How to play Closed Rummy

Remi where nothing is ever laid down. Every set and run you make stays on your own board, out of sight, and the hand ends the moment one player can show that their whole rack is formations with one tile left over to throw. The player who closes counts their formations — scored exactly as in laid-down remi — and everybody else subtracts what they were caught holding, so the highest total wins.

Everyone is dealt fourteen tiles, and fifteen to the player who starts, so that player opens by throwing rather than drawing. One more tile is turned face up beside the stock: the atu.

1. Draw one tile — the top of the face-down stock, or the last tile thrown into your own discard row. Both give you one tile and neither asks anything of you.

2. Arrange, if you want to. Nothing you build leaves your board, so there is no turn on which you may not touch it.

3. Discard one tile to end your turn. It goes into the row of the player on your left.

A table plays with two decks: 106 pieces, and two jokers. Two players can agree on one deck and a hand of ten instead. Your rack is the same size at the end of every turn as it was at the start.

There is nothing to lay down here and no bar to clear. A set of three or more of the same number in different suits, or a run of three or more in one suit, is built on your own board and stays there — nobody else sees it, adds to it, or takes a joker out of it.

That is the whole difference from the remi most people know. You are not racing to get tiles onto the table; you are arranging your rack until every last tile in it belongs to a formation.

An ace plays low or high in a run — A-2-3 or Q-K-A — but never round the corner.

There is no shared pile. Every player has a row of their own, and you throw for the player on your left: your tile lands in their row, face up, for them to take or leave.

On your turn you may take the last tile thrown into your own row instead of drawing from the stock, and that is the only tile you will ever be allowed to take. You cannot reach into another player's row, and you cannot reach past the top of your own — the moment the player on your right throws again, whatever was lying there is buried for good.

Every row is face up, so watch them. What a player throws away is the clearest thing you will ever learn about the rack they are holding.

A joker stands in for any tile in a set or a run, and it is one joker to a formation.

You may also throw one away, and that is the move that makes this game its own. A joker lying in a discard row can never be picked up — not by the player whose row it landed in, not by anybody. So throwing a joker does exactly one thing: it takes the free draw away from the player on your left and sends them to the stock.

It is not cheap. A joker costs you 50 if somebody closes while it is still on your rack, so you are spending the best tile in the box to deny one player one draw.

You close when your whole rack is formations plus one tile to throw away. Show the board, throw the tile, and the hand is over on the spot.

Everything has to be accounted for: every tile you hold either sits in a formation or is the one you throw. A single loose tile and you are not closing yet.

The atu can finish it for you. The tile beside the stock may be pulled into the formation you close with, and that is the only way it ever leaves the table. You may reach for it instead of drawing.

The player who closes turns their board round and is paid for it: every set and run counts exactly what it would count laid down at the other remi tables.

Everybody else subtracts their whole rack — every tile still in front of them, whether or not it sits in a formation. Nobody saw your board, so nobody gives you credit for it. Tiles 1 to 9 cost 5, tens and pictures 10, and a joker 50 — and there is no limit to how far down a bad board takes you.

The atu changes the count twice. A player dealt the atu's twin adds 50 to their round, which can carry a caught rack past zero; and when the atu is an ace or a joker the whole round is doubled for everybody — losses included. Throw a joker as your closing tile and your own round is doubled.

A round that ends because the stock ran out — or because the whole table stopped drawing from it — ends with nobody closing, and everybody simply subtracts what they hold.

By default it does not: the table keeps dealing, with no target and no round limit, and you play until you have had enough. A room can be set up to stop after a fixed number of rounds instead, or on a target number of points — and here the target cuts both ways: the match ends the moment somebody's total climbs to the target or falls to minus the target, the physical game's până la minus.

However it ends, the highest total wins it — even when what ended it was a player falling to the floor rather than the leader reaching the target.

Open the scores at the top of the table whenever you like.

Your tiles stand on a board at the bottom of the screen, one to a place. Drag a tile onto a free place to move it, or drop it on another to slide it in. Tap a tile and then a free place if you would rather not drag.

Formations are made on the board: three or more tiles side by side with a gap either side, and the board prints what they are worth. A run only counts standing low to high, left to right, whatever is standing in it. Nothing leaves your board when you do it — the arrangement is yours to change until the moment you close.

Your own row sits in the middle of the felt and every other row sits with its player. Tap the top of yours to take it, or the stock to draw. The Close button lights up as soon as your board holds everything but one tile.

A practice match runs entirely on your device against bots, with no connection needed. A bot only ever sees what any opponent could see: your rack and the order of the stock are hidden from it, so it cannot cheat.

Online, a bot can also step in for a player who has gone quiet, so the table keeps moving.

Leaving with the back arrow does not give the round away: the table marks you as away and plays your turns, and your seat is held until you come back.