Ready Rummy is played with four players and 120 cards composed of four decks of cards. To create a Ready Rummy deck, combine four 52 card decks, then remove all of the clubs. Then remove the remaining tens, jacks and kings. Then take one five of each suit and draw a star on it. You should be left with 120 cards of three suits ranging from A-9 and Queens, with one 5h, one 5d, and one 5s with a star on them. Ace is always low in Ready Rummy.

Each game of Ready Rummy consists of four rounds. A dealer is randomly decided. After a round is finished the dealer button moves to the next player counter-clockwise. The game is over after each player has had a turn being the dealer.

Each round begins by dealing each player 8 cards. Then the player to the right of the dealer draws a card from the deck into their hand, and then discards a card from their hand. The discard is placed in front of that player for all to see. Then the next player in a counter-clockwise rotation draws a card into their hand and discards a card in front of them. This continues until someone has won that round, or 15 cards have been discarded from each player (for a total of 60 discarded cards). If after 15 turns no one has one the round, the round is a draw, the button is moved to the next player, and play continues on the next round. (All of the discarded cards always remain on the board until the round is over so players can see which cards have been discarded by which players.)

You win a round by creating three melds. A meld is consisted of three cards of the same suit that are either identical or create a run. An identical meld, called a set, would be something like 3s3s3s, or 8h8h8h. A run meld would be something like As2s3s, 5h6h7h, or 7d8d9d. Queens can only be used to make a set.

Here are some examples of winning hands

AsAsAs 3h4h5h 6d7d8d

QhQhQh 8s8s8s AsAsAs

Ad2d3d 4h5h6h 7s8s9s

Any combination of sets and runs is acceptable.

Because each player is only dealt 8 cards, the winning card will either come from a draw from the deck or a discard from another player. When you are one card away from completing your hand you are said to be "ready." Once you are ready you may declare to the table that you are ready and your hand is now locked. You may not change your hand once you have declared ready and you MUST declare ready to win. You do not have to declare ready (for example if you want to improve to a better wait), but once you declare ready you may not take it back or change your hand in any way. You may only declare a win. If you draw your winning card from the deck you declare "Rummy" and each of your opponents pays an equal share of the hand value to you. If another player discards your winning card you declare "Rummy" and that player alone must pay the full value of the hand to you.

The base value of every hand is worth three points. If you draw the winning card yourself each opponent pays you one point. If a player discards your winning card that player pays you three points and the other players do not pay anything.

For example: you have AsAsAs 3s3s3s 5d6d. You are now ready and will win with a 4d or 7d. If you want to declare ready, you say "ready" (place a marker in front of you, like a toothpick, so people don't forget) and wait for a 4d or 7d to draw from the deck yourself or another player discard it. If a player discards your winning card you declare rummy and collect (in this case) three points from that player. If you draw the winning card from the deck you collect one point from every player.

For every set of queens you have you gain an additional three points. For example: lets say you have 2s3s4s 4h5h6h QsQs and you declare ready. If someone throws the Qs that person will have to pay you 6 points. Three for the base value and an additional three points for the set of queens. If you draw the Qs yourself each player pays you 2 points. If your hand contained two sets of queens it would be worth a total of 9 points.

There are also three special fives in the deck, marked by a star. One for each suit. For each special five you have it is an additional three points. This is included on top of any other bonus points, such as a set of queens.

There are also rare special hands that are worth a lot of bonus points. (On top of the special bonus you also add more points if your hand contains a set(s) of queens as well as each special five.)



If your hand contains all sets, such as 5h5h5h, 3s3s3s, 2d2d2d your hand is worth 9 points (three base plus six additional points for the bonus).

If your hand contains all cards of the same suit, such as 7h6h5h 6h6h6h 4h4h4h your hand is worth 9 points.

If your hand is an A-9 straight it is worth 9 points. For example: As2s3s 4h5h6h 7h8h9h



If your hand contains three identical runs it is worth 18 points (three base + 15 additional bonus points). For example: 4h5h6h 4s5s6s 4s5s6s

If your hand is an A-9 straight AND all of the same suit it is worth 18 points.

