Rummikub

I'm a big fan of games, and the latest one I tried is called Rummikub. Each player starts with 14 tiles, and each tile has a color and a number. The colors are red, green, blue and orange, and the numbers range from 1 to 13. The objective is to discard your tiles by organizing them into groups that are either all the same number (but different color) or ascending numbers (all the same color). So far, it sounds a lot like the card game Rummy. The big difference is that you can refactor the groups that have been created in order to create new opportunities. For example, if there is a sequence of blue tiles numbered 1..6, you could break it into the sequence 1..3 and the sequence 4..6 and the discard another 4 on the end of the new 1..3 sequence. It isn't as hard as it sounds, but once you start getting the hang of it, you're always wondering whether there are complex rearrangements of the existing patterns from which to discard your last remaining tiles. Highly recommended!

 

Comments

[Kytari]

I absolutely love playing Rummikub! I just started playing a few months ago.

[Dylan Greene]

My friends and I are big fans of Rummikub too. It's also been a long tradition in my family. According to http://www.rummikub.comm, Rummikub is Israel's #1 exported game.

On nights we want to play a game but don't want the full-on concentration Rummikub can require, we switch to Sequence. I recommend checking it out. http://jaxgames.com/seq.htm

[kief]

A variation of Rummikub (http://www.pagat.com/rummy/rummikub.html) called Okey (http://www.pagat.com/rummy/okey.html) is very popular in Turkey - many cafes are filled with people drinking tea and playing Okey and Tavla (Backgammon).

[Devorah Beth]

We always played by allowing the first person wiht a set, (3 of the same number in dfferent colours, or a runin the same colour, 2,3,4)
to begin the game.
To insist you have to have 30 points makes the game boring. I sat through a whole game before I got 30 points, also younger children would find this rule hard. Remember, this is a real fmaily game.

Comments, please

Devorah Beth

[Danielle Troiano]

Rummikub is one of my favorite games! Having the initial 30 points can be tedious, but also awesome. At times, my tray has been completely full with of what I call tiddly-winks (small tiles). Finally, you get a break and you can come close to clearing the whole tray.

As for smaller children, I've played with young childern. Its great for building math skills, and patience.

Cranium is another great game not to be missed. -Lots of laughs!

[Fabienne]

Hello,

if you speek a little bit french, I know a free website where you can play rummikub with players around the world :
www.rummyworld.net
I play there since october 2006.

[Robert]

http://www.rummikub.org is a great resources site for the Rummikub game. You can find there the game rules, strategies, game play, history and more.