Which card do Online Rummy players love the most? Which is the card in the absence of which players tend to drop a rummy game? Yes, it is the joker card that makes the players rejoice. It is the joker card that makes the game easier and spices it up. It is the joker that adds a sweet charm to the card-melding game of Indian Rummy. Do you need to beware of it?
On a 2-player table, one deck of cards with one printed joker is used. Also, one card is randomly turned up and placed face up under the closed pile in a way that it is open to the view of players. This is the wild card joker. All the cards of this number/face are then used as wild card jokers. That means there would be a total of 4 joker cards - 1 printed joker and 3 wild card jokers (3 and not 4 because one is kept under the closed pile and cannot be used).
If the printed joker turns out to be the wild card joker, then all the Ace cards are used as wild card jokers. In this case too, there would be 4 jokers in all.
On a 6-player table, two decks of cards with two printed jokers are put to use. Herein, there would be a total of 9 joker cards that can be used.
Joker cards can be used to form an impure sequence. As per the Rules of Rummy Game, there must be at least two sequences. While one of them must be pure, the other can be impure. If you do not get any joker, you generally have to strive harder because then you are left with no option but to form two pure sequences.
As such, players feel ecstatic when they spot joker(s) in their hand because a joker can be used as a substitute for any card to form an impure run/set. A player who gets an appropriate number of jokers has brighter prospects of winning the mind-storming game.
The importance of joker can be gauged from the fact that a much-advised Rummy Strategy is that if one does not have any joker in one’s hand, one should drop the game!
There can be joker(s) in the hand dealt to you. You can also get a joker from the closed pile - when you draw a card on your turn and it turns out to be a joker.
However, you cannot pick a joker from the open pile, i.e., discarded by some other player.
What if you get too many Jokers? You might not have figured even in dreams that too many jokers could spell doom for their holder. Wondering how? Well, the first and foremost requirement to win the game of online rummy is that you must possess at least one pure sequence.
No doubt, with so many jokers in hand, you could easily form an impure sequence. But what about the lifesaver pure sequence? If you do not have a pure run, everything else might prove futile. If your opponent happens to declare, you can end up losing by the highest value, i.e., 80 points.
It might sound strange but with too many jokers in hand, it becomes a taxing task to form a pure run, and without it, everything else is worthless!
An ancient adage in our country says - Get rid of the gold that hurts your ear. Same is the case with jokers. They are a prized possession for rummy players, but when you get them in excess, to the extent that they can ruin your game, it would be better to bid adieu to the surplus ones and retain only as many as would be beneficial.
‘Too many cooks spoil the broth.’ And too many jokers can spoil your Game of Rummy. Use them to your advantage but if they become a burden, discard them!