Take A Ride On This Carousel

If you have been invited to someone’s home for Carousel, they might not be asking you to ride some metal horses.  What they are probably including you in is a variation of the game Rummy, which is commonly played among card game enthusiasts.  Card lovers are famous for taking a well-known and popular game and sprucing it up a little for a fresh take. Carousel is just such a variation.

You might be familiar with the idea of melds, based on your knowledge of the Hand ‘n Foot game.  Rummy, and thus its variations, is also a game that includes the idea of melding.  However, in Carousel things get a little more interesting because you are able to rearrange the melds on the table.  Carousel is also different from other games, including Hand ‘n Foot, because there is no discard pile which players are able to work from.  The only thing that players are able to do is to draw cards and create melds.  Still, as long you as add one new card to a meld, and all the melds on the table are legitimate melds, you are allowed to rearrange, break up and reorganize melds any way that your heart desires.  The cards that simply don’t fit into any meld no matter how you look at it are left in your hand for another turn.

In Carousel you may draw between one and three new cards per turn.  If you are playing with two players than you will want to use a full deck with one joker in play.  If you have more players, say from three to five, you will want to play with two full decks and two jokers in play for a total of one hundred and six cards.   Each player begins the game with ten cards being dealt to him or her.  The melds being created are based on three or more cards in sequential order, and they all must be different suits.  The joker can be played in any way that the player desires, but the card it is replacing must be announced and can’t be changed as the value of a wild card generally can.  Playing games of Carousel is an excellent way to practice your melding skills for subsequent games of Hand ‘n Foot.