Contract Rummy is said to have derived from a game called Zioncheck and this game Zioncheck was formulated by Ruth Armson. David Parlett has put forward a theory which says that Contract Rummy card games are a follow on of the Contract Bridge game of the 1930's. Contract Rummy is also referred as Shanghai Rummy, Liverpool Rummy, Joker Rummy, Progressive Rummy, Combination Rummy, King Rummy and Continental Rummy.

Some of these differ slightly when compared with the original Contract Rummy with the basic principles being the same. There are a series of individual deals to be achieved for going out, where each of the deals has different types of meld requirement.

The Deck  – When the players are between 2 and 4 in figure, two decks of 52 cards each and a single joker is taken making it a total of 105 cards. When 5 or more players are involved in the game, three decks with two jokers which make a total of 158 cards are used. The jokers are the wild cards and can replace any card in the game.

The Deal – The selection of the dealer entails a procedure where a random player cut the cards and deal one card to each of the players. The player with the lowest card count is made the dealer. The card Ace is of the lowest value in the draw. The dealer now deals ten cards to each of the players moving in clockwise direction starting with his left. The play too moves in clockwise direction from the left. In each of the first four deals, each player is dealt with 10 cards and for the last three deals, each player is dealt with 12 cards.

The cards remained after being dealt to the players are placed face down in the form of a stack and this is called a stock pile. The top card is turned face up and put beside the stock pile as to start off a discard pile.

The main aim of the game is to form the cards into different melds of sets and sequences (aka runs) similar to the most Rummy games. Sets are groups of three or more cards of the same value or rank (all 2’s, all Kings, etc) which belong to different suits and the sequences are groups of "four or more" consecutive cards of the same suit. Each deal has a different "Basic contract" which the players are required to fulfill. A contract is nothing but an explicit combination of sets and sequences. These are shown in the table below:

The number of cards dealt to the players in each deal can be seen in the table where the first 4 deals have the players dealt with 10 cards each and the remaining 3 deals have the players dealt with 12 cards each. We can also notice the change in the minimum number of the cards to form a Basic contract for each consecutive deal, where the basic contract increases by one card successively. For example we can see in deal 4 where at least 9 cards are needed to form require melds and in the next deal that is deal 5 requires a minimum of 10 cards to form the melds. The deal 7 must be formed with no cards left and without any unmeld cards.

Three cards of the same rank and different suits form a set and hence a set formed of A A A is a valid meld. In a deal, where two sequences are required, they should be of different suits and even if they are not of different suits they should not be in succession and thus a sequence of 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 counts as one sequence. Where the sequence 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 10 is considered as two because of the break between the 5 and 7.

There are a few things to consider in the game of Contract Rummy:

(1) Drawing (Compulsory) - The player to the dealers left draws the first card either from the discard pile or from the top of the stock pile and add this card to his hand. The player ends his turn discarding a card on to the discard pile.

(2) Buying (Optional) - In contract rummy unlike other rummy games, any of the players can pick a discard and it may not be their turn. This discard picked by any of the arbitrary players is generally referred to as being "bought" and the player who wishes to buy a discard is also required to pick a card from the stock pile and such a card is referred as "Penalty card". The player who bought the card can not meld, lay off or discard as it is not his turn. On his turn again this player picks a card and finally we can see two extra cards in his hand which he can meld if they make one.

Once the player is done with buying, the play again jumps on to the 'right' player whose turn it was before the play got hold. This player now can only pick the card from the stock as the present card on the discard pile is the one which he already declined.

(3) Melding (Compulsory) - The player on his turn draws a card and can form the melds required for the contract and this is known as "fulfilling the contract". Melding is compulsory as the player has to meet a meld requirement to fulfill the basic contract in every deal. The player is not allowed to lay off the cards on the same turn he fulfilled the requirement of the contract. This means that the melding and laying off cannot be done on the same turn.

(4) Laying Off (Optional & Conditional) - The player can lay off the cards on his next turn that occurs after he has melded the cards for the contract. The player can lay off cards on any of the melds on the table but is not allowed to form melds other the ones required for the contract.

(5) Joker Substitution (Optional & Conditional) - Jokers are the wild cards which can be used to replace any card in a meld. A player when fulfills a basic contract with a joker in it, places it on the table and later if he encounters the card which the joker has represented till then, can replace the card and take the joker into the hand. A situation may arise where more than one player has a card to replace the one in the contract, in such a case the player whose turn is due in that particular round is given the priority to replace. A joker in a sequence can be moved anywhere in the meld by a player when he wishes to lay off a natural card.

(6) Discarding (Compulsory) - After drawing a card from the stock or the discard pile the player observes the complete hand and discards a card he needs the least on to the discard pile face up. A discard is not necessary to go out in the deal 7, thus a player can meld till the last card. But he should be conscious in completing the hand with all the 13 cards with no unmatched card and this clearly states that the sequences in Deal 7 can be longer than required to complete the contract.

If The Stock Pile Finishes - When the stock pile runs out before a player goes out, the discard pile under the top discard is taken and shuffled by the dealer and turned face down to form a new stock pile.

A player goes out to finish the game on melding and laying off the cards. Once a player goes out, the play ends and the points scored by the players are summed up. In the game the Ace can be meld in either ways as Q-K-A or A-2-3, hence the value of ace here in the melds is high or low. A meld such as K-A-2 is not allowed as the value of ace is in ambiguity in such a case(both high and low).In a different case, aces can be laid off to a sequence even though there are two aces on either sides of a meld (one on each side).

After the game the value of the cards is summed according to the table shown below.

The rules discussed above form a part of the standard Contract Rummy rules and the following individual house rules may be introduced to the game at the discretion of the players organizing a play and they include:

(1) According to some house rules, the number of jokers to be included depends on the players in the game. Hence they say that number of jokers used is to be one less than the number of players. Thus when 3 players play, 2 decks of 52 cards with 2 jokers (i.e. 106 cards) are to be used and similarly 4 players play with 107 (104+3wild cards) cards and 5 players with 108 (104+4 wild cards) cards.

(2) According to Hoyle, each set in a basic contract must contain exactly three cards (not more than three) except for the Deal 7. In this case, a player having a set of four or more cards may meld three of these cards and lay off the additional card.

(3) Some play contract rummy attributing the values for each of the number cards (2 through 10) as 5 points avoiding their pip value. And the jokers have a count of 25 points.