Tripoley Rules also known popularly as Rummoli, Tripoley, Royal Rummy and Michigan Rummy is a contemporary version of the European game – Poch/ Le Poque.
The game is quite interesting and has 3 phases – Collection of Stakes, Poker and the Michigan or Boodle Stage.
The game involves chips like poker and has a board or cloth with markings so as to receive different stakes. If you wish to know more about this fun game, keep reading further.
- Tripoli game aim – to have the most chips after 3 rounds.
- Number of Players – 4-7 players
- Game Materials – Poker chips, board to mark and receive the stakes
- Number of Cards – standard 52 deck of playing cards
- Rank of Cards – A (high), K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2
- Game Type – Gambling
- Game Audience – All Ages
How to Deal
Before the deal begins, the players have to put 9 chips on the board.
All these chips go to each of the spaces that are labeled – 8-9-10, King-Queen of Hearts, the Kitty, Ten of Hearts, Jack of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, King of Hearts, Ace of Hearts, and Pot. A few places might have unclaimed chips from the earlier games.
You can just add yours there.
When the stakes are placed, the dealer has to pass one faced down card at a time to all the players. A spare hand too is dealt by the dealer. Note that, some players can have more cards in their hand than the others.
The dealer has the right to exchange their hand with the spare hand if they want to. However, they cannot check the hand before exchanging. And if exchanged, then the original hand of the dealer becomes the spare hand.
The spare hand can also be auctioned by the dealer to the player who bids the highest. However, here too the hand is hidden.
The player who gets the spare hand after the highest bid has to give back their hand and take the spare hand by paying the dealer with chips. Once an auction occurs, there is no going back.
How to Play
After the auctioning, the players have to keep the same cards throughout the game and all the 3 phases. As said before, the game proceeds in 3 parts as shown below –
Part 1 – Collecting Stakes
Players holding Ace, King, Queen, Jack, or Ten of hearts will have to take chips from the corresponding space.
In case a player has both the King as well as the Queen, then they can take chips from both the King and Queen and from the King-Queen space too.
The chips on 8-9-10 may be taken by players having an 8-9-10 sequence from any suit. In case 2 or more players can, they share the chips. The chips that haven’t been claimed are left for the next hands for someone to claim them.
Part 2 – Poker
The next round is of Poker. All players have to create a hand having 5 cards and keep it aside from the rest of the cards. The round is started with betting.
All players place their bets in the pot space. The players have the below options in this part of the game at their turns
- Call
A player can call by betting the amount wagered by the last player.
- Raise
A player can raise by betting the amount which equals to the current wager and then betting more. Doing this will increase the betting amount or wager on the hand that other players have to match in order to stay in the game.
- Fold
A player can choose to fold and lay their cards down and choose not to bet. So basically, the player who chose to fold does not have to put any money in the pot.
However, you sit out on that hand and forfeit any money wagered. Also you lose on the chance to win the pot.
The betting is continued till all the players have had their turns and made any of the above 3 decisions. When a player raises, once all the rest of players call the raise and no other raise was made, then the bet round ends.
- Showdown
When all the players put in equal stakes, a showdown happens. Of course, the player having the highest-ranking hand wins the pot.
In case there are multiple players having hands of highest ranking which are same, then the pot is evenly distributed between them
Part 3 – Michigan
Once the Poker part of the game Tripoli is done with, the next step is the Michigan. The winner of the Poker phase of the game has to begin the next game.
However, if there was a tie in the poker part, the winner who is the closes to the left of the dealer begins the game. Or else, the dealer too can start the third part of tripoley.
The leading card is a lowest ranking card from any suit from the hand. Now the player who has the next card from that suit in sequence has to play it by facing it up on the table.
The game continues this way until the sequence is finished with an Ace. As you might have already guessed, this part of Tripoli is somewhat similar to Solitaire.
But there’s a little addition here. If the sequence cannot be finished, the card that can’t be followed is called as the Stop card. So when a sequence ends with either an ace or a stop card, the player who played the last card starts anew.
They can now play the card from any suit except from the one just played before.
The game continues in the same fashion until a player runs out of cards. This is where the game stops. The player who played all their cards gets the chips.
The winner also gets the chips from the other players equal to the cards in their respective hands.
In case a player can’t lead when done playing a stop card or ace, then the turn is passed to the player sitting to the left of that player. In case that player too cannot lead, the left player to that player takes the lead.
Who Wins Tripoli?
The fun part about Tripoli is that players can continue playing the game till they want to. Whenever they wish to stop, there will be some chips left.
These extra chips are played for with an additional poker round. The extra chips are taken by the winner. The player who has the highest number of chips, wins Tripoli.
That was it all about Tripoli, how to play the game and Tripoley rules.
I hope you have all found the above article of use. In case you have any questions to ask us, shoot down in the comment section and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
