How to play Okey Rummy
Old tiles. New grudges.
Play Okey RummyFourteen tiles and a wild one
Okey is a rummy game played with tiles, where reading the table matters as much as your own rack.
Everyone works on a rack of fourteen tiles that nobody else can see, sorting them into runs and sets. On your turn you take one tile and throw one away. The first player who can lay down all fourteen in finished groups wins the hand, and a match keeps dealing until somebody reaches the target score.
Two to four people can play, and a match runs from about twenty minutes to over an hour, depending on the length the host chooses. The pace is calm, but each discard matters: another player may be waiting for the tile you let go.
The tiles and the wild
The set has 106 tiles: the numbers 1 to 13 in red, black, blue and green, two of each, plus two false jokers. The dealer starts with fifteen tiles and everyone else with fourteen. The rest stay face down as the draw pile, which holds 76 tiles at a table of two and 48 at a table of four.
You win a hand by arranging all fourteen of your tiles into groups and throwing away your last tile. A group is a run or a set.
A run is three or more consecutive numbers in one colour, such as red 4, 5, 6. The 1 can go at either end, so 12, 13, 1 is a run, and so is 1, 2, 3.
A set is three or four tiles of the same number, each in a different colour. Two tiles of the same colour cannot be in one set.
At the start of each hand one tile is turned face up. The tile one number higher in the same colour is wild for that hand: if a green 9 is turned up, both green 10s are wild. A wild can stand in for any tile you need, and the game rings it on your rack.
The two false jokers have a star in place of a number. Each plays as an ordinary copy of the wild, so with green 10 wild, a false joker is a green 10.
The turned-up tile has one twin in the set. If you are dealt it, you can show it before your first draw and score a point. After your first draw the chance is gone for that hand. The tile stays in your rack as an ordinary tile.
Draw one, throw one
On your turn, take one tile: the top of the face-down pile, or the tile the player on your right just threw away. Then throw one tile away.
The dealer already has fifteen tiles, so the dealer opens the hand by throwing one away without drawing. The player on your left can take your discard on their turn.
The host can switch on a 45-second turn timer. If yours runs out, the game draws the top tile from the pile for you and throws that same tile away.
Going out and scoring
Going out with runs and sets scores 3 points. Going out with seven pairs, or discarding the wild as your final tile, scores 6; doing both still scores 6. Apart from any points awarded for a shown tile, only the player who goes out scores that hand.
There is a second way to go out: seven pairs. A pair is two identical tiles, the same number in the same colour, so a red 9 and a blue 9 are not a pair. A wild can stand in for one tile of a pair. A hand is either seven pairs or runs and sets, never a mix of the two.
A match is a series of hands. Before it starts, the host picks a short, standard or long match, and the standings show the target throughout.
The target depends on the length and how many are playing: a standard match is first to 8 at four players, 10 at three and 15 at two.
If the draw pile runs out before anyone goes out, nobody scores that hand except for a shown tile, and the next hand is dealt.
A hand that could pay 3 or 6
The tile turned up this hand is the blue 4, so the two blue 5s are wild. You are not the dealer. After a few turns your rack looks like this: red 3, 4, 5, 6; black 9, blue 9, green 9; green 10, 11, 12, 13; black 6, 7; and a blue 5.
Red 3, 4, 5, 6 is a run. The three 9s are a set. Green 10 to 13 is another run. That leaves the black 6 and 7 and your wild, which can stand in as the black 8. Count it up and every tile already has a place.
So whatever you draw, you can throw it away and go out. You draw from the pile and get a red 11, which fits nowhere. Throw it to finish, and the hand pays 3.
Or throw the red 11 and keep playing. If a real black 8 turns up, black 6, 7, 8 is complete without help, the wild becomes your spare tile, and going out by throwing the wild pays 6. There are two black 8s in the set and you have not seen either.
You wait. Just before your next turn, the player on your right throws a black 8. You take it, discard the blue 5, and lay down fourteen tiles for 6 points. The risk is that another player could have gone out while you waited, leaving you with no points for the hand.
Playing it well
Watch the discards on your right. That is the discard you can take, and it shows you what that player is not collecting.
Be careful what you hand to your left. If the next player took your green 6 last time, the green 7 is the tile they are waiting for. Hold it a turn longer than feels comfortable.
Keep runs open at both ends. Red 4, 5, 6 can take a 3 or a 7, and red 12, 13 can take the 11 or the 1. Two ways in means twice the chance on every draw.
Count what has gone. Every tile exists twice, so once both green 8s have been thrown, holding a green 7 and 9 for that gap is pointless. They make good throws.
Decide early whether this is a pairs hand. If you are dealt four or five pairs, seven pairs may be closer than any run, and it pays double. A pairs hand and a runs hand want different tiles and cannot be mixed, so pick one by your third or fourth turn.
Hold on to the wild. It fills any gap and can double your score, so it is rarely the right tile to throw unless you are going out on it.