Shanghai Rummy Rules

Shanghai rummy is a rummy game for three to five players, played over seven rounds. Each round has its own contract, a set combination of books and runs you must collect before you can lay anything down, and the contracts get harder as the game goes on. Players can grab the discard out of turn by calling “May I?”, and the lowest total of penalty points after the last round wins. Shanghai is one of a family of contract rummy games that also includes Liverpool Rummy, May I? and Progressive Rummy. Rules vary from table to table, so this guide gives the most widely used Shanghai rummy rules and shows how the other versions differ.

Shanghai Rummy Rules at a Glance

The Seven Contracts

How to Deal

1. Shuffle the 108 cards together and choose the first dealer at random. The deal passes to the left after each round.
2. Deal 11 cards to each player, one at a time.
3. Place the rest face down as the stock and turn its top card face up next to it to start the discard pile.

How to Play Shanghai Rummy

1. Draw. The player to the dealer’s left starts. On your turn, take either the top card of the stock or the top card of the discard pile.
2. Go down. When you hold the contract for the round, you may lay it face up on the table. This is called going down, and you may do it only once per round. In the same turn you may add other cards that fit, to your own melds or anyone else’s.
3. Lay off. Once you are down, you may add cards to any meld on the table in your later turns: a fourth eight to a book of eights, or the next card at either end of a run.
4. Discard. End your turn by putting one card face up on the discard pile.
5. Go out. The round ends as soon as one player gets rid of their last card. In round 7 you must lay down all your cards at once, with no discard.

If the stock runs out, the discard pile except its top card is shuffled to make a new stock.

Melding Rules

• Aces are high only. J-Q-K-A is a run, but A-2-3-4 is not.
• One joker per meld. A joker can stand in for any missing card, but a book or run may not contain more than one. You may use several jokers if they are in different melds.
• No two books of the same rank. Six eights do not count as two books of eights.
• No touching runs in the same suit. When you go down, you may not lay two runs in the same suit that join up, such as 6-7-8-9 and 10-J-Q-K of hearts. They may join later as cards are added.

May I? and Calling Shanghai

May I? If the player whose turn it is doesn’t want the top card of the discard pile, any other player can ask for it. A player who takes it this way also takes the top two cards of the stock as a penalty, and does not meld or discard; play then carries on from the player whose turn it was. Each player may do this at most twice per round, so pennies or other tokens are handy for keeping count. If several people want the same card, the one whose turn comes soonest gets it.

Shanghai! If you discard a card that could be added to a meld already on the table, you can call “Shanghai” as you discard it, and nobody may then pick it up. If you discard such a card without calling, any other player may call “Shanghai”, add it to the meld, and then hold out their hand face down so that you draw a card from it as a penalty. A Shanghai call takes priority over a May I?.

Scoring

When someone goes out, everyone else scores penalty points for the cards still in their hand:

The player who went out scores 0. Add each round to a running total; after round 7 the lowest total wins.

Contract Rummy, Liverpool and the Other Versions

The contract idea is shared by several games that differ mostly in the deal, the contracts and the details of buying discards:

Shanghai Rummy Variations

• Ten cards and eight deals: an extra contract of four books comes before the last deal, nobody may discard to go out, and there is no Shanghai call.
• Going out blind: lay down all your cards in one turn and take 25 points off your score, or 50 if you used no jokers.
• More jokers in longer runs: one joker in a book or run of four, two in a run of five, three in a run of seven.
• Different card values: some groups score 3s to 9s at 5, 10s to kings at 10, aces 15, twos 20 and jokers 25.

Shanghai Rummy Tips

• Save your May I?s for cards you really need. You only get two per round, and each one adds two cards to your hand.
• Shed jokers and aces once you are down. Caught in your hand, a joker costs 50 points and an ace 20.
• Protect your discards. Before you get rid of a card that fits a meld on the table, call Shanghai so nobody can take it.
• Plan the runs early. Rounds 3, 6 and 7 need runs, which take far longer to collect than books.

Shanghai Rummy Odds

How often can you go down on your very first turn? These are the chances that your 11 dealt cards plus your first draw already make each contract, under the rules above (108 cards, aces high, one joker per meld), from 400,000 random hands per round:

Books are far easier to collect than runs: three books (9 cards) turn up in 2% of opening hands, but two runs (8 cards) in only 0.4%. A book can use any three cards of one rank, while a run needs four particular cards of one suit. That is why the run rounds, 3, 6 and 7, take the longest.

Where Contract Rummy Comes From

The first game of the family was Zioncheck, created by Ruth Armson in the 1930s, which had six contracts. Contract Rummy and its relatives grew from it, and the commercial card game Phase 10, created by Kenneth Johnson in 1982, is built on the same idea. Shanghai rummy is also sometimes called California rummy.

More Rummy Games

The rummy rules guide covers the basic game and its main variants. For other games with a different target each round, try Phase 10 or Five Crowns, and for a points race, Rummy 500.

The tile version: Rummikub, with runs, groups and a 30-point opening.

Shanghai rummy: frequently asked questions