Michigan Rummy
Introduction
In this large group of draw and discard games, the object is generally to improve one's hand by forming it into sets of matching cards (usually groups of the same rank or sequences in a suit). The basic move is to draw one (or more) cards from an undealt stock or from the (face up) discard pile, possibly meld a set or sets, putting them face up on the table, and then discard a card.
Rummy Card Games Fabric - Michigan Rummy Board Card Games By Landpenguin - Rummy Card Games Cotton Fabric By The Yard With Spoonflower Spoonflower. 4.5 out of 5 stars (73,922) $ 5.00 FREE shipping Favorite Add to. Michigan Rummy, from Front Porch Classics, is a top-of-the-line edition of the classic rummy card and betting game. The solid wood game board has beveled edges, casino-style chip troughs, betting chips and removable money-card disks. Play 4 games: Michigan Rummy, Wanagan, Great Lakes, and Oh Claire.
Rummy games seem to be ultimately of Chinese origin. Although they are now widepread throughout the world, games of this sort were unknown outside the orient until the twentieth century. David Parlett's History of Gin Rummy, originally published on the Game Account site, also includes some material on the history of Rummy games in general.
Basic Rummy Games
Here the aim is simply to form your whole hand into sets as soon as possible. When someone succeeds in this and goes out, the other players may lose a fixed amount, or may be penalised according to the number of unmelded cards they have left.
- Kaluki (Europe / North America)
- Three Thirteen (North America)
- Crazy Rummy (aka Lamsees, Beanie, etc.) (North America, UK)
- Scala Quaranta (Italy)
- Vazhushal (Wipe) (southern India)
- Proter (Sri Lanka)
- Marriage (Nepal)
- Hand (Jordan and Palestine)
- Loba de Menos (Argentina)
- Seven Bridge (Japan)
- Umtali (Zimbabwe)
- Rummikub® (American style) (played with numbered tiles)
- Tres y Dos (Dominican Republic - the aim is to collect a full house - triplet and pair - in your 5-card hand)
Conquian group
In this group of games, which are possibly ancestral to all western rummy games, the objective, as in western rummy, is to complete a hand consisting entirely of valid combinations. However, the draw and discard mechanism is somewhat different. Cards drawn from the stock or taken from the discard pile are never added to a player's hand. A player can take the last discard only by immediately using it in a meld, which is exposed on the table. The alternative is to turn over the next card from the stock and place it on top of the discard pile to be used in the same way.
Asian Rummy Games
Like Western basic Rummy games these are draw and discard games in which the aim is to go out by forming your whole hand into sets. The Asian games are played with a variety of different types of cards and tiles, and the nature of the sets needed to form a complete hand varies from game to game. In some cases it is possible to claim a player's discard out of turn if you need it to complete a set. In some games, some sets or hands are more valuable than others, so that the amount won by the player that goes out depends on the quality of the winning hand.
- Si Se Pai (played with Chinese chess cards)
- Quan Dui (played with Chinese money cards)
- Kap Tai Shap (played with Chinese dominoes)
- Jjak-mat-chu-gi (played with Korean dominoes)
- Ta Dou Ta Doi (played with Chinese Chess pieces)
- Mah Jong (played with Mah Jong tiles, which are a type of money cards)
- Cuajo (played with Spanish cards)
- Okey (played in Turkey with numbered tiles)
- Joker Karo from Sumatra is unusual in that no cards are drawn or discarded during the game but all are dealt to the players at the start.
Contract Rummy Games
The object is the same as in Basic Rummy, but in each deal, each player's first meld has to conform to a pre-determined contract. Generally, the contract becomes more difficult through a series of deals.
- Caribbean Kalooki, South African Kalookie
Manipulation Rummy Games
Again the aim is to get rid of all your cards by melding them. The distinctive feature of these games is that when melding, you are also allowed to rearrange the existing melds on the table to form new melds incorporating cards you add from your hand.
Knock Rummy Games
In these games, you do not necessarily have to form all your cards into sets to go out. You go out when you think that the value of your unmatched cards (deadwood) is less than that of the other players. If you are right you win, but if another player can do better you are penalised. Examples of this type are Gin Rummy and Tonk.
Meld Scoring Games
In this type of game positive points are scored for melds. There is still an advantage in going out, but it is also necessary to consider gaining points by making valuable melds. 500 Rum and Mah Jong are games of this type.
- 500 Rummy (or Rummy 500)
- 5000 Rummy (a North American game with many alternative names, in which players are dealt different numbers of cards, determined by the first card each receives)
- Argentinean Loba de Mas
- Banakil, a game played Jordan and Palestine.
- Okey 101, a Turkish game played with numbered tiles.
- Arlington and Fortune Rummy
- Si Se Pai (four colour cards)
- Romanian Tile Rummy (played with numbered tiles)
Canasta Group
This is a particular type of Meld Scoring Rummy with special bonuses for melds of seven cards, known as Canastas.
- Canasta (classic and modern American)
- Canastone (a three deck Canasta game from Italy)
- Hand and Foot (American Canasta variant in which each player having played through their original hand picks up a second nad called the 'foot')
- New Canasta ( a Hand and Foot variant)
- Pennies from Heaven (Hand and Foot variant with a special score for a canasta of Sevens)
- Samba (Canasta variant with sequence melds)
- Burraco (Italy), Buraco (Brazil) and Burako (Argentina) (Canasta variants featuring sequence melds and a second hand when the first has been played)
- Biriba (Greece) (also includes sequence melds and a second hand of cards when the first has been played)
Rummy Web Sites
Rules for various Rummy games are available at Randy Rasa's Rummy-Games.com
Rummy.ch is a German language site offering rules for many rummy games, strategy articles, reviews of online rummy sites and a forum.
