Rummikub

Rummikub

We play two or three hands of Rummikub most evenings these days. Sometimes just the wife and I, sometimes with the kids. It's a fairly simple minded game, much like gin or rummy or gin rummy (if you tell the difference between them you're a better man than I). The trick is that after someone has played some tiles, you can rearrange them into new combinations as long as when you are done all the combinations on the board are valid.

When the game starts it goes pretty quickly, people are just drawing one tile after another. Eventually people start laying down tiles and when you reach a critical mass of played tiles is when it gets interesting. People have fewer tiles in their hands and are looking to go out. Rearranging may involve multiple steps, taking tiles from one sequence, building new sequences and using the left over tiles to build another sequence. There might be dozen of these steps involved in a single play. Osmany is a master of it. Anyway, when we are in this stage of the game, when a player's turn comes, they may sit staring at the board for a long time, long enough for you to fall asleep, take a nap, catch a ball game, go to the beach. I exaggerate, but it might be several minutes. It doesn't really help to plan ahead because a single tile played can alter the entire situation.

It keeps us amused.

P.S. Rummikub showed up in an episode of Behzat Ç.