blue and orange (a choice welcomed by those of us who suffer from red-green colour blindness!). The colours are thus equivalent to the four suits of a traditional pack of cards. The two remaining tiles are Jokers. The Rummikub tiles can be thought of as two standard packs of cards plus two jokers.The game also comes with racks on which the players store their tiles. Some sets you can buy also include a timer.
As with all card games - especially rummy - there are numerous possible variations of Rummikub. Here is one set of rules.
The tiles are shuffled and each player (up to four) takes 14. The object is to be the first player to play all your tiles from your hand (rack) onto the table. This is done by melding - either groups (three or four tiles of the same number but all different colours) or runs (three or more consecutive tiles of the same colour - 1 is always low and there is no maximum length of a run). Jokers are "wild cards".
Each player in turn either takes a tile from the pool or melds tiles - not both. Melded tiles are placed in the centre of the table - they are not specific to the player who layed them.
A meld can either consist of playing a set of tiles entirely from the hand or of adding to and rearranging tiles already melded. The first meld from each player must consist entirely of tiles from their rack with a total numerical value of 30 or more (jokers count as the number for which they are standing in).
When melding the player can rearrange tiles to maximise the number that can be used, so long as all the tiles form valid melds at the end of the process. A meld containing a Joker may be added to but may not be reorganised. However the player may replace the joker with the "real" tile it represents, after which the tiles in the meld can be rearranged at will.
Note that the melded tiles form a shared pool on the table. You can add to and rearrange any meld, regardless of who initially played it.
Because of the potential complexity of the rearrangement process some players impose a time limit on a player's turn.
If more than a single hand is being played then score is kept as follows: when one player has laid all their tiles the others each add up the values of the tiles still in their racks (jokers count as 30). They deduct their hand score from their total score. The total score of the hand winner is increased by the total hand score of all the other players.