How to Play Gin Rummy

  • To start the game each player is dealt 10 cards face down. The remaining cards are placed in a stack between each player.
  • Each player will then pick up his cards and organize them by trying to produce melds in the process. A meld is a set of three or four cards of either the same value or sequential and the same suit. So for example, if a player has three sevens, they will want to put those together, or if the player has a four, five, and six of clubs, they will want to put those cards together.
  • Players then begin drawing cards from the stack in the middle which is pointed face down; each player must draw a card from this pile, or the discard pile.
  • The discard pile is positioned face up so all players can see the cards that have been discarded. A player cannot have more 10 cards in their and at any time.
  • The goal is to end your melds by completing them in three or four card sets. Most players usually go for two melds of three, and one of four. However, in rare cases, a player may go for a meld of ten cards. However, this is extremely rare and very hard to accomplish.

Call Gin

  • When a player has accomplished completing their sets, the players will then call Gin and place their cards down.
  • The other player will take any melds they have and lay them face down and they can also use any single cards that they might have to add on to the melds that the other player has.
  • If a player calls gin, he will get points for the deadwood that the opponent has. The deadwood is the remaining cards that cannot be added to a meld. These deadwood points are added to the opponents score for the round. The winning player will also receive a 25 point bonus for winning. The game ends when a player reaches 100 points.

Knocking at Gin Rummy

Players also do not have to call gin but they can choose to knock. When a player knocks, they usually have less than 10 deadwood points remaining. Deadwood points are those that are remaining in a player’s hand that cannot be put into a meld. When a player knocks he subtracts his deadwood score from the opponent and that is the score for the round for the player that knocked. The same rules apply when knocking for the total amount of points to win has to equal 100.