The joker in rummy: everything you need to know

Rummy is played with two 52-card decks shuffled together, plus jokers. How many depends on the variant, and it matters: the more jokers, the faster hands come together.

With four jokers, Rummy 51 is the fastest variant: openings come early and rounds are often decided by a card or two. In Rummy 71 there are only two jokers, and they cannot even be used to open: it is the most demanding game.

The joker replaces any card in both rummy melds: the Suivi, a run such as (5♥ 6♥ 7♥) — consecutive cards of one suit — and the Tria, a set such as (9♠ 9♥ 9♦) — one rank in all-different suits.

This is the question that splits rummy tables the most. In the Atlas Carta app, the answer depends on the variant.

In Rummy 51 and Rummy 71, a joker on the table is not lost forever: you can take it back by replacing it. The conditions are strict:

• Only a player who has already melded (opened) can swap a joker.
• They replace it with exactly the card the joker represents: in a Suivi (6♦ joker 8♦), only the 7♦ frees the joker.
• The swap happens on your turn, after drawing, and never during the very first round of the deal.
• The recovered joker goes into your hand: play it whenever you like, the same turn or later.
• You can swap the joker of any meld on the table, opponents’ melds included.

The Tria (6♠ 6♥ 6♦ 6♣) case. A joker in a Tria can only be swapped when it is the fourth card, that is, when three natural cards are already down. With a Tria (6♠ 6♥ 6♦ joker), the 6♣ takes the joker’s place and the joker goes back to your hand. With a Tria (6♠ joker 6♦), on the other hand, a 6♥ or 6♣ is simply added to the meld and the joker stays.

• A discarded joker can never be taken back. On the discard pile it is lost to everyone: nobody can pick it up, not even to meld it straight away.
• A joker is never the tournante. If the dealer throws a joker as the very first card, it goes straight onto the discard pile and there is no tournante that round.
• Left in hand, it costs 20 points in Rummy 51 and Rummy 71 when an opponent goes out (unless you have not melded at all: you then pay a flat 100).
• In Simple, each losing player pays a fixed 100 points, whatever their hand (200 for the team in 2 vs 2): a joker in hand changes nothing.

All the scoring tables are on the rummy scoring page.

1. Almost never discard a joker. It will not come back, and it could have completed any meld.
2. In Rummy 51, put it where it pays most: as a King or high Ace in a Suivi (Q♥ K♥ joker), it is worth 10 opening points.
3. In Rummy 71, do not count on it to open. Build your natural Suivi (7♣ 8♣ 9♣) and Tria (J♠ J♥ J♦) first, and keep the joker for later.
4. Watch your opponents’ jokers. If you have opened and hold the exact card a joker stands for, the swap gives you a wild card.
5. Avoid laying a joker that is easy to free once your opponents have opened: a joker in the middle of a Suivi (4♠ joker 6♠) is just waiting for its 5♠.
6. Do not sit on it too long in Rummy 51 and 71 when the round speeds up: 20 points in hand hurts when an opponent is down to one card.

More tips in our rummy strategy guide.

The joker is probably the card whose rules change most from one table to the next. Elsewhere, people sometimes play with a joker worth 0 points when opening, or one that costs 25 or 30 points left in hand. Many families also require a pure run — a run without a joker, such as (4♦ 5♦ 6♦) — to open at 51, or ban jokers from sets such as (7♠ 7♥ 7♣). Some allow swapping a joker before you have even opened.

In the Atlas Carta app the rules are fixed and applied automatically: the ones on this page. To compare the big rummy families, read rummy variants; for everything else, the complete rummy rules.