History Of Rummy
It seems there is no clear cut version of where the game of RUMMY originated. Some say Spain, some say Mexico, or Romania, and some believe it was in China. What is known, is that it is the third most popular game played all over the world today.
RUMMY has had a number of names in its relatively short history ( believed to have originated sometime in the 18th century ), such as Whiskey Poker, Conquian, Coon Can, khanhoo, but when the game was exported to Britain it was called Rum ( English slang for odd or queer ). The name stuck, and when it went back to the USA it became known as RUMMY.
Cooncan is simply a mispronunciation of the Mexican name for the game of cards which has been a favorite in the Southwestern States of America, and ultimately world wide for the past fifty years or more. The correct spelling of the word is “conquián”.
Cooncan was originally played with the Spanish pack of forty cards, from which the eights, nines, and tens are missing. These cards were in common use throughout the southwest for a banking game called Monte, but in other parts of the country the regular pack had to be used and I believe it was first suggest that the kings, queens, and jacks were the proper cards to throw out, so as to leave a sequence of ten cards in each of the four suits. This is believed to have taken place in 1873.
Like poker, cooncan took a long time before getting into print, and there were no published rules for the game until 1897, where it was then explained at some length in “Foster’s Hoyle,” published by F. A. Stokes Co. Since then a number of newspaper articles have described it and it is, now to be found in all the standard books on card games as one of the best card game for two players.
At some point the game made its was to England, where it was called “Rum” (“rum” being English slang for “odd”; or “queer”). The name then made it back across the Atlantic, where it became “Rummy”.
There are over thirty variations of this game played all over the world, the most popular being GIN RUMMY, that got its name from the famous hollywood stars who enjoyed a fast game between takes, and their enjoyment of a drink of gin to go with it. During the depression of the 1930’s and 1940’s, rummy was the entertainment of the populace and passed on to following generations, and today there are over 50 million players in the USA alone.
All versions of RUMMY have a similar structure in that they share a pattern of play where cards are taken and discarded in each round, so that players can make sets of cards (cards of the same value ), or ‘runs’ (cards of the same suite that run sequentially). Three or more cards are required to form a run or set.