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American style 3 players -- Build 4 walls. Deal 13 tiles to each player (14 to the dealer) as normal. Just skip the empty seat (nobody is West, for example) -- do not deal tiles to the empty seat. Skip the Charleston, just go straight to the dealer's first discard.
American style 2 players -- Same. Sit opposite each other. Build 4 walls. Dealer has 14 tiles, opposite player has 13 tiles (as usual). No Charleston. No dummy seats.
Note: Some people reject the skipping of the Charleston, and make a table rule governing how to do a Charleston with 3 players. For example, here's one way to do a 3-handed Charleston: When passing to the empty seat, place the 3 tiles by the wall at that side of the table. When taking tiles from the empty seat, take any 3 tiles from that side of the table. At the end of the Charleston, repair the now-thoroughly-messed-up wall on the empty side of the table. Click here to jump to Tom's Three Rules on Table Rules.
"Oh, just one more question. What about five players, how does that work?"
Who are you, Columbo?? (^_^) If you have five players, the normal thing is for the 5th player to sit out.
At the outset (all 5 players being present), everyone roll the dice. Low roller sits out first hand. At the end of the hand, dealer steps away from the table and 5th player takes her seat. At the end of the next hand, dealer steps away and the out player steps in. And so on.
There's also the popular "bettor" method. 5th player reviews all players' hands after the Charleston is complete, to determine who she thinks will win the hand. On a separate table removed from the game table, she writes the name of her "bet-on" player. She is not permitted to make ANY comment else her bet is voided. After the hand is finished, she collects just as the bet-on player does, if the bet-on wins. Or she pays just as the bet-on player does, if the bet-on loses.
"What about six players?"
I thought you said "just one more question" before? (^_^)
"I lied. :-)"
Wise guy. If you have six players, two players sit out. When the previous dealer gets up from the table, one of the sit-outers sits in. When next dealer gets up, the next sit-outer sits in. It's an orderly rotation, not hard to figure out.
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