Which card to pick in skill Rummy? Part – 4

Which card to pick up – the open card or the card on top? Several situations!

A skilled player’s secret is “Picking the right card”, so it is very important to understand what card to pick.

Rummy is categorized as a skill game for this reason, it is not gambling as it requires skill to pick the right card.

Let us look at following situations which can help develop our skill for picking the right card.

We have learnt how to pick a card in blog 1.2, now let us understand which card to pick – the open card or the card on the top?

Scenario 1)

In the above scenario you would find that Spade Jack is in open card and player has Spades 6 to 9 set and a Clubs 10 and Jack some players treat Spade Jack as a support card to make a set with above mentioned sets and they take the open card, but if you closely observe the player’s cards – he already has a sequence and has two sets which can become sets, hence lifting another support card that too when the card value is highest (10 score) it is not advisable. (Picking a closed card is more advisable)

 

Scenario 2

Here like in Scenario 1, Hearts 9 is going to act as a support card, which could be made a triplet with Spade 9 if another suit 9 is added, but here the player is expected to make a second sequence and without which all the cards leaving sequence will add to score, hence picking the open card is not advisable.

Scenario 3

Now player has made a sequence (spades 6 to 9) and also a second sequence (clubs 10 , Jack and a joker), and the open card acts as a extension card which doesn’t add any points to the score as it goes into sequence, but if you look at already the player has a 4 cards set and needs to build at the least 3 more 3 cards sets ( out of which one set is already made) and has only one proper combination of cards which could become a set by getting a card. Diamond 2, 6 and Clubs 7 are not useful to make a set.

Now the player needs to make a decision of picking the open card to just throw a highest useless card (Club 7). Or can take a close card to check if it can help in making a second set. If you look closely in the scenario 1 and 2 he had an extra spade 8 which is now not available in Sc.3 which means he has discarded that card. Hence by picking the open card (Spade 10) he will be able to make a 5 card set and which might not be useful as he wouldn’t get Spade J or Spade 8 which already are thrown in previous scenarios.

Hence taking a closed card is advisable, but by taking the open card you could reduce the risk of increasing few more points which is very essential in sequence, hence experienced players would pick Spade 10 and discard Club 7.

Scenario 4

Now as concluded in scenario 3, the player has picked Spade 10 and discarded Clubs 7 and now he is having two sets and least cards which amount to 19 score(less than drop score).

Diamond 5 is available as a open card, this card is not useful immediately into any set but it has to be picked as the player has only one proper set option, and if he picks the open card then he will have 3 sets option (Clubs and hearts 3, clubs and diamonds 5 and diamond 5, 6) he needs to get a connection card to make any of them a set.

To increase the probability of making a set player is needed to pick the open card.

But! If you closely look at the player’s cards

1. A set of clubs and hearts 3 which could be a probable set if he gets another suit 3
2. A set of Diamond and spade 6 which could be a probable set if he gets another suit 6
3. A set of Clubs and spades 10 which could be a probable set if he gets another suit 10

If the player goes by how he has sorted the sets he might pick up the open card and throw Diamond 2(which is the only card which is not into any probable set) which increases his score to 22 from 19.

Hence, picking up the closed card would be more advisable.

Card from Closed Deck is spade 3 hence he now can now discard clubs 5 or diamond 6 to reduce the score to 7 or 8 from 19, but one need to keep Diamond 6 as chances of making a triplet of spade and diamond 6 is high.

Scenario 5

After discarding Clubs 5 and then player has been presented with Clubs Queen in his next round, which is useful directly in clubs 10, Jack set hence the player doesn’t need to think much and pick up the open card and discard Diamond 6 which would help him to reduce his total score to 2.

Scenario 6

Now the player has been presented with a Clubs Ace, which he can directly pick up as it would add to Clubs 10, Jacks, Queen and by putting Joker (which acts as a Clubs King) the set is complete and the player wins this game by closing Diamond 2.

Picking the card from open deck or closed deck can help a player to win the game.

 

TaashTime – How to rummy? – Post 3

1.4 What is Drop & Middle drop? When are they done? How to decide?

In a rummy game a player is not expected to play all the games, if he decides that the game is not worth playing then he doesn’t need to play.

Deciding not to play can be communicated to all the other players by saying DROP. 

