Okey: Turkish Tile Game
Arrange your rack, hide the joker, finish first.
How to play
On your turn, draw from the centre pile or take the tile the player on your left just discarded, then discard one tile. Arrange your rack into runs (same colour, at least 3 in a row) and sets (same number, 3-4 different colours). The tile one above the face-up indicator is the okey, a joker that can stand for any tile; the false okey is not a joker; it simply takes the colour and number of the okey tile. When every tile is part of a run or set, place your last tile in the centre to finish the hand. Seven pairs also win. Everyone starts with 20 (or 10) points and loses points when someone else finishes; when someone reaches zero the game ends and the player with the most points left wins. In a partner game the player opposite you is your partner: when either of you finishes, only the other team loses points.
How to play Okey: a complete guide
Okey is the classic Turkish tile game for four players, played with 106 tiles. In Okey on CetinsGame you sit at the table with three computer opponents. You arrange your tiles on the rack (in Turkish ıstaka, the wooden board that holds your tiles), draw one tile and discard one tile each turn, and once all 14 tiles form runs and sets you lay the 15th tile in the middle to finish the hand. The game offers a Quick Game against Easy, Medium or Hard opponents, played solo or as partners (2 vs 2), the Apartment Table story of five winter evenings plus the Masters' Table, a Daily Hand where everyone gets the same tiles, daily tasks and a step-by-step tutorial. After every hand, "What would the master have done?" reviews your key decisions.
The goal
In every hand you want to finish before anyone else. When a hand ends, the other three players lose points. Everyone starts with the same score: 10 in a Short game, 20 in a Classic game. When someone drops to zero the game is over and the player with the most points left comes first. A Short game lasts four or five hands on average, a Classic game about twice as long.
Okey is less about luck than patience and memory: two players can get the same tiles, and the one who watches what they keep, what they discard and what the others are collecting usually wins.
Controls: draw, arrange, discard, finish
Your rack sits at the bottom of the screen. On a phone in portrait and on a computer it has two rows (2 × 12 slots); on a phone held sideways it has one. When it is your turn:
- Draw: tap the pile in the middle or drag a tile onto your rack. To take the tile your left neighbour discarded, drag it or tap it.
- Arrange: drag tiles into any slot. The Sort runs and Sort pairs buttons arrange the hand for you, and tiles are sorted into runs automatically after the deal.
- Discard: drag a useless tile to the Discard spot at the bottom right, or tap the tile twice.
- Finish: if your hand is complete, drop the last tile on the pile in the middle or press Finish. The button finds the finishing tile itself and prefers a finish with the okey or with pairs when it can.
You can also play with a keyboard; the K key opens the list of shortcuts.
Okey, runs and ways to finish
The face-up tile in the middle is the indicator. The okey is the next number in the same colour (after 13 comes 1) and can stand in for any tile. The false okey, the tile with a star, is not a joker: it takes the okey's own value. Okey tiles on your rack carry a small mark in the corner.
- Run: at least 3 tiles of the same colour in sequence. 12-13-1 is valid, 13-1-2 is not.
- Set: 3 or 4 tiles of the same number in different colours.
- Pair: two tiles of the same colour and number; seven pairs also finish a hand.
A wrong finish costs nothing: if the hand is not complete, a "Not a complete hand" message appears and you lose nothing. If you are about to discard the okey, discard the indicator's twin without showing it, or discard a tile when you could finish, the game asks you once.
Scoring and your Okey score
At the table, points are counted down:
| Event | Points the others lose |
|---|---|
| Normal finish | 2 |
| Finish by discarding the okey | 4 |
| Finish with pairs | 4 |
| Pairs and the okey | 8 |
| Showing the indicator | 1 |
If you hold the indicator's twin, a Show indicator button appears on your first turn, before you discard. If the pile in the middle runs out, the hand is a draw.
Your account also keeps a running Okey score. Every hand you finish and every indicator you show earns points: double on Medium, four times on Hard. Coming first adds a bonus: in a Short game 20 on Easy, 50 on Medium and 100 on Hard; twice that in a Classic game.
