13 Card Rummy Live

HOW THE GAME IS SCORED
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Points, Pool and Deals

Same cards, same hand, three different ways of keeping score.

Every table in this app plays the same game: 13 cards, two decks, draw one and throw one until somebody can show a valid hand. What changes between the three formats is only what happens after a deal ends — whether that was the whole match, one step towards being knocked out, or one of a fixed few.

The one idea running through all three: the winner scores zero, and everybody else scores the cards they were caught holding. A low score is a good score. In Points those numbers decide the deal outright; in Pool they pile up against you until you are out; in Deals they move chips from one player to another.

The hand, in every format

None of this changes between Points, Pool and Deals.

The deal

Two standard decks plus two printed jokers are shuffled together. Everyone gets 13 cards. One card is turned face up: every card of that rank, in every suit and both decks, becomes a joker for the rest of the deal — that is the wild joker. Another card starts the open pile; the rest is the closed deck.

Your turn

Take one card — from the closed deck, or the top of the open pile — and then throw one away. You hold 14 cards for the moment in between and 13 the rest of the time. Play moves anti-clockwise.

What counts as a group

  • Pure sequence — three or more cards, same suit, running in order, and no joker standing in for anything. 4s 5s 6s
  • Impure sequence — the same, but a joker fills a gap. 9d joker Jd
  • Set — three or four cards of the same rank in different suits. Jokers may stand in. 7s 7h 7d

Ace counts high or low, so A 2 3 and Q K A are both runs — but never both at once: K A 2 is not a run.

Declaring

To finish, all 13 of your cards must be in valid groups, with at least two sequences, and at least one of them pure. Put one card on the finish slot and show. The server checks it — the Declare button only lights up when your hand actually qualifies, so you cannot show by accident.

Show a hand that is not valid and you take the maximum, 80 points, and the deal carries on without you. It is the most expensive thing you can do at a table.

The three formats

What happens when the deal ends.
Points

One deal, done

The quick one. A match is a single deal and lasts a few minutes.

  1. Everyone is dealt a hand.
  2. One deal is played.
  3. The winner scores 0. Everyone else scores their unmatched cards.
  4. Lowest score wins, which is always the player who showed. Match over.
one deal Asha wins 0 pts Ravi 18 pts Neha 14 pts Bolt Ellis 20 pts dropped
Pool

Last one standing

The long one. Points pile up against you deal after deal.

  1. Everyone starts on zero.
  2. Deals repeat. Your score from each one is added to your total.
  3. Reach the limit — 101 or 201 — and you are out.
  4. The last player left wins.
pool 101 d1 d2 d3 tot Asha 22 0 18 40 Ravi 0 31 14 45 Neha 35 26 47 108 out Bolt Ellis 20 40 0 60
201 pool gives you one life. Knocked out, you may re-enter once, and you come back on the highest score still alive — so a late elimination is a far better place to rejoin from than an early one. 101 pool has no re-entry.
Deals

Fixed length

The predictable one. You know before you start how long it runs.

  1. Everyone starts with the same pile of chips.
  2. A fixed number of deals is played — 2 or 3.
  3. After each deal, every loser hands the winner chips equal to their points.
  4. Most chips at the end wins. Nobody is ever knocked out.
3 deals, 240 chips each d1 d2 d3 end Asha +47 -12 +33 308 Ravi -20 +33 -14 239 Neha -15 -21 -19 185 Bolt Ellis -12 0 0 228

What a hand is worth

The same arithmetic feeds all three formats.

When somebody declares, everyone else's hand is scored on the cards not in a valid group. The app arranges your hand the best way it can before counting, so you are never punished for having sorted it badly.

CardPoints
Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 1010
9 down to 2face value
Joker — printed or the wild rank0

How much of the hand counts

  • No pure sequence — the whole hand counts. Nothing is protected.
  • A pure sequence, but only one sequence — the pure one scores 0, the rest of the hand counts.
  • Two sequences, one of them pure — every valid group scores 0 and only the loose cards count.
80 is the ceiling. However bad a hand is, it can never cost more than 80 points in one deal — which is why a dead hand full of face cards is not the disaster it looks like, and why the drop below is a real decision rather than an obvious one.

Dropping

If the hand you were dealt is hopeless, leave the deal instead of playing it out and take a fixed penalty:

 Most tables201 pool
First drop — before you have drawn a card 2025
Middle drop — after you have played a turn 4050
Declaring a hand that is not valid 8080
Timing out three turns in a row, or disconnecting 4050

In Points that is what you pay; in Pool it is what gets added to your total; in Deals it is what you hand the winner. A first drop in a 101 pool is worth about a fifth of your life, which is the trade the format asks you to make.

Which one to sit at

The tables in the lobby, and what you are signing up for.
 PointsPool 101 / 201Deals
A match is1 deal until one player is left 2 or 3 deals
Roughlya few minutes 20–60 minutes 10–20 minutes
Points areyour score, lowest wins strikes against you chips changing hands
Knocked out?never yes, at the limit never
Ends whensomebody shows one player is left the last deal is played
Good forone quick hand a proper session a known finish time

The tables you will see in the lobby

TableFormatLengthNotes
Points RummyPoints One deal A few minutes. Start here.
Pool 101Pool Until one player is left Out at 101. No re-entry.
Pool 201Pool Until one player is left Out at 201. One re-entry. Drops cost 25 / 50.
Best of 2 DealsDeals 2 deals 160 chips each
Best of 3 DealsDeals 3 deals 240 chips each
Every table is free. Nothing here costs anything and nothing is won — the game is paid for by the advertising. The chips in Deals are the scoreboard: they move between players, and whoever holds most at the end wins. They are worth nothing outside the game.

Still deciding? Sit at Points Rummy — one deal, and a match is over in a few minutes. Back to the lobby.