K (high), Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, A.
Dealer gives one card at a time face down, beginning with the player on the left. When two people play, each person gets 10 cards. When three or four people play, each receives seven cards; when five or six play, each receives six cards. The remaining cards are placed face down on the table, forming the stock.
The top card of the stock is turned face up to start the discard pile.
When two people play, the winner of each hand deals the next. When more than two play, the deal passes to next the player on the left.
Each player tries to form matched sets consisting of groups of three or four of a kind, or sequences of three or more cards of the same suit.
Beginning with the player to the left of the dealer, players either draw the top card of the stock or take the top card of the discard pileand add it to their hand. The player may also lay down on the table, face up, any meld (matched set). If players do not wish to lay down a meld, they discard one card, face up, onto the discard pile. If players have drawn from the discard pile, they may not discard the same card on that turn.
A player may add one or more from their hand to any matched set already shown on the table. Thus, if threes are showing, they may add the fourth three; if 10, 9, 8 are showing, they may add J, or Q, J, 7, or 7, 6
When a player gets rid of all of their cards, they win the game. If all of their remaining cards are matched, the player may lay them down without discarding on their last turn. This ends the game and there is no further play. If the last card of the stock has been drawn and no player has gone out, the next player in turn may either take the top of the discard pile, or may turn the discard pile over to form a new stock (without shuffling it) and draw the top card. Play then proceeds as before.
Each player pays to the winner the pip value of the cards remaining in their hand, whether the cards form matched sets or not. Picture cards count 10 each, aces 1 each, and every other card its pip value. A player goes "rummy" when they get rid of all cards in their hand at once, without previously having put down or laid off any cards. In this event, every other player pays double what they would otherwise owe.
The ace may rank either high or low.
In some instances, jokers and/or 2‘s are used as wildcards and can represent any card value when melding. They can be used in sets or runs but cannot be replaced when 'melded', nor can a player lay off a card to replace it by themselves or their opponent.
Jokers are either not counted during the scoring or they count as 15 points.
In other variations, such as rummy 500 and treppenrommé, discards are placed so that all the cards are visible. At the beginning of the turn, a player may take any card from the discard pile, so long as all the cards on top of it are also picked up, and the last card picked up is played immediately. If only picking up the top card, the player must keep it and discard a different card.
In a variation called block or tile rummy, play does not continue after going through the pack once – if no players are out, they all lose the points in their hands after the pack has been gone through once.
Round the corner rummy, also called continuity rummy, is a variant where an ace may be simultaneously high and low to "wrap around" in a run, as in the following meld: Q-K-A-2.