Say "a game of remi" at a Romanian table and this is usually what gets set up: two decks of numbered tiles, a rack each, and a race to get your sets and runs onto the table before somebody empties their rack. The catch is the opening. Before anything goes down you need melds worth 45 points with a run among them, all laid in one turn, and a good part of every hand is spent getting there.

What you need

Two decks, 106 tiles, two of them jokers. Every other tile is a number from 1 to 13 in one of four suits; the ace is drawn as 1, and 11, 12 and 13 are the pictures. Everybody gets fourteen tiles, the player who starts gets fifteen, and one more tile is turned face up beside the stock. That one is the atu, and it comes back when the hand is scored. Two players can agree on a single deck and ten tiles each instead.

Sort first. I split the rack into what is ready, what is close and what is loose, because that is the question every turn asks you:

Sets, runs and what they are worth

A set is 3 or 4 tiles of the same number in different suits. A run is 3 or more tiles of one suit in a row. The ace goes low (1-2-3) or high (Q-K-A), but a run never turns the corner from the king back to the 2.

Tiles 2 to 9 are worth 5 each, the 10 and the pictures 10. The ace is the odd one out: 25 in a set, 5 at the bottom of a run, 10 at the top.

That last row catches people. There are two of every tile in the box, and a set still takes each suit only once.

How a turn goes

Draw one tile from the face-down stock, build if you can, throw one tile. That is a turn. Nobody builds on their first turn, and the player dealt fifteen skips the draw and opens the round with a throw.

A few turns later, the rack above gets its queen:

Instead of drawing you may break the row: take a tile from the discard row and lay it in a formation on the spot. The top tile comes alone. Only a player who has already opened may reach deeper, and then every tile above the one taken comes into the rack as well.

The set went down, and you are now holding a 9 and a 5 you never asked for. Reaching deep pays when the tiles that come along are ones you can use.

Opening: 45 points and a suita

Your first lay-down has to be worth at least 45 points, laid in a single turn, and it has to include a suita: a run of three or more. Sets alone never open, whatever they add up to. Until you have opened you cannot add to anybody's melds or buy a joker, and if you break the row before opening, the tile you take has to be part of a full opening.

Some rooms are set to a different bar, usually 51. Six points sounds like nothing. At the table it often costs a turn or two.

From the turn after your opening you may lay off: add a fitting tile to any meld on the table, yours or an opponent's. The points follow the tile, so they are yours. On the turn you open, you cannot.

Jokers

A joker stands in for any tile of a set or a run, one joker to a formation. Towards the opening bar it counts as the tile it replaces. Once it is down the table pays 50 for it, and caught in your hand it costs 50, more than any other tile in the box.

You can buy a joker back. Hold the tile it stands for, drop that tile onto the joker and take the joker into your rack. Nobody's points move, and the joker pays you 50 again when you lay it in a formation of your own. After that it is spent: it turns blank and can never be bought a second time.

You may not throw a joker on an ordinary turn, unless jokers are all you hold. The one throw it is good for is the closing one: go out on a joker and your whole round is doubled.

Going out and the score of a hand

You go out by throwing your last tile, so you can never lay down your whole rack: something has to be left to throw. On the turn you go out you may also pull the atu into the meld you lay, even instead of drawing, as long as a tile is still left for the throw.

When the hand ends, everybody adds up what they laid down and subtracts what is still in their hand, and whoever went out adds 100. A player who never opened takes a flat minus 100 instead. Three seats, and you went out:

The atu changes the count in two places. Whoever was dealt its twin (the identical tile) adds 50. And when the atu is an ace or a joker, the whole round is doubled for everyone. Had the atu above been an ace, you would score 380 and Ana 50, and Dan would still lose only 100: nobody loses more than 100 in a round, doubled or not. If the hand ends because the stock ran out, nobody gets the going-out bonus.

Common mistakes

  • Laying a finished run, say the 3, 4 and 5 of hearts, on your first turn. Nothing goes down on the first turn.
  • Throwing a joker on an ordinary turn. Unless jokers are all you hold, it leaves your rack as a throw only on the turn you go out.
  • Adding a joker to a formation already on the table, such as three sevens. A joker reaches the table only inside a new formation.
  • Laying down your last three tiles, the 9, 10 and 11 of clubs. A hand ends on a throw, so one tile always stays in your rack.

The other version of remi

The same tiles deal a second game. Closed Rummy lays nothing down: every formation stays hidden on your own board, and the hand is closed in one move.

Every corner case is on the full Melded Rummy rules page.