In calculating the total score of the game, you start with column one. This is taking into account that Player A won the game, but would simply be reversed if Player B won the game. You write down Payer A’s total score, which for example would be 251. You then add 250 which is the bonus for winning the game. You add to these two previous totals the difference between Player B’s score and the required game winning total of 250. If Player B only had 224, you subtract the number of Player B’s boxes in the first column which is two from the number of boxes in Player A’s first column which is 10. Player A has therefore won eight additional boxes which are valued at 25 points each. That score of 200 is added to the total of all these figures for the sum of 925, which is the number of points that Player A has won in the first column. Again this is only an example, and could be any number of boxes depending on how the game went.
The second game column is calculated in the same manner. Starting with Player A’s winning score of 279 for example, you add 250 for the game winning bonus. The difference between Player A’s score of 279 and Player B’s score is 164, so you would also add that to it as well. The boxes are counted and for this example Player A has 7 additional boxes so the score of 175 would also be added. These figures would add up to 868 total points which is the amount that Player A has won in the second column.
You go on to add up the third column which is done in the same way that column 1 and column 2 are added. The only difference is when you complete the tabulation of column 3; you need to remember that the scores are always double the point value. That means that you will have significantly higher points for column 3 as opposed to 1 and 2.
When completing the final score of each column you want to keep the number closes to 500 for simplification. For example if the score was 6252 you would score it as 6500, but if it was scored as 6100 then it would be scored as 6000. This makes it easier to figure out what amount of money is owed. When transferring the game score to a money card, the last 2 figures are dropped and the game is called a 60 game or 6000 points. If it is a 65 game that would mean it would be 6500 points. A 70 game would be worth 7000 points and so on. If you are playing for 1 cent per game, then this would represent $60.00, $65.00, or $70.00 (or whatever score you reached) that the loser would owe the winner.
Hey mark, new rummy player here. I’ve researched this topic quite extensively and I am still curious about the actual rules (I more there are many variations). But in traditional rummy is it possible to score below zero for the TOTAL points after the hand? Example being I scored 20 points the first hand and then scored -30 the next…. would I be at 0 or -10 for total points?