If the player decides not to play at the starting of the game, he could then declare that he is not willing to play, when he gets his turn to play. Then it is called Drop 

But for any reason he felt that he could play the game and anticipates that he would get the cards required, but after playing certain rounds of game he feels that he is not interested to continue in the game and declares the same to other players when his turn comes. – Middle Drop.

 http://taashtime.com has provided a DROP button, by using which any player can declare his disinterest and discontinue in the game. Whenever a person wants to declare weather in the starting of the game (Drop) or in the middle of the game (Middle Drop) he could use this button.

This drop button would be next to player in http://taashtime.com and it will be highlighted during his turn.

In http://taashtime.com when a player presses the DROP button he is alerted and asked if he really wants to drop so that he can confirm his decision.

How do you decide to drop?

At the starting of the game after receiving the cards and sorting of the cards if one doesn’t receive

1. Sequence
2. Jokers
3. Connecting cards

In the above shown picture, the player has a joker but doesn’t have any sequence and also has all big cards hence better drop.

10 is the open joker in the above game, hence the player has 2 jokers with him to play but he doesn’t have a sequence and all the other cards are big cards hence better drop.

This decision varies for different types of games in rummy and number of players playing the game.

1. Syndicate – Pool game
2. Ladder – Pool game
3. Money Per Point – Single games

If a player is playing a syndicate game and two players are playing then it is required that he gets

• Sequence, connecting cards to make sets, Joker (one min.) and doesn’t have many big point cards (10, J, Q, K, A) as waste cards to continue in the game else he better DROP

If a player is playing a syndicate game against 5 or 6 opponents in the game, he should drop only if

• He doesn’t have any connecting cards and they are all big point cards

He could play if there is no sequence and joker as well in such condition, as the cards would have got distributed between all the other players and probability of any player winning in few rounds is very low.

But, in such condition player is expected to keep an eye on the discards and check if the cards required by him for making sequence or other sets are not thrown by other players.  Player needs to watch such games closely and take a decision of declaring a Middle Drop after watching the game for few rounds.

Before Middle Drop, player need to count the points in his sets if it is less than the score obtained by doing middle drop, then he/she can continue playing, but otherwise he is expected to Middle drop.

In the below picture you can observe that the player had a chance to Middle drop, but by not doing the same he has ended giving a big score which is more than score what the player would have got by declaring a middle drop.

Here the player has assumed that he would get the card required to make second sequence.

1. But, as he hasn’t got the same in time and keeping a set with all the big cards landed him in a situation where is has to give a score more than middle drop score.
2. 9 is the joker in the above scenario and to make a second sequence player requires 9 or Q of clubs or spades. Which is leaving him with a probability of only 2 cards which is a dangerous situation to be in
3. Also the player did not have any Joker which leaves him in a full count situation and he should have dropped in the middle.

Either he should have middle dropped or he should have discarded the big cards and made alternate set for second sequence.

 

 

How to play rummy?- post 2

1.2 How to pick and discard cards?

To make proper sets we need to understand:

1. How to pick a card?
2. How to discard a card?

How to pick a card?

In http://taashtime.com player can easily pick a card by clicking on the card which he/she wants to pick. Player can pick a card from

a)    Closed deck

b)    Open deck

Once a player picks a card from open or closed deck he needs to throw (discard) card for the next player to take as open card.

How to discard a card?

In http://taashtime.com player can easily discard a card by pressing on the card or dragging a card from his sets to open card area or by just double clicking on the card which he wants to discard

Alternatively:

Once a person decides which card he needs to discard he then just click once on the card and then there is a discard button which on the card, which he could press and discard a card.

1.3 How to observe the discarded cards and what to do about it? 

Discarding is not about just removing the cards from our sets but checking what other players are discarding and accordingly discard.

http://taashtime.com gives a button to keep track of discards

Discards of all the players can be seen in the above picture, this will help us to identify which cards are thrown already and weather any of our required cards are in them.

If we have our required cards in the discards then instead of waiting for that card, we might decide to change the sets.

We could also check the cards discarded by opponent

In the above picture, opponent player Tahoma’s name is in black highlighted  which means the cards shown are the cards of the Tahoma.

By looking at the above cards, he had discarded Hearts 9 and Hearts J , we can infer that he may not need Hearts 10 , but one in ten cases it could be that he has two sets of both hearts 9 and J and hence he discarded them.

When we are trying to take decision to throw Hearts 10, it will be easier if we look at his discards and understand the above fact. YES! There is a chance that they are his Calling cards!

What are calling cards?

