Russian Hand

How to play

1. Two 52-card packs without jokers, seven cards each, and the rest a face-down stock. There is no discard pile.
2. On your turn you do one thing: draw a card, which ends your turn, or play cards from your hand, which ends it with no draw and no discard.
3. A meld is three or more cards: one rank in different suits, or a run in one suit. The ace goes below the 2 or above the king, never in the middle. There is no minimum to lay down.
4. Once you have laid down in an earlier turn, you may add to any meld on the table and rearrange the table's cards into new melds, as long as every meld is valid at the end of your turn and at least one card comes from your hand.
5. In the first round you may only draw or lay down melds from your hand. A card on the table never goes back to a hand.
6. Once the stock is empty you may pass, if you hold no valid meld to lay down and no card to add to a meld on the table.

Winning

• There are no points: the first to get rid of their cards wins.
• If the stock is empty and everyone passes for a full round, the fewest cards wins, then the lowest total (2 to 10 face value, J Q K 10, ace 11); still level, it is a draw.