Hope and I’s Rules for Aggravation Rummy

I wrote this down mainly so that we’d quit forgetting the rules for Aggravation Rummy, but I thought I would post them here, mostly in their raw form, for you to use as well. Comments welcome.

Aggravation Rummy

1. 2 books of 4 of a kind
2. 3 of a kind and a 4 card straight
3. 7 card straight
4. 1 pair and a 5 card straight
5. 4 of a kind and a 4 card straight
6. 8 card straight
7. 2 books of 4 of a kind
8. 9 card straight
9. 1 pair and 5 of a kind
10. 3 of a kind and 5 of a kind

Deal 11 cards to each player

Use 2 decks for 2-3 players

Use 3 decks for 4-6 players

Counting and Scoring

2’s and Jokers are wild: 25 points

Aces: 15 points

10’s through Kings: 10 points

3 through 9: 5 points

25 points are subtracted from your score if you cut and deal the exact number of cards, either by dealing out exactly 11 * (the number of players) or that same number plus the face-up card.

How to play:

Shuffle and deal the cards. After dealing, dealer turns one card face-up from the draw pile. This card will establish the discard pile. The first player is the player to the left of the dealer, and play continues clockwise as seen from above the table.

Players must be able to complete their run as seen in the list above. For each turn, the player can either pick up the top face-up card on the discard pile or choose the top card from the stock, which is face-down. The player then tries to complete their runs. If the player can complete their runs, they lay their runs down face up in front of them on the table. Both runs must be completed in order to lay down. Whether or not the player has laid down, the player must discard one card to the discard pile, face up. Play then continues to the next player.

During their turn, players who have laid down can also play cards on other players’ runs that have also been laid down. This is how players whittle down their hand and win, along with extending their own runs.

A player wins a round by playing all of their cards on laid down runs except for one card that cannot be played and is thus discarded. This ends the round.

Cards that can be played must be played. This sometimes means that a player plays all of their cards without a discard. Play continues in the normal manner until someone else wins or the player finally picks up a card from the stock that they cannot play on any available run and therefore have a discard.

A player wins the entire game by completing the 10^th run and having the lowest score.

It is possible for a round to end without some players laying down their runs. In this case, those players are still stuck at those runs for the next round, until those runs can be completed. The player then continues to the next run for the next round.

At the end of each round, players count the cards in their hand, adding up the scores as above. The lowest score at the end of a game is the winner.