Rummy is a group of matching card games notable for similar gameplay based on matching cards of the same rank or sequence and same suit. The basic goal in any form of rummy is to build melds which consists of sets, three or four of a kind of the same rank; or runs, three or more cards in sequence, of the same suit. You can also have mixed runs in all types of rummy so long as all 7 cards are in order. The original form of rummy is called Sai rummy, Straight Rummy, Standard Rummy, Traditional Rummy, or Basic rummy. The Mexican game of Conquian is considered by games scholar David Parlett to be ancestral to all rummy games, which itself is derived from a Chinese game called Khanhoo and, going even further back, Mahjong. The Rummy principle of drawing and discarding with a view to melding appears in Chinese card games at least in the early 19th century and perhaps as early as the 18th century and is, in fact, the essence of Mah-jong.

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