Rummy Strategy

32 Indian Rummy Glossary And Terms Must Be Known When You Play Rummy

32 Indian Rummy Glossary And Terms Must Be Known When You Play Rummy

Before attempting to play or trying to get good at a game of rummy, it’s better to first understand the different rummy terms and rummy terminology. The below are Indian A-Z rummy glossary and Terminology that you can always keep handy whether you are playing rummy game offline or online.

Indian Rummy Glossary Terms Game Introduction

Indian Rummy is the most popular and played game. It is a classic game of rummy that every Indian loves and is being played since centuries. If you have a good knowledge about indian rummy rules and several concepts about the game, then your chances of winning are very high. A lot of people find several rummy terms confusion. Not understanding the terminologies properly can lead to misleading situations and cause you to lose the game.

Indian Rummy Glossary And Terms

Before attempting to play or trying to get good at a game of rummy, it’s better to first understand the different rummy terms and rummy terminology. The below are Indian A-Z rummy glossary and Terminology that you can always keep handy whether you are playing rummy game offline or online.

Indian Rummy Terms A-D

1. Ace: In a standard 52 cards deck there are 4 aces; one of each suit (spade, hearts, clubs and diamonds). Ace can be used as a lower card as well as a higher card i.e. you can make a sequence as Ace-2-3 as well as Ace-King-Queen.

2. Best of Two: It is a form of Deals Rummy where players play two rounds. Whoever has the highest chip count from beating his/her opponents after two rounds is declared the winner.

3. Best of Three: It is a form of Deals Rummy where players play three rounds. Whoever has the highest chip count from beating his/her opponents after three rounds is declared the winner.

4. Buy In: In order to participate in tournaments, each player has to pay some buy-in money, or in other words an entry fee. Once the game is over, this collective pool is divided among the winners.

5. Deal: It refers to the distribution of cards to every player by the dealer at the start of every hand.

6. Dealer: Every player draws a card from the shuffled pack of cards and the player getting the lowest value card deals the game. It's up to the players who decide the dealer of the next game. Some players set the rule as "loser to deal" wherein the loser of the previous game deals the next game whereas some players deal one game each in Indian rummy.

7. Declare: When you declare that you have finished arranging your cards in desired sequences and/or sets. In a 13 cards rummy game, you declare rummy by putting the 14th card face down on the discard pile.

8. Deck or Pack of Cards: A standard deck of cards has 52 cards which include 13 cards of each suit. These suites are Spades, Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs. In the case of rummy, there are also 2 printed jokers that can be used while playing.

9. Deadwood cards:Cards that are unmatched is referred as the deadwood cards. For example, if you have cards that remain ungrouped in a sequence or a set, they form the deadwood cards. The sum of deadwood cards determine the margin by which lose the game.

10. Discard/Lay off: According to Rummy Wiki, in standard 13-card Indian rummy, a player on his/her turn is supposed to pick up the 14th card (either from the draw pile of the discard pile); use the 14th card if required and then discard the 14th card. The discarded card could be the card he just picked or any card from his existing 13 cards. The player should have 13 cards at the end of his/her turn. The cards that are discarded by the players form the discard pile.

11. Discard Pile: A discard pile is formed by the card/s discarded by the rummy players. A player on his/her turn can pick the top card from the discard pile (this top card is the last card discarded by the opponent)z.

12. Discard time: There is no discard time limit when rummy is played against in person but when you play rummy online, there is some limit to the time that a player can take while discarding a card.

13. Draw Pile: In a typical 13 cards rummy game, the cards that are not drawn or distributed are kept upside down or face down and kept in front of the players form the draw pile.

A player on his/her turn picks up a card from this draw pile and then discards a card. If the cards in the draw pile finishes, the Discard Pile is reshuffled except the last discarded card and a new draw pile is formed.

14. Drop: A player has the option to quit or leave the game. They can 'drop' the game during their turn by clicking on the Drop button.

Indian Rummy Terms F-P

15. Face Card: All Kings, Queens and Jacks of all suits are called as Face Cards.

16. Hand: The cards that are dealt to a player that he/she has to arrange in sequence and/or set.

17. Impure / Second Sequence: A group of three or more consecutive cards of the same suit formed with a Joker.

18. Joker: In rummy, Joker acts as a card that is used to substitute the missing cards. After dealing the cards to all the players a card is selected at random which acts as a Joker. If you have drawn ♣10 as the random Joker, all the suits with rank '10' act as the Joker. The Joker is used to make sets and sequences which were not able to be melded. Eg: If you have the following cards in your hand with ♠4, ♠5 and ♠7 you will need ♠6 to make a sequence; since you do not have it, you can use a Joker to substitute the missing card which in this scenario acts as '♠6'.

19. Melding: Melding is to combine cards into sets and sequences in a game of rummy.

20. Number of Cards: Each player is dealt 13 cards and the after distributing.

  • Ace = 10 points
  • King = 10 points
  • Queen = 10 points
  • Jack = 10 points
  • 10 = 10 points

The joker is assigned 0 points while all other numbered cards carry points equal to their rank. For example, a 3 carries 3 points, a 7 carries 7 points, and so on.

21. Points: Points in a game or rummy are assigned according to a pre-determined value of each card. Whoever has the lowest points wins and whoever has the highest points loses.

22. Printed Joker/Wild card Joker: Apart from the 52 cards of 4 suites, there are two or three printed jokers in a standard 52 cards pack. This printed joker can also be used as any card. Printed joker is also called as Wildcard by some.

23. Pure sequence: A sequence of three or more cards without the joker is known as a ‘pure sequence’.

Indian Rummy Glossary And Terms

Indian Rummy Terms R-W

24. Run: A run is nothing but an order of cards or a sequence.

25. Scoring: Scoring means adding all the points accumulated by players during the game. This is done based on their sets or sequences and the winners and losers are decided accordingly.

26. Sequence: A sequence is made up of three or more consecutive cards of the same suit. For example: 9-10-11 of Spades would make one pure sequence. The order of the sequences can be from Ace to King i.e. A-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-J-Q-K-A.

Ace can be used as the top card as well as the lower card i.e. you can make Ace King Queen and you can also make Ace-2-Three.

27. Set: Set is made by arranging 3 or 4 cards of the same rank and different suits. Jokers can also be used to substitute the missing cards in the set. A suit is not valid if any one of the suit repeats. (Eg: ♠7 ♥7 ♣7 or ♠Q ♥Q ♣Q ♦Q can be called as valid sets. ♠9 ♠9 ♣9 cannot be called as valid sets as the ♠9 is repeating in the group of cards.

28. Shuffle: Shuffling is the process of mixing the cards to make it more random during dealing. The shuffling makes sure that the cards are random in the next dealing. It is the dealer who shuffles the cards.

29. Straight Run: A sequence without the use of the joker is also known as a ‘straight run’.

30. Suit: There are 4 suits in any pack of cards i.e. Spades, Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs.

31. Unmatched Cards: The cards with which a player is not able to make sequences and/or sets when the opponent has declared rummy. The loser is charged with the points of the unmatched cards. The unmatched cards are also called unarranged cards.

32. Winner: A winner in a rummy game is a player who declares rummy by arranging his/her cards with desired sets and/or sequences. Also, to win the rummy game, the player has to correctly declare his/her cards. The winner gets 0 points after winning.

It is very important to know these terms before you start playing the game. Hope this Rummy glossary helped you in increasing your knowledge in rummy. If you are beginner, you must be first understanding about rummy rules and how to play rummy. After you gain a clear, you can start playing with real money! Get going, begin your rummy journey mastering these terms now!


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