Word forming card game

A word rummy game includes two different decks of cards. The first deck includes a plurality of playing cards with each card having two sides with a letter on one side. Words are provided to each player while keeping these words secret from other players. This is accomplished through the use of a different second deck of mystery word cards. Every player then receives a predetermined number of letter playing cards and one mystery word card from the dealer while each player keeps his cards hidden from other players. Each individual player then uses his letter playing cards to form the given words on the word card. The first individual to match all of his letters to his given words wins the game.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
1. Field of the Invention 
This invention relates to a word rummy game using standard size playing 
cards which are arranged and played consistent with the rules of rummy. In 
addition, this invention replaces the conventional four suit, two color 
single deck with two decks of cards, one deck containing letters and one 
deck containing words. The result is a combination of the two decks to 
form a game which combines letters on the playing cards from one deck to 
form the words on the mystery word cards of the other deck. 
2. The Prior Art 
U.S. Pat. No. 1,012,574 to Adams discloses a single deck of 53 cards for 
playing various games. Fifty two of the cards have characters inscribed 
thereon which represent the usual four suits of thirteen cards each, with 
each suit comprising king, queen, jack and ten spot cards. The other card 
in the pack is the joker card. This card may be blank or it may have the 
appropriate symbol inscribed thereon. Each card with the exception of the 
joker card bears the inscription of the suit, the appropriate value and 
letter of the alphabet. All 26 letters of the alphabet are represented on 
the card with the remaining cards duplicating the vowels and consonants 
most used. 
U.S. Pat. No. 1,076,307 to C. M. Nicholson discloses a 72 card game using 
letters and numbers to make words and sentences. The cards are dealt to 
four or more players. 
U.S. Pat. No. 3,654,712 to Bagdascar discloses a teaching aid kit for 
kindergarten and first grade children who are learning the alphabet and 
various sounds and letters. 
U.S. Pat. No. 5,199,714 to Harper discloses a deck of 52 standard sized 
playing cards with 50 cards each having one letter on its obverse side and 
two wild cards. The blanks stand for any letter of the alphabet. The cards 
are arranged and combined in a word forming game following the general 
organizational principles of Klondike solitaire. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
It is therefore the object of the invention to provide a plurality of cards 
in two different decks to create a word rummy game. 
Another object of the invention is to provide a card game based upon a 
method for completing words using playing cards, each containing a letter 
of the alphabet. 
Still another object of the invention is to create a card game in which all 
the players compete to complete known words using their individual letter 
playing cards. 
According to the present invention, there is a first deck of playing cards 
representing either a single letter of the alphabet with all letters from 
A to Z represented, or a wild card. The wild cards can represent any 
letter in the alphabet. There is also a different second deck for 
containing only words printed on these mystery word cards where the word 
cards have one word or several words of unequal length inscribed on one 
side of the word cards. These words are sorted into three different word 
sets: small, medium and large, with each word set having words of equal 
length throughout the deck. 
The mystery word deck is preferably made up of 50 cards. Each card 
preferably contains three words: a five letter word, a four letter word 
and a three letter word. The three-word contents in each mystery word card 
is intended not to repeat the same letter more than twice in all three 
words combined. The reason for this is that when there are four people 
playing, it is impossible to expend more than eight duplicate letters in 
the same game (since the playing deck contains only eight duplicates of 
every letter of the alphabet). 
The letters and the words can be from any alphabet such as English, Greek, 
Russian, Hebrew or Aramaic, with English being preferred. The letter cards 
and wild cards of the first deck are used to form the words located on the 
word cards of the second deck. The player who first completes the 
prescribed words on the word cards using the letter and wild cards from 
the playing card first deck wins the game. 
Each card in both of the two decks has two sides, a front or obverse side, 
and a back or reverse side. Letters of the alphabet are inscribed on one 
side only, of the letter cards, while mystery words are inscribed on one 
side only of the word cards. 
The present invention, also includes a method for playing the card game 
which provides a first plurality or deck of letter playing cards having 
two sides, with the cards having a letter of the alphabet on one side. 
Additionally there is a second plurality or deck of mystery word cards 
having two sides, with each word being from a different predetermined word 
set. Each word set contains words of the same length with every card 
having a word from each word set. A player receives a predetermined number 
of playing cards and one of the word cards to hold in his hand so that the 
player can then compare the letters on the playing cards to the letters on 
the word card. Two piles of cards are arranged with one pile having 
discarded letter playing cards face up and another pile of cards having 
letter playing cards face down. The players then alternately draw and 
discard letter cards from the face down pile of the two piles to find the 
combination of letter cards which match the words on the word card. When 
the letters of the playing cards complete all the words on the word card, 
that player wins the game. 
The players can select wild cards which would substitute as letter playing 
cards where the wild cards could signify any letter in the alphabet. 
In a second embodiment of the method according to the invention for playing 
the card game each player can also expose the mystery word cards to the 
other players at the start of the game. Thus, the players compete to rid 
themselves of the letter playing cards by matching their letter playing 
cards to complete the words shown on the exposed word cards. Once a word 
has been matched to letters, the word and the letters are removed from 
play. The first player to match all of his letters to the exposed words 
wins the game.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
Referring now in detail to the drawings, FIG. 1 shows the obverse side 10a 
of the letter playing card 10 of a first deck 1. Card 10 has enlarged 
lettering 11 on one half 11a of the card with a mirror image of the 
lettering 12 on the other half 12a of the card. The two halves are divided 
by a line 13 comprising the lateral axis of the playing card. On this 
side, 10a are two smaller letters 14 and 15, with one letter 14 in the 
lower right corner 14a and another letter 15 in the upper left hand corner 
15a diagonally opposite the lower right-hand corner. This letter card 10 
is used to denote all the letters of an alphabet. Preferably, there are 
208 letter playing cards based upon 26 letters of the alphabet repeated 8 
times. 
