(Above is an ending layout from a game of Carousel Rummy)
Card Game Rules
Carousel is a Rummy type game for 2-5 players. For 2 players, Carousel requires a standard deck of 52 playing cards and 1 Joker. For 3-5 players, Carousel requires 2 standard decks of 52 playing cards and 2 Joker. In Carousel Aces can be High or Low, however they cannot connect a King and 2. The objective of Carousel is to play all of your cards by melding them.
If you are looking for cards to play Carousel with, check out a standard deck here or one of our newest arrivals here.
For more Rummy type games, check out our guides for Canasta and Gin.
Set-Up
Before game play can begin, a dealer must be selected. Each player draws one card from a shuffled deck. The player with the lowest card becomes the dealer. Ties are broken by a redraw.
The dealer then shuffles the deck and passes out ten cards one at a time to each player. The remaining cards form the stock pile.
How to Play
Starting with the player left of the dealer, players try to meld off as much cards as they can. A player begins their turn by first drawing from the stock. If they cannot make any melds with their cards, they draw another card from the stock. If they still can't make any melds, they draw a final card from the stock and end their turn, even if they can make a meld with the drawn card.
Notably, a player may rearrange all of the melded cards as long as they return to valid melds at the end of their turn.
Melds
A player makes a meld by either having three or more of a kind or by having three or more of a run. A run is made of three or more cards of the same suit in increasing or decreasing order. When a player makes a meld they lay it face up on the table.
Melds are communal, meaning once a meld is made, another player can continue the sequence/set with their own cards.
Joker
Jokers are wildcards. If a player has the card that the Joker is replacing, they can swap the two and get the joker to make their own melds.
Knocking
Once a player has a hand of 5 or less points, a player can choose to "knock" and end the round.
Scoring
In Carousel:
Jokers are worth 25 points.
Face cards are worth 10 points.
Cards 2-10 are worth their face value.
Aces are worth 1 point.
Once somebody Knocks, the player with the least number of points in their hand wins the difference between their opponents' hand and their own.
If a player Knocks after playing all of their cards, they win a 25 point bonus.
If a player Knocks while somebody else has a lower hand than them, the person with the lower hand wins the points for the round and a 10 point bonus.
For more information about Carousel, check out The Rummy Rule book here or Pagat.com's article here.
Looking for more card games to play? Check out this article:
40+ Great Card Games For All Occasions
About the author: John Taylor is a content writer and freelancer through the company Upwork.com. You may view his freelancing profile here. He has a B. A. in English, with a specialty in technical writing, from Texas A&M University and a M. A. in English from the University of Glasgow. You may view his previous articles about card games here and his LinkedIn profile here.
