Multiplayer Rummy

Description: Empty your hand, then go out and win.

Introduction: Be the quickest to abandon your cards among all players, and the trophy shall be yours. Multiplayer Rummy is a classic card game for 2 to 4 players, using a standard deck of 52 cards. The goal of the game is to be the first player who gets rid of his hands and scores 100 points. Whenever a player can remove all of his cards, he can score points based on the cards remaining in the opponents' hands. The ranking of cards in ascending sequence is from A to K.At the start of the game, a random player will be chosen to become the dealer. After a hand is completed, the player on the left of the previous dealer becomes the new dealer. The number of cards to be dealt to each player will depend on the total number of players in the game. In a 2-player game, each player will be dealt 10 cards, and for a game with 3 to 4 players, 7 cards will be dealt to each of them. The dealer distributes the cards by dealing each player one card at a time in clockwise direction around the table, until all players have the required number of cards. The remaining cards are placed face-down on the table as the stock pile. The topmost card on the stock pile will be placed face-up to the discard pile on the right of the stock pile. The player on the left of the dealer will take the first turn. The first part of a turn is the drawing phase, in which the player takes a card from the stock pile or the discard pile and adds it to his hand. After this comes the melding phase, in which the player can optionally place melds onto the table by playing either a run or a set. A run is composed of at least 3 cards of the same suit in sequence, such as 3, 4 and 5 of spades. A set composes of 3 to 4 cards of the same rank, for example the K cards of spades, hearts and diamonds. After melding, the player proceeds to the phase of laying off. He can choose to place additional cards to an existing meld on the table as long as the extra cards do not make the existing meld invalid, for example, if the existing meld is a run of 3, 4 and 5 of spades, the player can add a 2 of spades to the meld, forming a run of 2, 3, 4 and 5 of spades. Note that the cards cannot be moved from one meld to another to form new melds. After laying off, the player enters the discard phase, in which he must choose a card in his hand to discard. If the player took a card from the discard pile during the drawing phase, the same card cannot be discarded this turn. A player can skip the phases of melding and laying off and proceed directly to the discarding phase if he wishes. If the stock pile is used up and the active player does not wish to take the card from the discard pile during the drawing phase, he can put aside the topmost card of the discard pile on the table, and turn the discard pile over to form a new stock pile without shuffling. The first player to empty his hand either by melding, laying off or discarding wins the hand. This process is known as 'going out'. Once a player goes out, that hand is completed and other players will sum up the values of cards in their hands, and add them to the score of the player who wins the hand. The J, Q and K cards are worth 10 points, the Ace gives 1 point, and the other cards are worth their face values, for example, a 7 is worth 7 points. Note that a special case called 'going rummy' exists, in which a player did not meld or lay off any cards in the previous turns, but is able to go out within a single turn by disposing his entire hand. If a player goes rummy and wins the hand, he scores double points from the remaining cards of the opponents. The game continues until a player gets 100 points and becomes the winner.This game was suggested by Jenith Daniel.