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Do you know the name of this Rummy variant?

Board & Card Games Asked on October 29, 2021

[ Context: My Lebanese grandma taught me this card game from her grandparents. We call it "Pinaq" I don’t know how to spell it in english but it’s pronounced "pee-nak". I thought it was Pinnochle bc it sounds similar but it isn’t. I think the name of the card game derived from a French card game starting with a B. Not sure. Also, I’m really bad at explaining things so sorry if this looks more complicated than it seems ]

You use a 52 card deck. Ace being the highest and 3 being the lowest. The 2s are special cards which we call "Pinaq(s)". Which I’ll explain about later.

it’s a 2 – ? player game (not sure about the limit).

How to Play

Dealer deals out 9 cards to each player, in a clockwise direction (don’t know if it’s crucial for the direction). These cards become their hand. Then they put the rest of the cards in a pile in the middle. flipping one card over from the middle pile face up next to it.

The player left to the dealer starts, and the turns move in a counter-clockwise direction.
The player can either take a card from the face-down pile of cards in the middle, or the face-up card beside the pile.

Generally speaking, If a player chooses to take from the face-up card pile, they can take all of them, 1 of them, any amount of them basically. And If they take from the face-up card pile, they don’t HAVE to discard a card from their hand to the face-up pile. But if they want to, they can only discard one card from their hand.

Since at the beginning of the game, there’s only 1 card in the face-up card pile, if they choose to take that card, they must discard one card from their hand, if the pile is empty basically you have to discard one card.

and when discarding a card, it can’t be the same one you picked from that face-up pile of cards. But let’s say you picked 2 or more cards from the face-up pile of cards, you can discard a card from the selection of cards you picked, since you haven’t picked up only one card.

Now let’s say you chose the pile of face-down cards, you can only pick up one card. And when you do choose from the face-down pile, you must discard one card from your hand to the face-up pile, it can be the same card you just picked from the face-down pile. Unlike earlier as I explained, if you pick up one card from the face-up pile, you can’t discard the card you just picked up.

Alright, the objective of the game is to try to reach your targeted goal of points. We usually set the game to 52 points. you can change it to whatever your goal of points you wish to be. Whoever reaches that amount of points first by the end of the rounds win. Also the objective is to place down as many sequences as you can and get rid of all the cards in your hand first!

To get points: you have to make, I guess you can call them sequences. 3-13 card sequences. So for example, you can lay down cards from your hand like: 3 of hearts, 4 of hearts, and 5 of hearts, they MUST be the same suit. now if you have a 2 in your hand, that’s the special card called a "pinaq" which can be used as any card in any suit. So, you can use it here, for example: 6 of spades, 7 of spades, then a 2, and 9 of spades. The only rule is you can’t use the 2s "pinaqs" beside eachother in a sequence, like: 10 of diamonds, a 2, then another 2. You can use as many 2s "pinaqs" as you can (there’s only 4 of them in a deck lol) in a sequence but they have to be at least one card away from eachother. Like: 4 of clubs, a 2, 6 of clubs, another 2, 8 of clubs, 9 of clubs, another 2.

How a player ends it’s turn is by either: discarding a card from their hand to the middle where the face-up pile of cards are intended to be. Or, if they started their turn by picking one or more cards from the face-up pile (not leaving it empty), and choose not to discard one from their hand. they can just announce that they’ve ended their turn, or they can end the turn with putting down sequence(s) if they choose to. If you want to put one or more sequences of cards down, do it before you discard a card. You cannot end your turn by placing down your sequence(s), you must do that before. Unless, like I explained earlier, it’s an exception if you’re in a situation where you do not choose to discard.

A player must start their turn by either: choosing one card from the face-down pile in the middle, choosing one or more cards from the face-up pile in the middle, or- I don’t know if this is allowed, but if they think they can win, they can start by placing down their sequence(s) and ending their turn by discarding their last card. That is also how a player wins a round^^

How to count points at the end of Rounds

A round is finished when a player has no cards in their hand, which also means they have won the round. When a round has ended, the winner player from that round gets +10 additonal points. The rest of the players do not get additional points. To count your points, each card from 3-Ace is +1 point, the 2 (pinaq) is worth +2 points. By the time the round ends, if you have sequences placed down, those are your positive points, all the cards in your hand are negative points. Calculate each player’s total of points at the end of each round and write them down on a piece of paper or keep count. First to reach 52 points (or your own targeted goal of points) wins the game!

The thing about this game, is it’s about luck, but also a bit of strategy. You can put down sequences early on in the game, that will let other players know what you’re looking for to add to it, you have to be careful not to hang onto your cards for too long, incase a player wins the round then you get many negative points from all the cards in your hands you were saving up for. even if you have sequences in your hand, by the time the round ends whatever’s in your hand is negative. You can make the game fun with more people, team up with a player to destroy the leading player haha, or demolish the losing player hehe, make deals with others and help eachother out. (I don’t know if that’s cheating lol) it’s fun to play with more than 2 players, I say 3-4 is the best!

I’m sure I could’ve explained this in simpler terms so I’m sorry about how long and not very detailed this explanation is. Hope there’s a name for it, thanks for your time !!

One Answer

You describe a variant of a Rummy game. With the following special rules:

  • 2's act as jokers.
  • Special pick-up-from-discard pile rule: can pick up any number of cards from discard or a single face-down card from the deck.
  • Target goal of points, similar but not the same as in Pagat:Kalooki
  • starting hand of 9 cards

Paget:Rummy have a long list of Rummy games, divided into groups, you might be able to find it there. Your variant sound like group 5/6/7

  1. Basic Rummy Games
  2. Conquian group
  3. Asian Rummy Games
  4. Contract Rummy Games
  5. Manipulation Rummy Games
  6. Knock Rummy Games
  7. Meld Scoring Games
  8. Canasta Group

Answered by Cohensius on October 29, 2021

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