Okey strategy
Never throw an okey, except to finish. Keep partial runs and sets that can be filled more than one way, and let go of tiles that only one missing tile could ever help. Watch what the player on your right takes, and don't throw them tiles that fit it. Take the tile on your left only when it brings you closer to finishing, since everyone sees what you took.
What an okey is worth
An okey is a wild tile: it fills any gap. About one rack in four starts with one. With 14 tiles, the chance of at least one okey is exactly 25.0%, and 26.6% for the player who starts with 15. Getting both is rare: 1.7% for a 14-tile rack.
In our test games, here's how often a player won the hand, by the number of okeys in their starting rack:
| Okeys at the deal | Player-hands | Won the hand |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 5,577 | 16.5% |
| 1 | 1,758 | 46.4% |
| 2 | 129 | 73.6% |
With four players, an even share would be 25%. Our strong player never throws an okey except to finish, and you shouldn't either. Our game asks you to tap twice before it lets one go.
Keep what can be filled two ways
Every partial group on your rack is waiting for a tile. Some can use more tiles than others. There are two copies of every tile, plus the two okeys that fill anything. These counts are exact, before any tile has been thrown:
| You hold | Tiles that complete it | Copies in the set |
|---|---|---|
| Red 5, red 6 (two in a row) | Red 4 or red 7 | 4, plus 2 okeys |
| Red 12, red 13 | Red 11 or red 1 (the 1 can go high) | 4, plus 2 okeys |
| Red 9, black 9 (two of a set) | Yellow 9 or green 9 | 4, plus 2 okeys |
| Red 5, red 7 (a gap in the middle) | Red 6 only | 2, plus 2 okeys |
| Red 1, red 2 | Red 3 only (a run can't go below 1) | 2, plus 2 okeys |
| Red 9, red 9 (a pair) | Nothing for sets and runs; it's one of seven pairs | 0 more red 9s exist |
So two in a row in the middle, or two of a number in different colors, are worth twice a middle gap. Red 12 and 13 is as good as any other pair in a row, because the 1 can follow the 13. Red 1 and 2 is the weak one. When you have to break something up, break the group with fewer tiles left that can help it.
Those counts shrink as tiles are thrown. If both red 6s are already in the piles, red 5 and red 7 can only be joined by an okey. Our strong player keeps track of this for every gap and treats a gap like that as close to dead. You can do the same with the Thrown tiles panel under the game.
Take from the left, or draw?
Taking the tile on your left is free information for everyone at the table. They all see what you took, and a good player stops throwing you anything near it. Drawing from the middle tells them nothing.
Our strong player only takes the tile when it brings its rack a tile closer to finishing, or when it's an okey. In the test games that added up to 20.2% of all pickups; the rest came from the middle stack. When it isn't sure a tile helps, it draws.
Don't feed the player on your right
Whatever you throw lands in front of the next player. Before you throw, look at what they've taken from you this hand. If they took a black 8, a black 7 or 9 is risky, and so is an 8 of another color. Tiles they let go by are safer, because they passed them up once already.
This matters most late in the hand, when most racks are a tile or two from finishing. Our strong player weighs this risk on every throw and leans on it harder once the middle stack is low.
How long a hand lasts
In our test games, a hand that someone won took 7.6 rounds on average (one round is a turn for each of the four players). Half were over within 8 rounds, and 30.0% were over within 6. The middle stack starts with 48 tiles, which lasts 12 rounds if everyone draws, and 2.0% of hands ran it out with nobody finishing.
The player who starts, with 15 tiles, won 27.2% of the hands that someone finished, against an even share of 25%. In our games, starting with an extra tile and the first throw was a small edge.
Seven pairs and the okey throw
Seven pairs and finishing by throwing an okey both pay double: 4 points from each player instead of 2. Neither comes up much. Our strong players finished with seven pairs in 1.0% of won hands (19 of 1,828), and never once threw an okey to finish.
Pairs are slow because each missing tile has only one copy left to find. For sets and runs a gap usually has two or four. So count both ways: how many tiles you still need for seven pairs, and how many for sets and runs. Our strong player goes for whichever needs fewer, and on a tie it sticks with sets and runs, because their gaps have more tiles that fill them.
That zero isn't luck. To finish by throwing the okey, your other 14 tiles have to win without it. Since the okey can be any tile, the turn before (with the okey in place of the tile you just picked up) you already held a winning hand and could have finished. So the okey throw only comes to a player who passes up a win, or whose dealt tiles were already a winning hand. Our strong player never passes up a win.
Should you? Playing on means at least one more round for the other three to finish first, which is the risk pagat warns about, and you need a tile that completes your hand without the okey. Waiting turns a sure 2 points from each player into a chance at 4. Our game gives you the choice: when your winning hand uses an okey, a Play on for an okey throw button sits under Finish.
Show the indicator copy
There's one more copy of the indicator tile in the set. If it's on your rack at the start, show it before you first take a tile, and each other player loses 1 point. The starter gets until the start of their second turn, since they throw first without taking anything. Once you take a tile, the chance is gone. A 14-tile rack holds it 13.3% of the time, and the starter's 15 tiles 14.3%. Showing it costs nothing, since the tile stays on your rack. Our game puts a Show button on the table when you can.
Points, not just wins
A game is played to zero, and the top two of four win. A typical game between our strong players lasted 9.3 hands. You can lose a hand and still win the game, so a hand nobody finishes isn't a disaster for you. A single hand only takes 2 points off each loser (4 at most, or 8 with the one-color house rule), and the shows add 1 here and there.
Put these ideas to work in a game: play okey against the computer and use the Hint button to see what the strong player would do. The rules behind everything here are on our okey rules page.
Sources
- Our own test games: 200 games between four strong computer players, and exact counts from the 106-tile set (
scripts/okey-sim.jsonin the site's code). - John McLeod, "Okey", pagat.com (rules, scoring, the risk of waiting to throw an okey).
- "Okey", Wikipedia (rules and scoring).