Machiavelli (Italian card game)

Machiavelli, also known as Thirty-Six, is an Italian card game derived from Rummy that emerged in Italy during the Second World War and is played as a party game rather than for gambling. It is usually played by two to five people, though larger groups can take part, using two standard fifty-two card decks with the jokers removed; players are dealt twelve or fifteen cards each depending on the variant and the number at the table. Its defining feature, distinguishing it from ordinary Rummy, is that players are allowed to rearrange and extend melds already laid on the table, not only their own combinations, in order to unload additional cards from their hand, which gives the game a more fluid, cooperative-feeling table state than standard Rummy while still rewarding players who empty their hand first.