How to play Melded Rummy

Shape your hand into sets and runs and get them on the table. Everything you lay down pays you; everything left in your hand is taken back off you. Go out by discarding your last tile. 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 from the face-down stock.

2. Build, if you can: a new formation of your own, or a tile added to one already on the table. Never on your first turn.

3. Discard one tile to end your turn.

Breaking the row. Instead of drawing you may take a tile out of the discard row, but you have to use it in a formation you lay down there and then. The top tile comes alone. Reach deeper, which only a player who has opened may do, and every tile above the one you took comes into your hand as ordinary tiles. If the formations do not hold up the whole move is refused.

Nobody draws the atu, but on the turn you go out you may pull it into the meld you are laying, as long as that meld leaves you one tile to throw.

A table plays with two decks: 106 pieces, and two jokers. Two players can agree on one deck and a hand of ten instead. The stock is never refilled: when it runs out the round ends the moment somebody has to draw, with nobody out.

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; an ace sits low or high.

Values: 2 to 9 are worth 5 each, 10 and the pictures 10 each. An ace is 25 in a set, but 5 at the bottom of a run and 10 at the top. A joker is 50 in your hand and worth the tile it stands for on the table.

You have to open before anything else: melds worth at least 45 points, laid in a single turn. Until you do you cannot lay off on other melds or buy a joker.

Every opening also needs a suita, a run of three or more. Its points count towards the bar like any other meld's, and no amount of points stands in for the run.

A room can be set to 51 instead. Six points sounds like little and plays like a great deal: it usually costs a turn or two more, and often puts a joker inside the opening meld.

Nobody opens on their first turn. Build the melds on your own board first; the button above it adds them up and unlocks only when the whole opening is worth enough.

Once you have opened you can add fitting tiles to any meld on the table, yours or an opponent's. Drag the tile onto the meld, or select it and tap the meld. The points are yours either way: they follow the player who placed the tile.

A tile may only go where it fits for what it is, which is why a joker can never be laid off. Jokers reach the table inside a new meld and no other way.

A joker stands in for any tile in a set or a run, and it is the only wild piece at the table. The atu is not one. It works wherever you put it: at the front it is the tile below, at the back the tile above. One joker to a formation.

Caught in your hand it costs 50, the most expensive piece in the deck.

You can buy one back. Hold the tile a joker on the table stands for, drop it onto the joker and take the joker into your hand. The value of that slot moves with it. A bought-back joker is spent: it turns into a plain white tile and can never be bought again.

A joker is thrown to win, never thrown away. It may not go into the discard row on an ordinary turn, unless jokers are all you are holding. Throw one as your closing tile and your whole round is doubled, not just the bonus.

At the end of a round everybody adds up what they laid down, plus 100 for going out, then subtracts what is still in their hand. Throw a joker as your closing tile and that whole total is doubled.

A round that ends because the stock ran out pays no bonus: everybody scores what they laid minus what they held.

Lay no meld at all and you take a flat −100 instead, whatever you were holding. The player who went out is the one exception.

The atu pays twice over. Anybody dealt its twin scores an extra 50. And when the atu is a joker or an ace the whole round is doubled for everyone, good or bad. Both doublings can land on one player, for a ×4.

By default it does not: the table keeps dealing until you have had enough. A room can be set to stop after a fixed number of rounds, or as soon as somebody reaches a target number of points.

However it ends, the highest total wins. Open the scores at the top of the table whenever you like.

Your tiles stand on a board at the bottom of the screen. Drag a tile to a free place to move it, or drop it on another tile 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. The button above puts everything it has found on the table at once.

To throw a tile, tap it and then the discard box. To lay off, tap the tile and then the meld. To break the discard row, pick the tile you want: the table shows which tiles would come with it before anything moves.

The atu sits beside the stock. Drag it into a formation to claim it. To buy a joker back, drop the tile it stands for straight onto it.

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

Online, a bot steps 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 away and plays your turns, and your seat waits for you with its score.