About Gin Rummy
Gin Rummy is the classic two-player rummy game. You and a robot each hold ten cards, and every turn you take a card from the stock or the discard pile and throw one away, trying to arrange your hand into sets of the same rank and runs in one suit. When the cards you cannot meld add up to ten or less, you can knock and end the hand. Arrange sorts your melds for you and shows your deadwood at a glance.
How to play Gin Rummy
- Each turn take the top card of the stock or of the discard pile, then discard one card.
- Make melds: three or four cards of the same rank, or three or more in a row in one suit (ace low). Cards outside melds are deadwood: pictures 10, aces 1, the rest their number.
- Knock when your deadwood is 10 or less: the robot lays off cards on your melds. Lower deadwood scores the difference; if the robot ties or beats you it scores 25 more (an undercut). Gin, no deadwood at all, scores 25 more.
- The first to 100 points wins. Arrange sorts your melds for you. Scores are saved on this device.
Tips & strategy
- Throw away high cards that do not fit anything early; a stray king counts 10 against you.
- Watch what the robot picks up from the discard pile and avoid feeding it cards next to those.
- Knocking early with a few points of deadwood often beats waiting for gin.
- Keep cards that could join two melds, such as a seven next to a run and a pair of sevens.
Gin Rummy: questions and answers
What is deadwood?
The cards in your hand that are not part of a set or a run. Kings, queens and jacks count 10, aces 1 and the other cards their number.
What is an undercut?
When a player knocks and the other player’s deadwood, after laying off cards on the knocker’s melds, is the same or lower. The defender then scores the difference plus 25.
What does gin score?
Going gin, knocking with no deadwood at all, scores 25 plus the other player’s deadwood, and they cannot lay off any cards.
When is a hand a draw?
If the stock runs down to two cards and nobody has knocked, nobody scores and the next hand is dealt.