Fun you can count on! (Rummikub)

Member Name: jo@145

Product:	Rummikub
Date:	16/06/05 (569 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good fun, Helps with counting

Disadvantages: Frustrating at times!

My children loved to play “Board games” – not bored games! We still have boxes and drawers full of them, travel versions go on holiday with us, and sometimes when we are altogether we pull out a game we haven’t played for ages and sit round the table and enjoy ourselves, a pleasant way of spending a cold afternoon at Christmastime.

We all have our favourites, Cluedo was my one daughter’s and she still likes Murder Mystery Dinner party games! I do enjoy word games and play these with my husband, but he nearly always beats me! One of my favourites is a number game called Rummikub. We bought this many years ago, to help our children with their numbers, and the well made box is still going strong!

It is sold in over 50 countries and is a game that defies language barriers. The game of Rummy is banned by some religions but Rummikub is considered to be OK because there are no images of kings and queens only numbered tiles. It was developed by Ephraim Hertzano in the early 1930’s.

*The Game*

It is a tile Rummy game which is played world wide. The object of the game is to dispose all of the tiles in your rack, and gain a high score. It is based on a card game, where the cards are drawn from a pile and laid down in sequences or triples.

*What do you get for your money?*

Inside the box are four brown plastic racks which will hold up to 24 tiles in 2 rows. There are 2 triangular feet to fit onto each rack so they stand in an upright position, protecting your tiles from your opponent’s eyes! The racks measure 33cm x 9cm. There are 106 tiles in the game including 2 jokers, but two blank tiles are included in the set in case you lose one. The tiles are cream plastic rectangular shape 3.75 x 2.75cm and less than 0.5 cm thick. There is a circular indentation about the size of a 5p at the top of the tile. This will contain the number and colour of the tile. They actually feel quite nice to play with, and are smooth to touch! The name Rummikub is imprinted on the lower part of the tile and on the reverse a smiley face is imprinted and the Rummikub name both above and below it. The tiles are numbered from 1 to 13, with two sets in each colour.

I would have liked to have had a bag to keep the tiles in! Not that I’m a really tidy person, but it keeps them safe in case the box gets knocked over, and so I made a large brightly coloured bag, which we pass round to pick your tiles from, rather than having them stacked on the table.

*Playing the Game*

Rummikub can be played with 2, 3 or 4 players and is aimed for children aged from 8 to adults. The tiles are in four colours red, black, blue and yellow.
The tiles should be placed face down on the table and shuffled, as I said above we have ours in a bag! Players select one tile and whoever draws the highest number starts the game. The tiles are returned to the bag (or table) and each player selects 14 tiles. The remainder forms the pool.

You then need a few minutes to sort your rack out, this depends on the player but you want to get groups or runs. A “group” consists of three or four tiles of the same number but all different colours. A “run” consists of three or more tiles in the same colour in a sequence e.g. 6,7,8,9.

You might think that sounds easy! But you now have to use your brain a bit more and here it is good for children because they need to add up in their head! To allow you to lay down tiles for the first time you must have a total value of 30 or more. If you cannot play you have to take another tile from the pool, and play passes to the next person, going clockwise. Once you have laid down tiles, you can add on to existing sets, and here the fun starts, because you can then become manipulative! Sometimes you can nearly play all your tiles whilst someone is struggling to get their run or group to total 30!

You are only allowed one minute and this is strictly adhered to in my family (not so much when they where younger though or we would have had a few tears!). You can do the following moves.

1.You are allowed to add a tile to the beginning or end of a run.

2.You can remove a tile from a group or run of four or more, to complete one with tiles from your rack. There must be 3 left on the table.

3.Add a tile to the beginning or end of a sequence of 3, and remove one to complete another sequence or run.

4.You can split a run of 5 or 6 numbers and add another tile to form another run, e.g. if there is 6,7,8,9,10,in red and you have a red 8, you could change it to 6,7,8 and 8,9,10.

5.You can split several runs or groups providing you are adding at least one extra tile from the rack.

6.There are 2 jokers in the game, these can substitute any tile in any colour. During their turn a player can replace the joker with the correct tile and use it during that turn. You cannot manipulate a run or group if it contains a joker.

7.If your time runs out and you have not completed the moves the player has to take all the tiles that are not part of a set onto their rack plus three extra tiles from the pool as a penalty! Once they have finished play passes to the next person and their minute starts.

As with all rules they can sound a bit difficult but once you play it is quite straight forward, and our children played this from 7 or 8 years old.



*Scoring*

If you place your last tile you shout “RUMMIKUB” and then the remaining players add up the total values on their rack. There is a penalty of 30 points for the joker! The winner of the round receives a positive score of the loser’s totals and the losers receive their own score as a negative figure. This is good for children to practice addition and subtraction! An easy check for each round is that the results in the plus score equal the negative scores.

*Strategy*

Young children do not always understand how to play strategically and manipulatively, but adults can be quite canny at this game.

It is always good to see someone’s face when they have hung onto the joker or the tile that you have wanted for a few turns, and suddenly you manage to play your last tile and “Rummikub” you’ve won and they have to add up their score for a big minus figure! I bet you didn’t realise but you can get quite vindictive in this game! I admit there must be a cruel streak in me somewhere! But I did play differently when my children were younger.

*The Winner*

You can decide how many games you are going to play or what score will determine the winner. The choice is yours and the length of games varies, because no one knows how quickly the game will be played.

*Cost*
It is a long, long time since we bought our game, but I have seen it advertised on Amazon for £11.89 to £17.99. Or if you are an E-bay fanatic from as little as £1! It is possibly more expensive in High Street stores.

*Conclusion*
The game is definitely fun you can count on, and I admit there is a large measure of strategy and a small dose of luck. It is a game I can recommend, for all ages. But it is supposed to promote calm and release tension by the soothing sound of clicking tiles! Now that is debatable!!

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