RUMMY

any of a family of card games whose many variants make it one of the best-known and most widely played card games. The basic principle of all rummy (rum, rhum, romme) games is to form sets of three or four cards of the same rank (as four 8s, three 6s) or sequences of three or more cards of the same suit ( 6543, etc.). Some variants allow only one or the other of these combinations. In canasta (q.v.), for example, sequences are not permitted. Many 17th-century card games included the principle of building such structures, or melds, before or during a period of play. The ancient Chinese game of mah-jongg, played with tiles long before the invention of playing cards and based on forming matching groups of three and four, is a venerable ancestor of rummy. The earliest modern form of rummy, however, became popular in Mexico in the latter half of the 19th century as conquian, from the Spanish con quien, with whom, a mysterious misnomer since it was a two-hand rather than a partnership game. Conquian, known as cooncan as it spread to Texas and the southern United States early in the 20th century, used the Spanish pack of 40 cardsthe regular 52-card pack with 10s, 9s, and 8s removed. The modern game of panguingue, or pan, uses eight such packs shuffled together to make it possible for the game to be played by as many as 15 players, although the usual game is for 6 or 7. In the United States, cooncan soon developed into rum. The names rummy and rum are of uncertain origin, the latter descended from the former. A later variant, however, introduced as a two-hand game in 1909 in New York by Elwood Baker, was named gin rummy (q.v.) deliberately. Another rummy variant, canasta, originated in Uruguay in the late 1940s, and in the early '50s it temporarily eclipsed contract bridge in popularity in the United States. The regular game has long been a favourite in firehouses.