Shanghai Rummy Card Game Rules: How to Play
Shanghai Rummy, often just called Shanghai, is a rummy card game for 3 to 8 players, played over seven rounds with two decks and four jokers and eleven cards dealt to each player. 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.
- Eleven cards dealt to each player in every round, in the Pagat version described here.
- Something to keep score on — the totals matter more than any single round.
The seven rounds and their 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.
| Round | Contract | Cards |
|---|---|---|
| 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+ |
The last round is tight on purpose: three runs of four need twelve cards and eleven are dealt, so the card you draw is the twelfth. You go out on the turn your whole hand forms three runs. Other versions play ten or eleven rounds — see the variations below.
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.
Going out
You go out by getting rid of every card in your hand. In rounds 1 to 6 that usually means laying down your contract, laying off what you can on later turns, and discarding your last card. The round ends as soon as one player is out.
Some groups insist that the last card is a discard. In Sankki the round ends the moment your hand is empty, whether your last card was laid off or discarded.
Round 7 is all or nothing: the three runs must use your whole hand in one turn, with no discard at the end, and the runs may be longer than four cards.
Jokers and aces
Jokers stand in for any card. In the Contract Rummy tradition a joker inside a run can 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. Sankki’s Shanghai preset starts with reclaiming switched off — it is a table setting.
Common restrictions: at most one joker per laid combination, and never two wild cards next to each other in a run.
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 adds up the cards left in their hand, and those points count against them. After the last round the lowest total wins.
Sources disagree on what each card is worth. These are the two tables you are most likely to meet:
| Card | Pagat | English Wikipedia |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 5 | 20 |
| 3 to 7 | 5 | 5 |
| 8 and 9 | 10 | 5 |
| 10, J, Q, K | 10 | 10 |
| Ace | 20 | 15 |
| Joker | 50 | 25 |
A joker can cost more than a whole hand of low cards, so holding one for too long is the classic way to lose a game you were winning. If you play in Sankki, the app counts every hand and keeps the running total — the part that most often goes wrong on paper.
Common variations
Number of rounds: Pagat describes seven. The English Wikipedia has a ten-round version where the contract grows from 10 to 17 cards, and shanghairummy.cards plays eleven rounds, with 13 cards dealt in the last two. It is the same game with a longer ladder.
Penalty for buying: two cards in most Shanghai Rummy sources, one in Contract Rummy and in many Finnish groups.
Buying limit: two or three buys per round is typical. The English Wikipedia allows three in rounds 1 to 8 and four in rounds 9 and 10.
Pagat’s extra restrictions: the ace is high only, your contract may not contain two sets of the same rank or two runs that continue each other in the same suit, and a meld may hold at most one joker.
The “Shanghai” call: Pagat’s version lets a player lock a discard into their own meld before anyone can buy it. Sankki does not have this call yet.
Shanghai Rummy and Contract Rummy
- Shanghai Rummy is a variant of Contract Rummy, the older and plainer form: the same seven contracts, but Contract Rummy deals 10 cards in rounds 1 to 3 and 12 in rounds 4 to 7, takes one penalty card when buying, has no cap on buying, and makes a joker 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.
How many rounds does the Shanghai card game have?
It depends on which version your table plays, and that is why the answer online is never the same twice. Pagat describes seven rounds with eleven cards dealt every time; the ten-round version grows the contract from ten cards to seventeen; and shanghairummy.cards plays eleven rounds, eleven cards for rounds 1-9 and thirteen for the last two. All three are real Shanghai Rummy. Agree on the ladder before you deal — in Sankki it is a setting, so you can play your family list instead of ours.
How many players does the Shanghai card game need?
Three to eight, with two decks plus four jokers. At five or six players most tables move to three decks so the stock lasts the round.
How many cards are dealt in Shanghai Rummy?
Eleven to each player, in every one of the seven rounds, in the Pagat version on this page. The last round needs twelve cards for three runs of four, so the card you draw is the twelfth. The eleven-round version from shanghairummy.cards deals eleven cards in rounds 1 to 9 and thirteen in the last two.
How many decks do you need for Shanghai Rummy?
Two standard 52-card decks plus four jokers, 108 cards in all. With five or six players use three decks, so the stock lasts the round.
Can you play Shanghai Rummy with two players?
The written rules start at three. Finnish sources describe a two-player game with one deck and no buying, which changes the game a lot. In Sankki two people can play by adding a bot, which counts towards the three-player minimum.
Is there a printable score sheet for the Shanghai card game?
This page is built to print: use your browser’s print command and you get the contract table and the scoring values on paper, without the navigation or the play button. For the scores themselves you do not need paper if you play here — Sankki adds up every round and keeps the running total, which is the part that goes wrong most often on a hand-drawn sheet.
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 in apps for Android, iPhone and Windows, with friends or against bots, up to six at a table — bots count towards the three-player minimum. It deals, checks every meld and keeps the score. The rounds, buying, jokers and card values are table settings, 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.