A five-suited rummy game where the wild rank climbs every round and the player with the FEWEST leftover points after eleven hands wins.

How to Play Five Crowns

Overview

Five Crowns is a rummy-style card game played over eleven rounds (hands). Each round you try to arrange your whole hand into books and runs so you can go out. Whatever you fail to meld counts as penalty points against you — and the player with the lowest total after the eleventh round wins.

The Cards

• The game uses two 58-card decks shuffled together = 116 cards.

• There are five suits: stars, hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds.

• Each suit has eleven cards: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King (there are no Aces or 2s).

• There are six Jokers (three per deck). Jokers are always wild.

Wild Cards Climb Each Round

A different rank is wild every hand, and it always matches the number of cards dealt:

• Round 1 (3 cards dealt) → 3s are wild

• Round 2 (4 cards) → 4s are wild

• ... and so on ...

• Round 11 (13 cards) → Kings are wild

The current wild rank and the Jokers can stand in for any card in a book or run, and you may use as many wilds/Jokers as you like.

The Deal

Before each hand, all 116 cards are shuffled together. In Round 1, each player is dealt 3 cards one at a time clockwise, starting with the player to the dealer's left. Each following round deals one more card than the last, so Round 11 deals 13 cards. The remaining cards form a face-down draw pile, and the top card is flipped to start the discard pile.

Your Turn

Play starts with the player to the dealer's left and proceeds clockwise. On your turn:

1. Draw either the top card of the draw pile or the top card of the discard pile.

2. Discard one card to end your turn.

You only lay your cards on the table when you go out (or, on your final turn, after someone else has gone out).

Books and Runs

• Book: three or more cards of the same value, any suits (e.g. 8-8-8, or K-K-K-K).

• Run: three or more consecutive cards of the same suit (e.g. 5-6-7 of hearts).

• Any card in a book or run can be replaced by the current wild rank or a Joker, and wilds may sit next to each other.

Going Out

When you can arrange your entire hand into books and/or runs, you go out: lay them all down and discard your last card. Once a player goes out, every other player gets exactly one more turn to draw, lay down whatever books/runs they can, and discard. You may not add cards to another player's melds.

Scoring a Round

The player who went out scores 0 for the round. Everyone else counts the cards still in their hand as penalty points:

• Number cards: face value (a 7 = 7 points).

• Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13.

• Current wild rank card = 20 points.

• Joker = 50 points.

• Cards already laid down on the table do not count — only the cards left in your hand.

The scorekeeper records each player's round score and keeps a running tally.

Winning

After the eleventh round (Kings wild), add up everyone's totals. The lowest total score wins.

Official Tiebreaker

If two or more players tie for the lowest score, those tied players play a six-card tiebreaking round; the first of them to go out wins.

Each round, whoever goes out scores 0; everyone else counts unmelded cards (face value; J 11, Q 12, K 13; current wild rank 20; Joker 50). A running cumulative tally is kept and the lowest total wins after the eleventh round.

total_points is the authoritative lower-better outcome. rounds_gone_out_first is a diagnostic count metric: it tracks how many of the eleven rounds a player went out first and does NOT sum to total_points (it is recorded separately and is not part of the score). The official tiebreaker (six-card tiebreaking round among players tied for lowest, first to go out wins) is resolved at the table and reflected in the recorded placement.