Kalooki 40 Rummy Game
Kalooki 40 is a popular variant of rummy, and can be played online for real money at RummyRoyal, the world’s largest online rummy website. If you’re brand new to rummy, we suggest visiting the visual tutorial on the RummyRoyal website as it is an easier method to learn the game. For those with some experience playing Rummy, we’ve covered how to play below. If a term confuses you be sure to see our Rummy Glossary for help.
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The game of Kalooki 40 is played with two standard decks of 52 cards each with the addition of two more cards – jokers, amounting to a total of 106 cards. The jokers are wild and their value in melds is the same as the card they represent. Once layed down in a meld, they virtually become that card ( See swapping jokers below ). This is true for melds only. At the end of the game if they must be counted as penalty points, their subtractive penalty value is 15 points.
In Kalooki 40, aces have the card value of 11 points and can be used only as a high card. Two to four players can play, and the winner of a hand is the first player to lay down all of his cards in matching sets, called melds, and discard his final card. There are two ways to form melds – as sets of runs such as 3 – 4 – 5, etc, or as matches of value in different suits such as 6H – 7H – 8H, up to four of a kind.
The 40 in Kalooki 40 stands for the value of the amount of points that each player must have to lay down their initial meld. This means for instance that if a player has a meld of, say, four tens, that player meets the requirement and may lay down those tens in the melding area. If, however, the player has, say, 2 – 3 – 4 of hearts and three 9s of different suits, this adds up to only 36, and that player must build further melds before laying down the initial melds. Once that initial melding requirement is met, that player can then lay out melds or builders. This means the player may add to a meld already layed down – his or another’s – as he pleases, or he may hold back to let the other players wonder what he has. This is what is termed “hunting”. He may surprise the other players and catch them with unmatching cards ( deadwood ), but the player must be cautious as he risks getting caught himself with deadwood cards in his hand if another player ends the hand.
The play begins with each player receiving thirteen cards and one card is turned up as the first of the discard pile. The others form the stack from which players draw one card on their turn, After the player draws, there is a middle move where they may place melds into the melding area to meet the initial meld requirement of 40, or may add whatever melds or builders they have if that requirement was previously met. To finalize the turn, he/she must discard one card.
In Kalooki 40, a player is allowed to draw a card from the discard card only if he is using it to lay down melds in the same turn. An interesting feature in Kalooki 40 is that jokers in the melding area may be swapped for the card that joker represents, providing that it is then used to form another meld. Rules for this are provided as follows:
If swapping, for instance in the meld 3H – 4H – joker, a 5H is necessary, as this is what the joker represents. The joker must then be used to form a new meld in which it is a fresh wild card of his choice. If, however, a swapped joker is used in a meld of three-of-a-kind, such as 3H – 3C – joker, the player must have both 3s of the missing suits to do so. Again, the joker must be used to form another meld.
The game play ends in either of two ways – Going out or Going kalooki.
Going out – A player has depleted all of his cards in melds at various times throughout the game and discards a final card onto the discard pile.
Going kalooki – A player has held onto all of his melds during the game and discards them all at once into the melding area, then placing the final card on the discard pile. He may add builders when doing so.
The penalty points that the other players get depends on how the winning player goes out. In a regular “Going Out” move, the losing players are penalized according to the card value left in their hands. This would be the face value of cards from 2 – 9, ten points for face cards, eleven for aces which are always considered and used as high cards, and fifteen points for jokers. In a “Going Kalooki” win, losing players receive a 25 point penalty in addition to the subtractive value of all the deadwood card values in their hands.
The pool prize is divided relatively to the winners’ points and changes in 2, 3 and 4 player games.
In a 2 player game, the winner receives at least 75% of the prize and the other player – hey, wow: second place – receives 25% provided that players deadwood amounts to less than 50 subtractive points.
Actually the chart below demonstrates the prize best, as whether a player even gets a prize depends on meeting the condition that they have a deadwood subtractive value of less than 50 points.
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