Modes: Quick Game, partner okey, Apartment Table, Daily Hand
In Quick Game you pick the level (Easy, Medium, Hard) and the length. Easy opponents arrange their hand and throw away what they do not need, Medium opponents count the tiles still out there and try not to hand you what you want, and Hard opponents follow every tile on the table and play the odds. None of them sees your tiles or the order of the pile.
In Quick Game the Game type is Solo or Partners. In a partner game (2 vs 2) the player sitting opposite you is your partner; you cannot pass tiles to each other and hands stay hidden. When either of you finishes or shows the indicator, only the other team loses points; the team score is shared and shown at the top as Us / Them. When a team's score reaches zero, the game ends.
Apartment Table is the story mode: you are the new neighbour in the building and play five evenings with the residents.
- Welcome evening: Mrs Gülsüm, Uncle Şevket, Deniz (Easy).
- Snow day: Uncle Şevket, Deniz, Sabri the caretaker (Medium).
- Power cut: Deniz, Sabri the caretaker, Mr Hilmi, the manager (Medium).
- New Year's Eve: Uncle Şevket, Mr Hilmi, Mrs Gülsüm (Hard).
- Auntie Nazmiye's table: Auntie Nazmiye, Uncle Şevket, Deniz (Hard, 15 points).
- Masters' Table (opens after the final, can be replayed): a partner game; Auntie Nazmiye is your partner against her old friends Captain Rüstem and Mualla the tailor (Hard, 15 points).
Come first on an evening and the next one opens; from the second evening on, every win raises your title: Newcomer, Table Player, Apartment Master, Neighbourhood Champion, Okey Master. Each evening has badges: First, Clean first (without losing a single point), Okey discard and Pairs.
Every win at the Masters' Table puts your name on the building board. The first win gives the sixth title, Building Legend, and unlocks the Tulip tablecloth and the Mother-of-pearl rack.
Daily Hand is a single hand against three Medium opponents, dealt the same for everyone. Your first try of the day counts: the fewer discards you need, the more points you get; later tries are practice. How to play walks you through drawing, discarding and finishing with a prepared hand.
Tasks and end-of-hand analysis
The Tasks menu holds 3 tasks chosen by date each day and one weekly challenge, for example "Finish by discarding the okey" or "Win a partner game". Complete a task and claim its reward, which goes to your okey score. If you like, you can watch a short ad to claim the reward twice over; that is entirely your choice. The number of rewards waiting to be claimed appears as a small badge on the mode screen.
At the end of each hand, What would the master have done? compares your decisions in that hand with the Hard opponent's choices. The comparison uses only what you could see at that moment; the master does not know the hidden tiles either. Up to 3 key moments are shown:
- your hand was complete but you did not finish,
- you discarded a tile that your right neighbour took to finish,
- you passed up a useful tile on the left and drew from the middle,
- another discard would have left your hand one step closer to finishing.
If you played the hand just as the master would have, it says so too. The analysis is not shown in the How to play tutorial.
Helpers and appearance
The Master button marks the tile the strongest opponent would discard in your place with a turquoise frame; you can use it 3 times per game if you choose to watch a short ad. The Discards window shows every tile each player has thrown. On Easy a "Finish!" sign appears when your hand can be completed; you can switch it on for every level in the settings. If you do not come first, an optional ad lets you play a Rematch: win it and your points are doubled. When a hand ends, See the other hands shows your opponents' tiles.
As you earn titles, the Appearance menu unlocks new tablecloths (Burgundy, Turquoise, Kilim, Starry night, Tulip), tile backs (Tile art, Gold) and racks (Oak, Ebony, Mother-of-pearl). The music is a calm, quiet background track of Turkish melodies; sound effects and music can be switched off separately in the settings.
Tips
- Keep the okey. If you discard it, the player on your right picks it up and uses it as a joker.
- Only take from the left when it clearly moves your hand forward; that tile is in plain view and tells everyone what you are collecting.
