From: rusin@vesuvius.math.niu.edu (Dave Rusin)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: RUMMIKUB
Date: 6 Jan 1998 04:54:03 GMT

Our family received the game RUMMIKUB (Pressman Toy Corp, NJ) at
Christmas and, as unfortunately always happens with these things, I have
been analyzing it as I learn to play it. I have two questions:

1) Is there an electronic play-alike? I am unclear on how some of the
rules are to be executed, and I thought if I could watch the computer
play for a while I could see the rules in action. I have access to 
DOS, Windows, and Unix machines for this.

2) The principal part of each person's turn involves determining whether
or not a set of playing pieces can be partitioned into appropriate
subsets; I am curious as to whether there is an effective algorithm for
this. Ignoring the two "wild cards", each piece is assigned a
number in {1, 2, ..., 13} and one of four colors; there are precisely two
of each combination of number and color (104 pieces in all). The subsets into
which a set must be partitioned must have at least three elements each
and be of one of two types:
	a) All the same number and all colors distinct, or
	b) All the same color and all numbers consecutive.
Given a subset of these 104 pieces, it is clearly some kind of graph-theoretic
question to decide whether or not it can be so partitioned. I'm not really
very well-informed when it comes to combinatorial algorithms; can anyone
identify the rubrik under which this kind of question is usually known?
Is there an efficient algorithm to decide whether or not a partition exists?

(Actually, a player is given two disjoint sets  A  and  B  of the pieces, with
A  known to be partitioned already; the real question is to decide which 
subsets  S  of  B  make  A union S  partitionable -- basically the larger  S  
is, the better.)

dave
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From: corhout@usa.net
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 20:07:08
To: rusin@math.niu.edu
Subject: Rummikub software

Hello Dave,

The other day i was looking for this game called rummikub, and I
was taken to you ftpsite, just to see that you where also looking 
for a software version of the game.
Well I've attached a version (the only one that exists ?!?)
It's rather old and in 16 colors and a dos game, but what the
heck it works! (It's amazingly small too! 75k zipped.)


If you know of a better and/or other version please notify me.

Greetings Cor Hout.

corhout@usa.net

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From: corhout@usa.net
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 1998 11:01:19
To: rusin@math.niu.edu
Subject: Re: [Re:  Rummikub software]

[deletia -- djr]

Sorry, the url is:
ftp.svm.nl/COS/OVERIGE/RUMMIKUB.ZIP

Thats it.

Greetings.


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From: "Omi HONDA" <Omi_HONDA@msn.com>
To: <rusin@math.niu.edu>
Subject: Rummikub executable file.
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1998 11:30:02 -0800

have you visited this site at:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~alife/rummikub.htm

Hope it helps some.

------------------------------------------------------------
The only tutor for Visual Basic at Seattle Central Community College
           Math / Physics help also available. Contact me at 
                          Omi_HONDA@hotmail.com
                     ( Service in English / Japanese )
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