FIG. 2, shows the reverse side 20 of the letter playing card 10. On side 20 
of the letter card is lettering 21, and 22 which denote "WR" (Word Rummy) 
and which are placed approximately in the center of the card face. This 
reverse side is repeated for all 210 cards to complete the reverse side of 
the 208 letter cards 10 plus the two wild cards 50 (FIG.5). 
FIG. 3 shows an example of the mystery word card 30 of a different second 
deck 34. On the obverse side 30a are three words each of different length. 
The first word 31 is a three letter word taken from a first set of three 
letter words. The second word 32 is a four letter word taken from a second 
set of four letter words. The third word 33 is a five letter word taken 
from a third set of five letter words. 
FIG. 4 shows the reverse side 40 of the mystery word card 30. This side 40 
has words 41 inscribed in succession thereon. In addition, there is a 
large question mark 42 placed in the center of the card. 
FIG. 5 shows the obverse side 50a of the wild card 50. In the top left 
corner 51 is lettering 51a. In the lower right hand corner 52 is lettering 
52a inscribed thereon. The card face 50a has a lateral axis dividing line 
57 separating it into halves 58 and 59. Exclamation point 53 is on one 
half 58 with exclamation point 54 on the other half 59. Words 55, 56 are 
placed on both sides of the dividing line adjacent to the exclamation 
points 53, 54, respectively. This wild card has the same reverse side 20 
as the other letter playing cards 10, allowing players to conceal the 
presence of their wild cards. 
One embodiment of the word rummy game is played in the following manner. 
First, each player draws one mystery word card 30 from a different second 
deck 34 of fifty cards. The mystery word card 30 is kept secret and 
assigns three words to each player; a five letter word 33, a four-letter 
word 32, and a three-letter word 31. Then the dealer deals each player 
twelve playing cards 10 from a deck of letter playing cards. The first 
playing deck includes 210 letter cards which features all 26 letters of 
the alphabet (eight duplicate cards per letter) plus two wild cards 50. 
After the dealer finishes dealing these cards, he places the first playing 
deck face-down in the middle of the table. This face down first playing 
deck then becomes the draw pile. Then the dealer takes the top card from 
the draw pile and places it face up next to the draw pile. This new face 
up card then becomes the base for the discard pile. However, if the top 
card taken from the draw pile is a wild card, then the wild card is placed 
in the middle of the draw pile and another card is drawn. Every player 
keeps his letter playing cards 10 and mystery word cards 30 concealed from 
everyone else. The object of the game is to be the first player to obtain 
all the letters required to spell out all three words on his mystery word 
card by drawing and discarding playing cards in a rummy-like manner. 
Another embodiment of this game is played the following manner. Each player 
draws a mystery word card 30 and places it face-up in the middle of the 
table. The dealer then deals twelve letter playing cards 10 to each 
player. The first player to spell out a three letter word 31, a four 
letter word 32, and a five letter word 33 wins. However, in this case, 
once a player spells any of the three letter words, four letter words, or 
five letter words in the mystery word cards, that player discards the 
letters spelling his word face up in front of him. That word and those 
playing cards are then removed from play and the game continues. Each 
player then continues to play with his remaining number of cards and draws 
and discards in turn as in the usual manner in a rummy game. A player is 
not permitted to discard the same word as another player. In other words, 
once someone discards a word, no one else is allowed to use the same word. 
The following Table contains a list of word combinations useful for the 
word cards. 
TABLE 
______________________________________ 
LIST OF TRIPLE WORD COMBINATIONS 
USEFUL FOR A WORD CARD 
NO. 5 LETTERS 4 LETTERS 3 LETTERS 
______________________________________ 
1. SEVEN GNAT INK 
2. ACUTE XRAY DOG 
3. GLASS ZOOM MAP 
4. GROSS AXIS CAT 
5. IGLOO EARN GUN 
6. ABYSS GAME DIG 
7. HEAVY DISH BIN 
8. ENTER QUIT FOG 
9. GREEN K ANT 
10. OCCUR BORE HIP 
11. PLACE CROP MAN 
12. PLUTO BOAT INN 
13. UNION PLAY EGG 
14. DRIVE OPEN CAR 
15. CRAVE NEXT JOB 
16. VIXEN MASH RUN 
17. BRICK ONYX FEW 
18. DRINK MOLE YAM 
19. EXTRA DRIP TOP 
20. BROOM CLAM SEW 
21. HAVEN UNIT ZOO 
22. WATER SHOE LOW 
23. WATCH FLEW RIM 
24. KNACK EASY ORE 
25. JACKS GROW AND 
26. FLUME LEFT ACT 
27. PLANE VAST NOT 
28. GROUP JUMP KEY 
29. MONEY GLUE VAN 
30. ZEBRA GOAT OFF 
31. RADIO TUBE FLY 
32. BLIMP TEST LAD 
33. BOXER LAZY ARM 
34. CLOCK FAKE LID 
35. CANAL NEST POT 
36. QUICK PAGE END 
37. RIGHT FAME NOD 
38. NIGHT KING EWE 
39. FLOAT STEW WIN 
40. MARRY MILK TOE 
41. HAPPY ECHO FIN 
42. APPLE WEST KIT 
43. FIGHT RAIN BET 
44. STORE NAIL YES 
45. FLOOR HUGE JAR 
46. FLAME IDOL NET 
47. QUIET HERO TAR 
48. ABOUT IRON GET 
49. NORTH LACE CAN 
50. SOUTH YARN HAT 
______________________________________ 
While only two embodiments of the present invention have been shown and 
described, it is to be understood that many changes and modifications may 
be made thereunto without departing from the spirit and scope of the 
invention as defined in the claims.