How to Play

Shanghai Rummy is a variation of Rummy played with 4 people. The objective of the game is to
achieve the lowest score at the completion of all 7 hands. The objective of each hand is to lay
down your required contract for that hand and then lay down remaining card on your opponents
who have already laid down to eliminate as many or all cards in your hand before your
opponents to receive the lowest possible points. If you win a hand by eliminating all cards in
your hand while one or more opponents has not yet laid down the required contract for the hand
you have “Shanghaied" these opponents.
Each game is made up of 7 individual hands known as "Contracts". A contract is some
requirements players must meet to win the game, for example, players are required to form 2 Set
of 3 at 1st contract. 7 contract hand examples below.
1. 2 sets of 3 of a kind. Example: 3♤, 3◇, 3♡ and 9♧, 9♡, 9♤
2. 2 run a of 3. Example: 5♡, 6♡, 7♡ and K◇, Q◇, J◇
3. 1 run and 1 set of 3. Example: 3♤, 3◇, 3♡ and 5♡, 6♡, 7♡
4. 2 sets of 4 of a kind. Example: 3♤, 3◇, 3♡, 3♧ and 9♧, 9♡, 9♤, 9◇
5. 2 run a of 4. Example: 5♡, 6♡, 7♡, 8♡ and K◇, Q◇, J◇, 10◇
6. 1 run and 1 set of 4. Example: 3♤, 3◇, 3♡, 3♧ and 5♡, 6♡, 7♡, 8♡
7. 1 set of 3 and 1 run of 7. Example: 3♤, 3◇, 3♡, and 5♡, 6♡, 7♡, 8♡, 9♡, 10♡, J♡

Cards and Wilds:

In Shanghai Rummy, 2 decks of cards including jokers are used, so there's a total of 108 cards.
Aces can only be used high (Example: J♤, Q♤, K♤, A♤). Duces (Twos) and Jokers are wild
cards and can be used in place of any card.

Stock and Discard Piles:

The game starts by dealing 10 cards to each player, the rest of the cards are placed face-down to
form the “Stock Pile”. The dealer then picks the top card from the stock pile and discards it face-
up to form the “Discard Pile”. The game then proceeds clockwise, the next player can then pick a
card from the stock pile or discard pile by clicking on the pile they want to draw from, if they
choose to draw from the stock pile then each other player has the option to “Buy” the card in the
Discard Pile. Then the player plays their hand, lays down their melds if possible, and discards
one card to the discard pile by dragging the card from their hand to the discard pile to end their
turn.
Buying:
In each contract, players have the chances to take any discard out of turn, this is known as
"buying". When a player discards a card, and the next player does not draw it to start their turn,
the other players are presented to "buy" or “Pass” the discard card, buying a card comes with the
tax of one additional card from the stock pile. If more than one player wants to buy the same
card, the closest player to the discarder in rotation has the precedence over any other players.
EACH player is allowed only 4 Buys per Contract, this means no player may have more than 18
cards in their hand at any time.

Melding:
Once a player meets the requirements of the current contract, they can lay down their cards to
form the "melds". To correctly Meld the player must have the cards in their hand in contract
order and only select the exact number of cards required for the contract. Next they click the
Meld button on the left and select the cards to meld then click the meld button again to place
them on the table. Finally, the player can Lay off as many extra cards as they can before
Discarding to end their turn. To skip laying down if you do not have anything to after melding
click the Skip button on the left side to go to discard selection.
Laying Off:
Once you have gone down, you can start to "layoff" the cards in your hand, given that it's your
turn. In order to layoff, the cards must be part of an existing meld, e.g. a 8♡ can be grouped into a
8♧, 8♧, 8♤ set; a 3♡ and a 4♡ can be grouped into a 5♡, 6♡, 7♡, 8♡ run. A wild card can be laid off
to any existing meld or can be used jointly with any other cards.

Going Out:
A player wins (also referred as "going out") when there's no card left in the players hand, this can
be achieved in three ways: 1. Going down with no cards left; 2. Laying off all cards in their
hand; 3. Discarding the last card in their hand. At this point all other players points for the
contract are then counted towards their final score.
Scoring:
Points will be calculated at the end of each contract and accumulated until the end of the game,
winner of the contract gets 0 points, all other players calculate their points based on the cards in
their hand:
1. 3 to 10: Take their face value.
2. Jacks, Queens and Kings: 10 points.
3. Aces: 15 points.
4. Wild cards (Twos and Jokers): 20 points.
Once all 7 contracts have been played, the game winner is the player with lowest points.