Rummy Software and Online Games
At Game Duell you can play Rommé (German) or Rami (French) online for fun or real money: they offer a variant using two decks and 6 jokers, in which a player's first meld must be worth at least 40 points.
Special K Software has software to play many of the games in the Rummy family. This includes Gin Rummy, 500 Rummy, Oklahoma Rummy, Michigan Rummy, Boat House Rummy, Pinochle Rummy, Kaluki, Round the Corner Rummy, One Meld Rummy, Wild Card Rummy and Indian Rummy. This software is available atwww.specialksoftware.com.
Randy Rasa's Rummy-Games.com has reviews of many rummy software packages and on-line servers, as well as rules for various rummy games.
Links to other software for particular types of Rummy will be found on the relevant pages.
Michigan Rummy Hands
Name: Michigan Rummy
Number of Players: This game is recommended for 3 to 8 players
Recommended Ages: Best for ages 8 and up
Average Playing Time: Game play varies depending on the number of players
Overview
Fans of traditional types of rummy and poker style games will likely enjoy the game. Also known by the name of Tripoli, this casino type game rotates around the mission of having the least amount of cards while also having the most chips. An easy game to play once you have mastered the rules and procedures, this version of the Michigan Rummy card game is an excellent selection as both adults and children can enjoy it.
How to Play
Game play for Michigan Rummy requires the use of a nine-compartment game board tray, a set of 96 betting chips and a traditional deck of 52 cards. This game does require that there be a designated dealer for each hand. If you do not have a person willing to serve as the permanent dealer, you do have the option of rotating dealers after every hand. Simply shuffle the cards and have each player draw one. Keeping in mind that aces are always high and twos are always low, allow the person with the highest card to serve as the dealer for that round.
This version of rummy does require the use of standard casino style betting chips. Before dealing the cards, each player places one chip in each of the eight outside compartments on the circular tray before placing a ninth chip in the center container, also known as the ‘bonus’ compartment. Once the players have placed their chips into the appropriate places, the dealer puts two more chips into each of the nine compartments.
Starting with the player on the left, the dealer deals the entire deck of cards, creating a hand for each of the players, himself and an extra hand, also known as a ‘dummy hand’. The players should check their hands to see if they are holding ‘money cards’. The game board has illustrations of these cards, typically the Jack of spades, the King and Queen of hearts, the Ace of hearts, the Queen of diamonds, the ten of hearts, a 7,8 and 9 of any suit or the King of clubs.
Once the cards are dealt, the dealer has the first option to switch the dummy hand for his own, only if he has no money cards in his hand but he must make the trade without seeing the new hand first. If he has money cards and cannot trade, Michigan Rummy rules require that he then pass the option to the other players, selling the dummy hand to the highest bidder. You can only bid on the hand if you yourself have no money cards in your hand. Once the dealer sells the hand, he or she earns the chips from the sale.
Game play starts with the person seated to the left of the dealer. The player can lay down a card from any suit they wish, however it must be the lowest card of that suit that they have in their hand. Whoever amongst the players has the next highest card in that suit will play it next, continuing the ‘sequence’.
Players will continue to lay down consecutive cards until the pattern is finished by an ace or broken by a card that was dealt into the dummy hand. When the latter happens, the last player to lay down a card will begin a new sequence, starting with their lowest card in a suit of the opposite color of the last.
If you have money cards in your Michigan Rummy hand, you can gain chips by using them in the proper sequence. As the sequence goes along, lay these cards down when appropriate and then take the chips from the properly labeled compartment on the game board, adding them to your pile.
The game of Michigan Rummy has a number of penalties that are built in to the game rules, the first of which revolves around using low cards to lead a suit. You must use your lowest card in the suit to start a sequence; however, you are penalized if you do not lead with the absolute lowest card in the suit, which will always be a two. The penalty for leading with a higher card is paying one chip to each of the other players.
A player must pay a penalty if he or she does not play a card when he is supposed to play it, thereby causing a suit sequence to end. If this happens, the guilty player must pay the bonus compartment the same number of chips that are in the compartment of money card for the suit that was interrupted by the penalty.
Winning the Game
Michigan Rummy Game Board
The winner of Michigan Rummy will be the player at the end of the game who holds the most chips. The game ends when someone gets rid of all of the cards in their hand. If you are the first to do this, the chips in the center of the board belong to you. Players who have cards remaining will reorganize them and lay them down.
The player with the best poker hand takes the chips from that compartment. At this point, players will count their chips and determine a winner.
Strategies
Unfortunately, because you must play the cards in a certain sequence in a Michigan Rummy card game, strategy is not as important as simply paying attention to your cards and what cards are played. The luck of the cards often determines the winner of the game, rather than how savvy the player is.
Final Thoughts
A game that is both fun and engaging, Michigan Rummy is an excellent activity for parties and gatherings for both adults and children. The rules are easy to master, making this type of game perfect for rainy day play or a night with friends.
Michigan Rummy Card Game Rules Printable
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