The Complete Guide to Rummy: Strategies, Skills, and Success The combination of skill, strategy, and chance in the well-known card game rummy has enthralled players worldwide. Rummy's primary goal is to create legitimate card comup sattakingbinations, or melds, which can be runs or sets. A run is a string of three or more cards in the same suit, whereas a set is made up of three or four cards of the same rank but different suits. Depending on the particular variant being played, the number of decks used can change, and the game can be played with two or more players. Depending on the variant, each player is usually dealt a set number of cards at the start of the game, usually seven or ten.