How to play Shanghai Rummy
Shanghai Rummy is a contract rummy game for 3 to 8 players. Every round has a contract — the exact combination of sets and runs you must lay down before you can do anything else — and the contracts grow harder as the game goes on. The player with the fewest points at the end wins, so this is a game about shedding expensive cards, not about winning single rounds.
What you need
- Two 52-card decks plus 4 jokers (108 cards). With 5 or 6 players, use three decks.
- 3 to 8 players. Four or five make the best game.
- Something to keep score on — the totals matter more than any single round.
- A set of 11 cards is dealt to each player in the Pagat version described here.
The seven contracts
A set is three cards of the same rank. A run is four or more consecutive cards of the same suit. You may not lay anything down until you can lay down the whole contract at once.
| 1 | Two sets | 6 |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | One set and one run | 7 |
| 3 | Two runs | 8 |
| 4 | Three sets | 9 |
| 5 | Two sets and one run | 10 |
| 6 | One set and two runs | 11 |
| 7 | Three runs — the whole hand at once, no final discard | 12+ |
Note the squeeze in the last round: three runs need twelve cards and only eleven are dealt, so you have to gain a card by buying before you can go out. Sources also disagree about the number of rounds — Pagat describes seven, the English Wikipedia a ten-round version where the contract grows from 10 to 17 cards, and shanghairummy.cards eleven rounds with 13 cards in the last two. All of them are the same game with a longer ladder, which is why the round list should be a setting rather than a rule.
A turn
Draw one card, either the top of the stock or the top of the discard pile. Then you may lay down your contract if you can, then lay off cards onto combinations already on the table, and finally discard one card.
You may only lay off — add cards to combinations on the table, yours or anyone else’s — after you have laid down your own contract. Until then the table is closed to you.
Buying a discard
When a player discards a card you want and it is not your turn, you may buy it. The player whose turn is next has the first claim; after that, whoever is nearest in turn order gets it, or in many house rules whoever shouted first.
Buying costs a penalty card drawn from the stock — one card in the Contract Rummy tradition, two in most Shanghai Rummy sources. You do not get a turn: you take the card and the penalty, and play continues.
Most groups cap buying at two or three per round and forbid it once you have laid down your contract.
Wild cards
Jokers stand in for any card. A joker inside a run can usually be reclaimed by a player who has already melded, by swapping in the real card; a joker inside a set is dead and stays there.
Common restrictions: at most one joker per laid combination, and never two wild cards next to each other in a run. Both are settings rather than universal rules.
An ace counts high or low in a run (A-2-3-4 or J-Q-K-A) but never turns the corner: Q-K-A-2 is not a run. Pagat’s Shanghai Rummy makes the ace high only.
Scoring
The player who goes out scores nothing for the round. Everyone else counts the cards left in their hand against themselves.
Pagat’s Shanghai Rummy values: 2–7 count 5, 8 to king count 10, an ace counts 20 and a joker 50. The English Wikipedia scores 3–9 as 5, 10 to king as 10, aces 15, twos 20 and jokers 25.
Because a joker can cost more than a whole hand of low cards, holding one for too long is the classic way to lose a game you were winning.
How it differs from the neighbouring games
- Contract Rummy is the older, plainer form: the same seven contracts, one penalty card when buying, no cap on buying, and jokers worth 15.
- Finnish Shanghai is played with runs of four, eleven cards dealt, one penalty card and a two-or-three buy cap; many Finnish groups add an eighth round of four sets.
- Carioca, played in Chile, is the same ladder of contracts under a different name — two decks with jokers, sets of three and runs of four.
- May I? scales the number of decks with the number of players, lets the opening meld be longer than the contract requires, and never allows a laid joker to be reclaimed.
Questions people actually ask
Can I lay down part of the contract?
No. The contract goes down complete and, in most versions, at exactly the required size. Extra cards go down later by laying off.
Can I buy after I have laid down?
In most groups, no. It is the single most common house rule to check before starting, so in Sankki it is a table setting.
What happens if the stock runs out?
The discard pile is shuffled and becomes the new stock. The round only ends when someone goes out.
Is Shanghai Rummy the same as the Finnish game called Shanghai?
They are relatives, not twins. The contract ladder is the same idea, but the deal, the penalty cards, the buying limits and the scoring differ — which is why a good app lets you set them.
Play it online
Sankki plays Shanghai Rummy in the browser and on Android, with friends or against bots, 2 to 6 at a table. Every rule on this page is a table setting, so you can play your own group’s version rather than ours.
Play nowPreset: Shanghai (US) — 7 rounds, 11 cards in every deal. Penalty cards, the buy cap and the scoring model are yours to choose in the same form.