In Closed Rummy nothing is ever laid on the table. Every set and run you build stays on your own board, where nobody can see it, add to it or take a joker out of it. There is no opening bar and no shared pile. The hand ends in one move, the moment a player can show that their whole rack is formations plus one tile to throw, and until then all you have to go on is what the others throw.

The deal and the rows

Two decks, 106 tiles, two of them jokers. Everybody gets fourteen tiles, the player who starts gets fifteen and opens by throwing, and one more tile goes face up beside the stock: the atu.

Instead of a common discard pile, every player has a row in front of them, and you always throw into the row of the player on your left. On your turn you may take the last tile thrown into your own row instead of drawing from the stock. It is a free draw with no conditions attached, and it is the only tile you may ever take: nothing under the top of your row, nothing from anybody else's.

How a turn goes

One tile in, one tile out. You draw from the stock or from the top of your own row, you arrange your board if you want to (nothing ever leaves it), and you throw one tile to your left. At the end of every turn your rack holds fourteen tiles again.

Building on your board

A set is 3 or 4 tiles of the same number in different suits, a run is 3 or more of one suit in a row, and the ace plays low (1-2-3) or high (Q-K-A), never round the corner. That much is the same in every remi. The goal is not. You are not racing to put tiles on the table; you are arranging your rack until every tile in it belongs to a formation. A tile that fits nowhere will cost you.

Watch the rows while you build. They are all face up, and what a player throws is the clearest thing you will ever learn about their rack. Your own throw lands in your left neighbour's row as a free draw, so think twice before handing over the 10 they have been waiting for.

Jokers

A joker stands in for any tile of a set or a run, one joker to a formation. Unlike at the melded tables, you may throw one away, and it is a real move: a joker lying in a row can never be taken, not by the player whose row it landed in and not by anybody else. Throwing it does exactly one thing. It takes your left neighbour's free draw away and sends them to the stock.

That move is not cheap. A joker shown in your closing board pays 50, and one still on your rack when somebody else closes costs you 50.

Closing the hand

You close when, after your draw, your whole rack is formations plus exactly one tile. You show the board, throw that last tile, and the hand is over on the spot. Every tile has to be accounted for. One loose tile and you are not closing yet.

The atu can finish it for you. If your board is one tile short and the atu is that tile, you may pull it into the formation you close with, instead of drawing. That is the only way the atu ever leaves the table.

The score of a whole hand

The player who closes is paid for the board they show: every set and run counts exactly what it would earn laid down at the melded table. There is no going-out bonus on top. Everybody else subtracts their whole rack, arranged or not, because nobody saw their formations. Tiles 1 to 9 cost 5 (the ace included), tens and pictures 10, a joker 50. And there is no floor: a bad rack takes you as far down as it adds up to.

The atu works as at every remi table. Whoever was dealt its twin (the identical tile) adds 50, and an atu that is an ace or a joker doubles the whole round for everyone, losses included: you would score 270, Ana minus 240 and Dan minus 100. Throw a joker as your closing tile and your own round is doubled.

Sometimes nobody closes. If the stock runs out, or the whole table stops drawing from it, the hand ends there and everybody subtracts what they hold; the atu's twin and the atu double still count.

By default the table keeps dealing until you have had enough. A room with a points target stops the moment somebody climbs to the target or falls to minus the target (the physical game's până la minus), and the highest total still wins.

Common mistakes

  • Trying to close with tiles left over. A run and a set with two spare tiles cannot close yet: every tile but the one you throw has to sit in a formation.
  • Reaching under the top of your row. With the 2 of clubs, the 9 of hearts and the king of diamonds on it, you may take the king, and the 9 under it is buried for good.
  • Counting on a joker somebody threw. A joker lying in a row is never taken, not even from your own row.

How it differs from Melded Rummy

Melded Rummy lays every formation on the table behind a 45-point opening and shares one discard row that can be broken. It never lets you throw a joker on an ordinary turn, pays 50 for going out and never takes more than 100 from anybody in a round.

The full Closed Rummy rules page has every detail, down to the last corner case.