Okey is a tile-based game, very popular in Turkey. It is almost always played with 4 players, though in principle can be played with two or three. It is very similar to the game Rummikub as it is played with the same set of boards and tiles but with different rules. The game apparently evolved from the original Rummikub through cultural contacts of Gastarbeiter in Germany. In Turkey and among Turkish communities abroad, it is very popular not only at homes but also at coffeehouses. Each player begins the game with 20 points and loses points each time another player wins a game, as follows: when a player wins an ordinary game, each of the other players loses 2 points. When a player wins by discarding a joker, each other player loses 4 points. When a player wins with seven pairs, each other player loses 4 points. Also, if at the start of the play, a player shows the tile that matches the face up tile on the six-tile stack, each of the other players loses 1 point. This is known as gösterme (to show), and can only be claimed before the holder of the matching tile first draws a tile. If the game ends without any player exposing a winning hand (because there are no tiles left to draw, and the player whose turn it is cannot win by taking the previous discard), then there is no score. Play continues until any player's score reaches zero or less. The two players with the highest scores at that time are the winners and the two with the lowest scores are the losers.

свернуть