Mexican Rummy/21 Games, do you know these rules?

August 28, 2010 7:22 PM

There's this card game my mom taught me called "21 Games" that's kind of like Rummy, it might also be called "Mexican Rummy"...do you know the rules?

I'm looking for the rules for the game.

It starts with 2 sets of 2 (I think) and has 21 different combinations that you're supposed to collect.

2's and jokers are wild. Aces are high. There's a discard pile.

Some other combinations that are featured in this game are "high low break at nine" and I think the last one is "run of 13".

Google has failed me, can metafilter help?

posted by pick_the_flowers to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (2 answers total)

Sounds like a variant on contract rummy, possibly based off Liverpool rummy, which ends with a 13 card run. It's also very possible you were taught a family variant...growing up my family played the "May I?" version with a number of "house rules" (and adding betting to the mix)
posted by blind.wombat at 9:05 PM on August 28, 2010

I've got a set of cards with instructions for a similar game called Phase 10, which was given to me with the description that it was a variation on rummy. The version I have is 10 rounds of things to collect (2 sets of 3 up to a run of 9), each turn you have to pick up a card, put down a set if you can, discard if you want to. First to get their 'phase' wins that round, points scored for every card left in your hand, winner is first to get to phase 10 with the lowest score.

I'm assuming it's just a commercialised version of the Liverpool rummy mentioned above.
posted by harriet vane at 2:52 AM on August 29, 2010