- If both copies of a tile you are waiting for have been discarded, stop waiting. Check the Discards window and change direction.
- Watch what your right neighbour takes from the left, and avoid giving them the colour and number they need.
- Lonely end tiles like 1 and 13 fit into fewer runs; discard those first.
- With four or five pairs in hand, think about finishing with pairs: the others lose twice as many points.
- If you hold the indicator's twin, show it on your first turn; the chance is gone once you discard.
- In a partner game it is enough for one of you to finish: if your hand is far off, focus on not feeding the opponent on your right.
Okey: racks, tea and winter evenings
Okey is one of the most played table games in Türkiye, at home, in coffeehouses and on long winter evenings. Four players use 106 tiles: two of each number from 1 to 13 in four colours, plus two false jokers. The game is named after the joker tile that can stand for any other; keeping it hidden and playing it at the right moment is the art of the game. Okey 101 is a different game; this is classic okey.
- Type
- Tile-based table game from the rummy family
- Players
- 4
- Tiles
- 106: two of each number 1-13 in four colours, plus 2 false okeys
- Deal
- 15 tiles to the starting player, 14 to the others; 1 indicator
- Where it is popular
- Turkey and countries with Turkish communities
- Close relative
- Okey 101
Origins
Okey belongs to the rummy family, games in which players try to group the tiles or cards in their hand into runs and sets. Card versions of rummy are known around the world; okey is a version played with tiles that became widespread in Turkey. Exactly when and where it took its present form is not known for certain, and the origin of the name is debated. What is certain is that during the 20th century okey became one of the best-loved table games in Turkish homes, coffee houses and community clubs.
Tradition and everyday life
An okey set usually consists of four racks and a box of tiles. The click of tiles being lined up on a rack and the clatter of shuffling are familiar sounds in any home where okey is played. Often the game is an excuse to get together: a table is set up during holiday visits, on snowy evenings or when guests drop by, tea is brewed and tangerines are peeled. People chat, tease each other and retell old hands while they play.
Okey has its own vocabulary, too: phrases such as "keep the okey", "show the indicator", "go for pairs" or "take from the left" are understood at once around the table. The rules also vary a little from home to home, so whether 12-13-1 counts or how points are kept is usually agreed before the first hand.
Relatives and okey today
Okey's best-known sibling is Okey 101, where players lay their runs down on the table, add tiles to other players' runs and add up the numbers on their tiles at the end of a hand. Today okey is played by millions at home, on computers and on phones, and online tables help people living abroad keep the habit alive.
In our game: the Apartment Table
The story in our game is fiction. As the new neighbour you spend winter evenings with Mrs Gülsüm's tea, Uncle Şevket's memories, Sabri the caretaker's snow reports and Mr Hilmi's notebook. At the very end Auntie Nazmiye, who never invites anyone to her table, is waiting for you. There is no money and no betting at this table; the rewards are titles, badges and the neighbours' respect. That is the real face of okey in Turkish homes: time spent together.
How Okey was made
Okey is one of the best-loved tile games in Turkey, played by four people in coffeehouses and at home. Here you can set up that table on your own, against three computer opponents. The rules are classic Turkish okey: 106 tiles, the indicator, the okey and the false okey, finishing with pairs or by discarding the okey. Points that vary from home to home were settled at the start: 12-13-1 is a valid run, 13-1-2 is not, and an empty stack means a draw.
The rules were written independently of the screen, and each player sees only what they could see at a real table. The computer opponents never know the hidden tiles; it was checked separately that reshuffling those tiles does not change their decisions. The Easy, Medium and Hard levels were measured over thousands of computer hands. A deeper search was also tried for a stronger Hard level; it made no clear difference, so it was left out.
The tiles were drawn for this game: cream tiles with red, black, blue and yellow numbers, an extra shape mark for each colour for colour-blind players, and an eight-pointed star on the false okey. Soon after release the rack became two-tiered on desktop and tablet, like a real one; only landscape phones keep a single row.
