ONLINE RUMMY
TIPS AND TRICKS

This is the easiest yet ignored rummy strategy that players often tend to forget to follow. Try not to draw cards from the discard pile to avoid giving hints to your opponents about your cards in the rummy game.

Do keep your eyes open and carefully watch your opponent's moves to keep track of cards that they pick or discard from the open deck. This is one of the critical rummy tips as it can help players identify the cards they need to hoard and the ones they need to discard. When you predict your opponent's strategy, you can avoid discarding the cards that your opponent may require.

Another essential rummy tip to follow is getting rid of the high point value cards to save your game. Waiting to form a pure sequence or sets with high point cards such as King, Ace, Jack, or Queen can increase your point burden in the rummy game if your opponent chooses to declare before you.

Many players usually ignore or overlook the trick of forming sequences and sets using 4 cards. You can make a sequence or set of more than 3 cards in rummy without exceeding the limit of 4 cards. If the 4th card helps you make a proper sequence or set, you can use it to make a sequence. This trick helps in decreasing your points value if an opponent happens to declare before you.

Players should try to make the pure sequence fast and not wait for the "appropriate" cards to make the sequences. Don't wait for the particular cards, reevaluate the cards in your hand instead. Rearrange them and move towards making a valid declaration.

Hold on to your versatile middle cards, as they can help you form more combinations with other such cards instead of low or high-value cards. For instance, 5 of any suit can make a run with 3, 4, or 6, 7 or 4, 6 while a high-value card such as Ace can only make a run with 2, 3.

Be wise while using your Joker cards, as they can get you better chances of winning the rummy card game. If you already have a pure sequence, leverage the available Joker card or wild card to complete the 2nd sequence. And if there are already two sequences in your hands (including a pure sequence), you can use the Joker cards to make sets/sequences with high point cards. Keep in mind that you cannot use a Joker card to create a pure sequence as a joker will make the sequence impure.

This is another rummy tip that you can use while playing rummy to avoid confusion and keep your focus sharp. You can alternate the colors and arrange your cards in the black-red-black or red-black-red color combination. Doing this can also reduce your chances of committing the mistake of discarding any useful card due to confusion.

While taking cards from the open pile to make a sequence, you should know that just like you, your opponent is also keeping an eye on your move. This is where you need to play smart and confuse them. For instance, you can discard a card that is part of your sequence, but you have two such cards.

Analyzing and keeping a count of the points you have in hand throughout the rummy game is important. To do that, you should count the points in hand after every move.

A player needs to know when and which card to discard. Players should discard the idle cards that do not participate in making two distinct sequences or triplet chances. Doing this can increase the number of cards that will allow you to declare, thereby doubling your declaring chances.

In Indian Rummy, there are two types of Joker cards – the one that comes with the deck, also known as ‘Printed Joker’ and the designated joker, also known as ‘Cut Joker’. Joker is an extremely important card to have. Except in the Pure Sequence, the joker can be used to complete any combination, be it sets or sequences. If wisely used, the joker can be the weapon that wins you games most of the time.

An extension from the previous tip, a tip to make the best use of the joker cards is to discard cards surrounding the ‘Cut Joker’. Usually the wildcard joker is used in combinations where the player lacks the cards needed to complete the set or sequence. If used as a regular card to make a pure sequence, it can enable a player to make another pure sequence without a joker.

It is also important to have a watchful eye on every move your opponents make in each turn. Their discarded cards can help one to narrow down the combinations they are going for. In case you already possess a card which could potentially help your opponents, it is advisable to keep hold of it, temporarily.

At the start of every rummy game on MPL, the AI will automatically sort the cards for you and arrange them in suitable combinations. However, don’t be afraid to re-organise your cards from time to time. This opens up more possibilities to form valid sets and sequences, that might have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Rummy is a game of probability. Getting well versed with the basic concepts of probability will definitely help to make calculative decisions with respect to drawing and discarding cards.

For example, 2 decks of cards are required to play rummy and 13 cards are dealt to each player. So, mathematically, you can determine the probability of the number of jokers each player has. If you get more than 4 Jokers while playing against one opponent, you could predict that your opponent has none or fewer Jokers. 12 Jokers, i.e. 4 Printed (2 printed jokers per deck) and 8 Wild Jokers are used in rummy. For instance, if you have 5 Jokers, it can be assumed that the remaining ones are lying in the closed deck or some of them are with your opponents. Only heads up (2 player matches) is played with one deck.

‘Draw’ and ‘Discard’ are the fundamentals of playing rummy. By judiciously discarding the cards that aren’t useful in any combination, the player can make room for potentially better cards, and even, at times, an altogether new combination.

Another tip to remember is to make the most of middle value cards like 5, 6 and 7. They help to form both low value and high value sequences.

Face Cards are high value cards, which is better to lose to reduce the points tally. There is a possibility that you may not win at some stage of the game. As a result, the target becomes to get your score as low as possible. Keeping it less than 40 may put the player in a better situation than dropping overall. This makes perfecting the art of discarding cards more critical.

Taking it a step further, a player can guess the cards in his/her opponent’s hand simply by memorising the cards they have discarded.