What is Rummy 500?

Rummy 500 turns Rummy into a points race. Instead of just going out first, you score the cards you lay down, so a big hand can be worth more than a quick finish.

Quick answer: Rummy 500, also called 500 Rum, is a variant for 2 to 8 players where you lay your melds face up and score the point value of the cards in them. The first player to reach 500 points wins. Its signature rule lets you draw more than one card from the discard pile, as long as you immediately use the deepest card you take.

Scoring the melds

In Rummy 500, you score the card values of every meld you lay down and every card you lay off, then subtract any deadwood left in your hand. Face cards are 10, numbers their value, and Aces count 1 low or 15 high - see the card values.

The discard-pile rule

The defining twist is that you can take more than one card from the discard pile. You may reach down and take a buried card along with everything above it, provided you immediately play that buried card into a meld. This makes the discard pile a rich, tempting resource.

Racing to 500

Hands continue until a player reaches 500 total points, so the game rewards consistently laying down high-value melds rather than simply emptying your hand first. It scales well from two players up to eight, making it a great group game. See how Rummy is scored for the wider picture.

Play Rummy 500

Related questions

How is Rummy scored?

In most Rummy games the player who goes out scores points equal to the total deadwood left in the other players' hands. Face cards count 10 each, number cards their pip value, and Aces usually 1. Variants differ: Rummy 500 scores the melds you lay down, and Gin Rummy adds bonuses for knocking, going Gin and undercutting.

How do you lay off cards in Rummy?

Laying off means adding a card to a meld that is already on the table, rather than starting a new one. In Gin Rummy, the defender lays off deadwood onto the knocker's melds to lower their own count. In games like Rummy 500 and basic Rummy, you can lay off onto any melds in play to unload cards and score.

What are the card values in Rummy?

In most Rummy games, number cards are worth their pip value (a 7 is 7 points), face cards - Jack, Queen and King - are worth 10 each, and the Ace is worth 1. Some games change the Ace: in Rummy 500 an Ace played in a high run counts 15, and in Canasta the values are different again.