Rack-O is a popular card game in which players need to follow a few rules: to ensure that their cards are arranged from lowest to highest in a rack to achieve a Rack-O.
Card games are widely popular, and people love to play them, ranging from playing with the universal deck of cards to other types of card games with their own sets of designated cards.
There are so many different kinds of card games on the market, some played with just the cards, and others that require a gameboard with cards.
Rack-O is one of these card games that has been around for many years, dating back to the 1950s. The Rack-O card game is a favourite amongst lovers of card games and can be fun to play if you know the rules of the game.
Contents
The objective of the game and its components
In the box, you will find the components needed to play the game, including one deck of 60 Rack-O cards, four plastic Rack-O racks, and the rulebook.
To understand the game, players need to understand that the objective is to be the first player to score a total of 500 points by going Rack-O.
To go Rack-O, you need to replace the cards in your rack so that their numbers are in any numerical sequence order from the lowest to the highest number.
Rules for Rack-O card game
Rack-O card game is played in rounds and in each round, players need to try and get their cards in an order in the rack from the lowest to the highest. To kick off a round, the player to the left of the dealer must go first.
The player must take one card – either the top card from the Discard pile or the top card from the Draw pile – and attempt to place it on their rack.
Should a player take a card from the Discard pile, the card must be swapped for another card that is already in their rack. Place the exchanged card faceup on top of the Discard pile with the new card in the empty slot in the rack.
If the player chose a card from the Draw pile, they could swap the card for one in their rack and place the swapped card on top of the Draw pile facing upward.
A round will come to an end when a player achieves Rack-O, this means that all 10 of their cards in a rack will be arranged in numbers from lowest in the number five slot to the highest in the number 50 slot.
The cards can be arranged in any order or combination, as long as they are increasing in value, with cards getting higher. At the end of the round, players will score points.
If at any point the Draw pile runs out of cards before a player goes Rack-O, the Discard pile is turned over in the tray and used as the Draw pile.
Setting up the game
All cards are numbered from 1-60 and the number of cards used will be determined by the number of players. The card tray is placed at the center of the table and the Draw pile is placed on the one side, and the Discard pile is on the other side.
Each player gets a card rack. The game needs a dealer and to determine who the dealer is, players must draw cards from the deck and the player who draws the lowest number becomes the dealer, but they also play the game.
The dealer is responsible for shuffling and dealing 10 cards, face down, to each player. As cards are dealt, players need to put the card into their racks immediately.
The first card that is dealt goes to the number 50 slot and you work your way down with each new card.
Scoring in the game
When a player achieves Rack-O status, they score 75 points, five points for each of the 10 cards in the slots, and 25 points for going Rack-O.
Other players will each score five points for cards arranged from low to high, beginning in the number five slot and ending where the progression comes to an end.
Two-player game and a partners game
For a game of only two players, you can add the rule whereby a player cannot go Rack-O for a 75-point score, unless they have at least three cards in chronological order in their rack.
An example of this order is: 50, 51, and 52. If you are playing a game of partners (four players), the scores of the two partners are combined after each round and the team that reaches 500 points first, wins.