The games · Coolhand Cards

Rummy 500

Put sets and runs on the table, where every card you meld scores for you. Reach deep into the pile for the card you need. Once someone passes five hundred, the highest total wins.

Players: 2 to 6
Family: Rummy
App: Coolhand Cards · iOS and Android, soon

How it goes

One deck and two jokers, or two decks at a bigger table. Draw the stock's top card or the pile's, or reach deeper into the pile, taking every card above it, and meld that deepest card right away. Meld and lay off freely, then throw one card, but not a lone pile card you just took. A meld is three or four of a rank, or a run of three or more in one suit, ace low or high but not both. Jokers keep the card they were named for. Cards you lay off score for you. Play stops when a hand empties, or when the stock does and the next player to draw refuses the pile. Everyone scores their melded cards minus the cards they're still holding: number cards their pips, tens and face cards ten, aces and jokers fifteen, a low ace one. Scores can go negative. Past five hundred, the highest score wins.

A good hand

Cards on the table, not in your hand. Every card you meld or lay off counts for you, and every card still held when the hand ends is subtracted, so a meld put down early is safe from a sudden finish. Watch the pile: a buried card that completes a meld is worth taking the cards above it, if you can use them too. Aces and jokers cost fifteen each if the hand ends with them still in your hand, more than any other card. And every meld on the table is yours to add to.

The usual mistake

Sitting on a finished meld to keep it hidden. If someone else runs out first, those cards count against you, not for you. Reaching deep for one card and forgetting the rest: everything above it comes too, and what you can't meld stays in your hand to be subtracted. Holding a joker too long, when it scores fifteen melded and costs fifteen held. And throwing a card you could have laid off on someone else's meld and scored as your own.

Played differently where you are?

Card games change from table to table, and we researched some of these games instead of playing them. If Rummy 500 goes differently where you play it, tell us. That's one of the things the closed beta is for.

The closed beta is by invitation. How to ask to join.