The story mode is Apartment Table: five winter evenings, six neighbours, and Auntie Nazmiye in the final. The scenes were drawn in code, with no money or betting. Later versions added the Daily Hand, the same deal for everyone, a step-by-step tutorial, and table cloths and tile backs unlocked with titles. When a hand ends the other hands are shown so you see the tile you missed, and a confirmation stops you throwing the okey away by mistake.
The sounds are original and synthesised in code. The first music was a loop in the Uşşak scale; it was later rebuilt: the droning bass went, replaced first by a Hicaz melody on plucked strings; when players found that too sharp, a ney-like Uşşak melody was tried; in the end a quiet, royalty-free Turkish background track (Pixabay) was chosen. Every version was tested on six screen sizes, and the game is available in seven languages.
Frequently asked questions
Which tile is the okey?
Look at the face-up tile in the middle, the indicator. The okey is the tile of the same colour that is one number higher; if the indicator is 13, the okey is the 1 of that colour. There are two okeys in the game, and on your rack they carry a small mark in the corner.
Is the false okey a joker?
No. The false okey takes the value of the tile that became the okey. If the okey is red 8, the false okey goes into a run or set like an ordinary red 8.
Does 12-13-1 count as a run?
In our game it does, and so does 11-12-13-1. But 13-1-2 is not valid: the sequence does not wrap around after 13.
What does finishing with the okey mean?
If your hand is complete without needing the okey and the tile you lay down to finish is the okey, you finish by discarding the okey. The others lose 4 points instead of 2. The Finish button spots this chance on its own.
How do you finish with pairs?
If your 14 tiles split into seven pairs, you can finish. A pair is two tiles of the same colour and number; the okey pairs with any tile, and two okeys also count as a pair. The others lose 4 points, or 8 if you also discard the okey.
When can I show the indicator?
Only on your first turn, before your first discard, and only if you hold the indicator's twin. Press Show indicator and the other three players lose 1 point; the tile stays in your hand.
Can the computer opponents see my tiles?
No. They only know what everyone can see: the discarded tiles and the tiles taken from the left. They do not see your rack or the order of the pile, and tiles are shuffled securely at random every hand.
What does the Master button do?
When you are stuck, it marks with a turquoise frame the tile the strongest opponent would discard in your place. It can be used 3 times per game, opens with an optional short ad and only gives you a suggestion.
How do I unlock the next evening at the Apartment Table?
You need to come first on your current evening. From the second evening on, each win raises your title; winning the fifth evening makes you Okey Master. After the final evening the Masters' Table opens: you play as Auntie Nazmiye's partner, and your first win there gives the Building Legend title.
Can I play partner okey?
Yes. In Quick Game choose Partners as the game type: the computer player opposite you becomes your partner and you play 2 vs 2. When either of you finishes or shows the indicator, only the other team loses points; the team score is shown at the top as Us / Them. The Masters' Table in the Apartment Table story is also a partner game.
What is the end-of-hand analysis?
After each hand, "What would the master have done?" compares your draws and discards with the Hard opponent's choices. The master only uses what you could see at that moment and does not know the hidden tiles. It shows up to 3 key moments: a missed finish, a tile that let your right neighbour finish, a useful tile on the left you did not take, or a discard that kept your hand further from finishing.
Is Okey: Turkish Tile Game free?
Yes. No download or account needed; it plays right in your browser. Watching an ad for a hint is always your choice.
Will I lose my progress?
Your progress is saved automatically on this device. Sign in and it moves to your account, so you can continue on any device.
Can I play on my phone?
Yes. The game opens full screen on phones; tap the X in the corner to exit. On iPhone use "Add to Home Screen" to play it like an app.
Can I play Okey: Turkish Tile Game offline?
Yes. A game you have opened once is stored on your phone or computer and opens without internet. Leaderboards and cloud saves need a connection.
Which languages are available?
Turkish, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and Russian.
Comments
Sign in to write a comment.
No comments yet. Be the first.
