Rummikub
Game of the Year 1980
Rummikub is a game similar to the card game Rummy, except it is played with number plates. That in the 1930s, invented by Ephraim Hertzano game appeared in Germany for the first time in 1980 and Intelli Arxon and received in the same year, the Critics' Prize of the Jury Game of the Year. Worldwide, the game was sold in 52 countries, more than 60 million copies and is considered the third most played game worldwide family. The game is the world's fastest-selling number placement game and the most exported game from Israel.
History
Ephraim Hertzano was a Romanian businessman, which produced toothbrushes, combs and other accessories made of plastic and sold more cosmetics. He and his wife Hanna invented the game in the early 1930s. Playing cards were banned at that time in Romania, but could Hertzano circumvent the ban by using tiles with the use of differently colored numbers instead of color symbols and picture cards. Because of the difficult financial circumstances, it was for Hertzano not easy to make the game as both plastic and wood appeared to dearly. As in Romania, an aircraft should be recycled Perspex, he decided to use this material for his game, and presented his first play rummy with tiles forth. After several rounds of games, the game was known, and friends and seller asked after the game. The rules of the game and the colored game pieces have been improved, and the game was finally called Rummikub 1950. In the 1950s Hertzano emigrated to Israel, where he started to make Rummikub by hand. At first he sold only a few dozen games a year; he invited regularly neighbors, shopkeepers and vendors for game nights, so the demand for the game grew. 1977 Rummikub was the best selling game of the year, and the game was marketed internationally. Mariana and Micha Hertzano, the children of Ephraim Hertzano, founded in 1978 in Israel, the company Lemada Light Industries, which is a licensee of Rummikub until today. The company is still owned by the family of Hertzano.
Today Rummikub is distributed in Germany by Jumbo, in Switzerland by Ravensburger and in Austria by Piatnik.
Game play
Aim of the game
The objective of the game is the 14 tiles that are obtained at the beginning of the game to be placed. The laying of tiles is, just as in the similar card game Rummy, only in certain combinations. The player who has passed all of his first pieces is the winner of the round. He receives the value of the sum of non- stored tokens of the other players as plus points.
Another aim of the game is to keep the value of the non- stored tokens as low as possible, since these points are written down to the player after completing a round as negative points.
Course
The game is - depending on number of participants - played with one or more sets of tiles. Each set contains 52 pieces with the numbers 1 to 13, in four colors (black, blue, red and yellow) colored occur twice each, and two additional wild cards.
Its initial all the tiles face down in the middle of the table. Now, each player draws a fixed number of pieces, mostly 14 The first player tries similar to rummy to "come out " by discarding a certain minimum number of stones, usually 30 points. Either roads, ie consecutive tiles of the same color, or groups, that is of equal value stones of different colors are stored. However, it must always be at least three stones together. Can not take it, you take up a stone from the table. The Joker can replace, without limitation, every stone and is one of its value.
Any player who " come out " is can also get rid of his other stones by investing in players or makes a recombination of stones on the table. For example, he could take in a series of four stones one to open with two matching own a new road. Two conditions: He must not stone that was once designed, resume, and it may at the end of each train are on the table only valid streets and rows of at least three stones.
End of the game
A round ends when one player has no more stones. The values of all stones, the other players still are added and the Player credited as negative, the winner of the round as positive points. The joker counts 30 points.
It can play as many rounds. After whim or after predetermined number of rounds (in the ideal case, when all players have equal number of times started ) will end the game. The player with the highest score wins.
World cup
Since 1991, every three years a Rummikub World Championship will be held. In the first year twelve national champions were present. Played 2006 participants from 31 nations around the Rummikub World Championship title. The Japanese Masato Kuwabara has won both the championship in 1991 and 2003. Four times the winner came from the Netherlands.
Variants
There are several variants of this game, including " Rummikub Fortuna " and " Rummicub travel " as well as a sophisticated, reminiscent of Scrabble version "Word Rummikub ," a word game for the crossword principle, are in the form of letters platelet words, which then also can be extended.
It is similar to the one equipped with similar rules Turkish game called Okey, but comes against other claims are not of this from.
You can play Rummikub with two ordinary 52- card decks, one only needs to remove four jokers. Jack, Queen, King and Ace replace the values 11, 12, 13 and 1