How to play
Okey is the tile game of Turkish coffeehouses. You sit at the bottom of a four-player table against three computer opponents, and turns pass counterclockwise, so the player on your right moves after you.
The tiles. There are 106 of them: the numbers 1 to 13 in yellow, blue, black and red, every tile twice, plus two false jokers with no number printed on them.
Indicator and okey. Before each round one tile is flipped face up beside the pile. That is the indicator. The tile one step above it in the same colour becomes the okey, the wild tile for this round; if the indicator is a 13, the okey is the 1 of that colour. Both copies of the okey can replace anything and carry a small gold star on your rack. The false jokers are not wild at all. They take the okey’s colour and number.
The deal. The dealer gets 15 tiles, the other three get 14, and the rest form the face-down pile in the middle. The dealer opens the round by discarding without drawing.
A turn has two steps. First take one tile: either from the middle pile or the last tile the player on your left threw away. Then throw one tile onto your own discard stack, which the player on your right may take next. Select a tile and press Discard, or drag it to the right corner of the rack.
Your rack has two rows of 15 slots and you can lay it out however you like: drag tiles around, or tap a tile and then tap an empty slot. Sort runs lines tiles up by colour and number; Sort pairs puts identical tiles side by side.
Finishing. You win the round when 14 of your 15 tiles split into complete sets and you throw the last one away with Finish. Valid sets:
- a run of three or more consecutive numbers in one colour, like blue 4-5-6-7. The 1 may sit after the 13 (12-13-1) but nothing continues past it, so 13-1-2 is not a run;
- a group of one number in three or four different colours, like red 10, black 10 and yellow 10. Two tiles of the same colour can’t share a group.
The other way out is seven pairs: seven sets of two identical tiles, same colour and same number. An okey can partner any tile in a pair. When a finish is available, the tile you can finish with glows green.
Scoring
Each player starts the match on 20 points and loses points when someone else finishes:
| Finish | Every other player loses |
|---|---|
| Ordinary sets | 2 |
| Throwing an okey as the last tile | 4 |
| Seven pairs | 4 |
| Seven pairs, last tile an okey | 8 |
There is one more way to score. If your opening hand holds the twin of the indicator (the second copy of that exact tile), a Show indicator button appears on your first turn: before you draw, or for the dealer before the first discard. Showing it costs every other player 1 point. Only one player can show per round.
When the middle pile is empty after a discard, the round ends with no winner and nobody loses anything. The dealer seat moves one place each round. As soon as any score drops to 0, the match is over and the highest score left wins.
Strategy
Hold on to the okey. It is the most flexible tile on the table. The only good time to let it go is as your finishing tile, because throwing it then doubles what everyone else loses.
Count what’s gone. Each tile exists twice. If both red 8s are already thrown, only an okey or false joker closes your red 7-9 gap.
Prefer tiles with two ways in. A black 5-6 can become a run with a 4 or a 7; a lone yellow 12 with nothing nearby helps no one. Early discards should be tiles with no partners at all.
Read your left neighbour’s pile before drawing. Taking their discard tells the whole table what you’re building, so take it when it completes a set or clearly improves one. Otherwise the blind draw from the middle reveals nothing.
Mind your right neighbour. Whatever you throw, they can pick up. If they just took a blue 3, a blue 2 or blue 4 from you is a gift.
Go for pairs only with five or more in the opening hand; with fewer, chasing them wastes turns.
The three-player feel changes in Partnership Okey, where the player opposite is on your side, and Çanak Okey adds a growing pot that rewards okey finishes.
If you enjoy Okey, try 101 Okey or Partnership Okey next.