If your hand contains all sets AND is all of the same suit it is worth 18 points. For example: 8s8s8s 5s5s5s AsAsAs.



If your hand contains all sets AND they are all the same rank (for example: 3d3d3d 3h3h3h 3s3s3s) it is worth 36 points.

If your hand contains three identical runs AND they are all the same suit (for example: 3h4h5h 3h4h5h 3h4h5h) it is worth 36 points.



(For added complexity you can add a ranking bonus, meaning the player who comes in 1st place gets a big bonus, the player who comes in 2nd place gets a small bonus, the 3rd place player receives nothing, and the 4th place player pays out the two bonuses)

I am working on a site that will be up by the end of next week where you can play this against AI (for free). I will post it here.

Also, other players may also declare ready after someone else has declared ready. If one player deals a card that completes two or three other ready hands, that person must pay the full price of each hand to each player (ouch!).

You can now play the game at http://www.readyrummy.com

I have purchased an SSL certificate so you can play safely at https://www.readyrummy.com

Do I have to declare Rummy when I have one? Sometimes it would be advantageous to wait. Other players would have no way of knowing until you analyze the discards at the end of the game, and it doesn't seem desirable to have to do that.

A few comments:

- One time I declared ready with 5*567 in my hand, and the game discarded the 5* instead of the 5. There are other times where it's not clear what the best discard is, so I should be able to choose it myself. The computer shouldn't do it automatically.
- It would be possible for two ready players to share outs. What happens if someone discards a card they could both use to win?
-Why do you hate clubs? It's the best suit!
-Why counterclockwise instead of clockwise? Is that typical in many cardgames? I ask because in poker the button moves clockwise.
-It seems significantly harder to make sets in this game than runs. I'm not sure the bonus for QQQ is enough to incentivize going for it very often. I haven't really played much to get a feel but computer simulations might shed some light.

These are all good points. The game is supposed to let you choose between all possible cards to discard. Whenever it doesnt it is due to a glitch in the program. I am trying to work out all the glitches.

If two people are ready on the same card and someone throws that card they have to pay both players the full amount.

Most Asian games run counter-clockwise, and this game is largely based on Japanese Mahjong.

You make a good point with the QQQ. Maybe it should be six point bonus instead of three.

If you find something you think is wrong with the program most likely you are correct. It still has some glitches, but the main point was to help people learn the rules. The code is open source available at reddit.com/r/readyrummy so if anyone wants to improve on it I would really appreciate it.

You do not have to declare ready. You can wait for a better hand. For example, you may be ready but all the cards you need to win have already been thrown out.

I have created a subreddit for readyrummy so if anyone wants to post or discuss anything about the game you can join the subreddit at http://www.reddit.com/r/readyrummy

I have changed the rules so a set of queens is worth six points instead of three. I believe this makes a lot of sense and makes the strategy more interesting and complex.

I meant after you've already declared ready, you might not want to take a card that gives you Rummy.

For example if you have As2s3s4s5s6s7s8s and draw a 3s. No one else is ready and the 9s is fully live. It may be better to try to continue to draw for a 9s for 36 points instead of 9, especially if 9 points isn't enough for first.

So there are two sides to the argument. And there is no wrong answer. But the one advantage to forcing a player to declare a win is that that way there can be no collusion and targeting of a player, so that is why I chose to make the rule this way. But really either option is fine, resulting in different strategy and play.

Here are some house rules for RR that add complexity:

If someone throws the winning card or the ready player draws the winning card the very first turn after declaring ready the hand is worth an extra 3 points.

If someone wins off of the last card of the round it is worth an extra 3 points.

If you have a winning hand before you draw your first card and someone throws your winning card, you may win in that special case without declaring ready and your hand is worth 36 points.

If your hand does not contain any A,9 or Q it is worth an extra 3 points.

If every meld in your winning hand contains at least one A, 9 or Q it is worth an extra 6 points. For Example: A23 A23 987 | 999 111 QQQ | QQQ 123 987 etc...

Did you program the game in straight JS or did you use some sort of engine or software to help with the programming?

Straight JS

A few rules have been updated. For an updated version of the rules visit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ReadyRummy/...f_ready_rummy/

A few rule bugs have been fixed on the site.