Okey
Okey Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Distribution of Tiles
At the beginning of the game, the tiles are shuffled face down, that is, the numbers are not visible. Then the players form stacks of 5 tiles each, line them up in front of their racks. At the end, a tile remains alone; this tile will be placed on the stack after the first die roll, leave it on table facedown.
The player who will deal the pieces rolls the die twice. By the first roll the indicator tile will be extracted; the number on the die determines from which stack the indicator tile will be extracted. The dealer counts the stacks in front of him/her, starting from the leftmost, and places the unstacked alone tile on top of this stack facedown. Then the dealer rolls the die for the second time, and the number determines the indicator tile in this stack and it's removed by counting upwards from the bottom of this stack. (If the number on the die is 6 by the second roll, it corresponds to the tile that was left alone unstacked and placed on top of the stack which was determined by the first roll.) The extracted tile is the indicator and is placed on top of the stack faceup, the okey tile is one number higher than this tile. Example: Yellow 8 is indicator and okey tile is yellow 9. (If a fake okey comes out here, it will be returned to a stack, the die will be rolled again).
If a player has the indicator tile in his/her hand and if he/she shows it before the round starts, 1 point is deducted from the opponents' score immediately. The indicator displayed after the round has started is invalid.
The dealer starts to distribute the tiles counterclockwise according to the number of players, counting stacks standing in front of his/her rack. (It is convenient to have at least six stacks in front of the dealer.) The stack with the indicator on it won't be touched unless it has to be used as a drawing stack later. The dealer takes the stack on the right of this indicator-stack and if there are 4 players, he/she counts 4, and he/she adds this 4th stack - which makes 10 tiles in total - and gives it to the player on the right; again dealer takes the leftmost stack in front of him/her and count 3 stacks and take the 3rd stack and gives it to the next player; again takes the leftmost stack, counting 2 stacks, adds them together and gives to the next player; again takes the leftmost stack and add it to the next stack and take them for himself/herself. The player who deals the tiles in each turn changes counterclockwise. If the dealer doesn't have enough stack or runs out of stacks in front of his/her rack, he/she uses the stacks of the neighbouring player on the right and so on.
Then, dealer takes the leftmost stack of five and gives to the player on the right; 4 tiles from the next stack to the next player, the remaining tiles to the next player by completing to 4 from the next stack, and the remaining tiles completing to 4 from next stack takes the dealer for himself/herself. And dealing is finished. Then a deck for drawing is formed from the remaining facedown stacks on the table (like 2 stacks on top of each other), starting from the leftmost, in the middle of the table. The player next to the dealer must have a total of 15 tiles, and the other players must have 14 tiles. The player sitting on the right side of the dealer starts the round without drawing, discards a tile.
Note: If there are 3 players, the distribution starts by counting 3 from the leftmost. If 2 people are playing, the count starts from 2. (The source document shows only how to distribute the first 10 tiles in a 4 player game, with die numbers 2 - 5, and does not show the rest of the distribution.)
Playing
The player who has 15 tiles in hand starts the game - without drawing - and discards a 'useless' tile that he/she doesn't need, and puts it on his/her right side. Then the sequence continues counterclockwise, from left to right. The next player can take the tile discarded by the player to his/her left if he/she needs the tile; in this case this player doesn't draw a tile from the pile; but if he/she doesn't need it, he/she draws a tile from the pile in the middle. After receiving a tile, a tile must be discarded. Players try to finish their hands by taking 1 and discarding 1 tile at a time. The discarded tiles must be placed faceup so that they can be easily seen by other players.
Finishing the Round
The player whose hand has been completed according to the rules, when it is his/her turn to play, he/she discards the tile that he/she doesn't need and ends the round. But this is not a must. Players might want to try to finish discarding an okey tile and wait for the opportunity.
Scoring will be performed at the end of each round.
NOTE: If the last tile that the winner-player discarded was an okey tile, or the player has a paired finish or an unordered colour finish, the scoring points will be different. See scoring below.
Arrangement of Tiles and Normal Finish
All tiles in the player's hand must be in sets or runs. Here are the rules:
- Successive numbers of the same colour are runs. There must be at least three tiles of the same colour. Only 1 can come after number 13.
- Numbers of the same value in different colours are sets. There must be at least three tiles. Example: blue, black and red nine.
- The Okey tile is the joker tile and it can be used instead of the tile that is missing. Example: the okey replaces red 5.
- A fake Okey tile can only be used instead of the value of the okey tile. Example: the okey tile is yellow 9.
- All tiles must be lined up correctly. The following numbers can be sorted in ascending or descending order.
Note: In the examples, the okey tile is yellow nine. The Okey tile changes in every round. (See: okey tile)
Paired Finish
The player must have at least 7 pairs of the same tile in hand. Rest of the tiles must also be present in sets or runs. The player does not have to tell the other players that he/she is trying the paired finish. Here are the rules:
- Two tiles of the same colour and number make a pair. Example: two black nine.
- Okey tile can be used instead of a missing pair tile. Example: black thirteen and okey.
- Fake Okey tiles can be a pair as well.
- All pairs must be lined up side by side and correctly.
Colour Finish
If all the tiles of the player who has finished the round are of the same colour, the player is considered to have finished with the colour. There are two types of colour finish:
- Sequential Colour: If all the tiles are in the same colour sequentially from 1 to 13. In this case, regardless of the current stand, all scores are reduced to zero and the game is over. This player wins the whole game.
- Non-sequential Colour: If all tiles are of the same colour but not in a sequential order.
Okey Tile
Okey tiles are jokers, can be used instead of tiles that you do not have and need to complete your sets or runs. The fake Okey tile now represents only the normal value of the Okey tile in the round. For example: The indicator tile is yellow eight, the okey tile is one number higher than the indicator tile, so it's yellow nine. If the indicator tile turns out to be a number 13, the okey tile becomes the number 1 of the same colour. See also: Distribution of Tiles.
Scoring and End of Game
There are some other different scoring methods. Here we consider the standard scoring.
- Scoring can be started from any number chosen, but commonly starts with the number 20. This is everyone's starting score. Then the points start to decrease according to the finishing type. In the point deduction process, the score of the player who wins the round remains constant and points are deducted from the other players. The game continues until the score of one of the players reduced to zero and the player with the highest score wins the game.
- If a player shows an indicator tile before the round starts, 1 point is deducted from the other players' scores immediately. If two players show the two indicator tiles, deduction occurs twice. That is, 2 points from other players' score, 1 point from each indicator tile holding player's score.
- If a player wins the round in standard way (that is - the discarded tile isn't a joker, or no pair or colour finishing) 2 points are deducted from other players.
- If a player goes for paired finish and wins the round, or finishes by discarding an okey tile, 4 points are deducted from the other players.
- If a player wins the round with a non-sequential colour finish, 8 points are deducted from the other players' scores.
- If a player wins the round with a sequential colour finish, that player wins the whole game regardless of the scoring stand.
- If no player can finish the round and there's no tile left in the drawing pile, the round ends without scoring.
"Rounding" for Okey
The player may be in a position to finish the round, for example, having all the tiles in sets and runs. However, the player who completes their hand does not have to finish the round. Some players may want to end the round with an okey tile to make their opponents lose more points; that is, they aim to end the round by discarding an okey tile from their hand. However, this tactic is risky, because other players may finish the round before the player who waits for this opportunity.
A normal size Rummikub set can be used. Remember, the joker tiles of Rummikub are 'fake okey' tiles.
Turkish Terms
- Set = seri
- Run = per
- Stack = balya
- Tile = taş
- Indicator = gösterge
- Pair = çift
- Round = el
- Die = zar