What makes rummy as one of the oldest and popular card games in history is because it has several rummy variations; each variant offering a new level of challenge and fun in playing the game. Because of so many rummy variations, each rummy variant is categorized according to the type of play the game has. As a result, there are also numerous rummy main categories that organize all the rummy variations.

The main categories of rummy include the following: basic rummy, knock rummy, manipulation game, Asian style, contract rummy, and meld scoring rummy among many others. Take note that under each of these categories there are several rummy variations. For example, the famous variant Gin rummy belongs to the knock category, Shanghai rummy is under the contract games, Mahjong belongs to the Asian-style game, and carousel or sabra rummy belongs to the manipulation category.

Additionally, several rummy variations have varying goals; such as the rummy 500 aims to achieve 500 points as its name suggests, the winner of the canasta rummy is the first one to get5000 points, while gin rummy has the lowest point to achieve at 100 points. The points are just part of winning but there are also several variants that have different styles of  approach to becoming a winner; as shown by the contract rummy that awards victory to the first player that gets the target numbers of contracts.

Contract games are one of the stimulating category of rummy due to its numerous rummy variations; this include the Liverpool, dummy, joker, progressive, Russian, Florida, Shanghai, and Continental rummy. For every variant, there’s a different number of contracts to target in order to win the game. For the continental rummy the only thing needed to win is one contract , for Russian rummy 5 contracts, 7 contracts for both the Liverpool and joker rummy, 10 contracts for the Shanghai and Florida, and progressive rummy with the highest number of contracts set at 15 contracts.

Since there are many rummy variations to select from, players have endless choices on how to play the game depending on the preferences of most players. Hence, when you play rummy make sure that you know what type of variant that you like to play so that your goals are aligned with all the other players.