A player when discards a particular card there could be the following reasons:

1. The card is not useful( No connecting cards, all the connecting cards have been already discarded on table) and is increasing his points
2. Calling Card

Calling card is a card which by throwing the player pretends that he doesn’t need any adjacent cards to the discarded card:

1     But actually he would have had two cards of the same type (Hearts 9, Hearts 9) this typically happens when players are playing with two decks

2     Or he has other adjacent cards like in a set of Hearts 9, 10, J, Q he has 9, J, Q and he discards a Hearts 9 then assuming that he wouldn’t require adjacent card the opponent might put Hearts 10 which is then used to make a set of hearts 10, J, Q.

Here Hearts 9 is called CALLING CARD.

 

How to play rummy?

Basics

1.1 How to set your cards?

Rummy is a game of making sets of cards! So it becomes very important to know why and how to make sets?

Why to make sets? A simple reason – So that we don’t throw the useful cards, complex reason like to know which cards to discard.

As you know in Indian household traditional rummy the basic rules are:

1. Make one primary set of minimum 3 sequential cards
 Or 

2. Make a duplicate set of minimum 3 sequential cards ( with or without joker)

3.Make a set (sequential cards or same cards from different suits) of 3 and 4 cards.

or 

So, to achieve the above one has to set his cards in a way that he doesn’t confuse and discard the right cards.

How to make sets?

Two kinds of sets can be made:

1. Sequence
2.  2. Same cards from different suits 

Before sets are made the cards will look like this:

I believe by looking at the above 13 cards, you can one cannot make it directly which sets can be made, or should one play this game or not.

Hence we sort them by suits and then in the order of the cards,

To make the sets you need to sort your cards so that you can check which sets can be formed from the cards presented to you:

http://taashtime.com gives you a button which makes it easy for you to sort your cards, by pressing SORT button!

Now you can see that we can make sets of the following

1. Spades 9 and J can become a set if spade 10 comes us to us in further rounds
2. With Hearts 6 and 9 we may not be able to make a sequence set but this can be used for making a triplet or quadruplet set with Spade 9 or diamond 6
3. With Clubs 8 , 10 and J we can make a set if we get clubs 9
4. Diamond 3 can be used in any set as it is an open joker, Diamond 6, 7 can be made a set if we get Diamond 5 or 8 and also Diamond J and Q can be made a set if we get Diamond 10 or K.

This kind of inferences will help us to proceed further in the game and make sets.

Once we are successful making sets after receiving and discarding the cards, before winning our cards will look like this

1. At the starting we have thought that if we get Spades 10 we could make the spade 9,10, J set but after discarding certain cards we are not having that in the final winning sets
2. But Spade J was used to make a triplet along with Diamond J and clubs J
3. All the hearts cards have been discarded as we thought making sets with Hearts 6 and 9 are difficult.
4. As we have received Clubs 9 we could make the clubs 8, 9, 10 sequence
5. While discarding we have received the full set of Diamond A, 2, 4 to support Diamond 3 and unlike as decided initially we have used Diamond 3 and could make a Duplicate sequence set.
6. Diamond 6 and 7 along with a joker (clubs 3 open joker) has become our final set.

Your valuable comments are appreciated

Rummy Guru

 

To play or not to play

In a game of rummy, once the cards are dealt, the player is often posed with an interesting predicament. As Shakespeare’s Hamlet asks his sword, the player asks his cards, “To play or not to play? That is the question!”In the game of rummy, as in poker, the player has the option to stay out of the game from the beginning. In Indian rummy, the player can *drop* his cards, which means he will not participate in the game from the start. This is called an initial drop and typically attracts 20 points in score or count. A game is dropped only if you do not foresee the chances of completing the game or even reducing your count to less than 20.

It makes sense to do an initial drop if:

1. You do not have a life or pure sequence in your cards
2. You do not have any jokers

Here are some more tips to help you decide when to drop the game.

• If you have three or more sets of double cards i.e same suite, same number (C10, C10) and they add up to more than 40 points, you might want to drop the game
• If you have more than 5 cards which are completely unrelated and they add up to more than 40 points) If you do not have a second life and see no chance of getting it – this happens if the card you wanted has been discarded by someone in the game and you can’t pick it up.

Some players who play professionally tend to guess when someone might have a winning hand. In such situations, if they are carrying cards with a high count, they tend to drop the game to be safe rather than sorry. When playing for points, it is always crucial to minimize your count. If you feel you can win or can reduce your count to less than 20, it is typically better to play than sit on the sidelines.

Most bravehearts tend to play even if the hand shows the slightest signs of promise! Happy rummying!