Gin Rummy Rules

Gin Rummy is a two-player game using a standard 52-card deck with no jokers. Deal ten cards to each player, place the remaining cards face down as the stock, and turn the top card face up to start the discard pile. Card order runs from king down to ace: the ace is always low in Gin Rummy. That means A-2-3 of a suit is a valid run, but Q-K-A is not. Keeping that in mind early saves a lot of broken melds later.

Your goal is to arrange your ten cards into melds while shrinking the value of whatever does not fit. A meld is either a set — three or four cards of the same rank, like 7-7-7 — or a run — three or more consecutive cards in the same suit, like 4-5-6 of hearts. A single card can only belong to one meld at a time. Cards that are not part of any meld are your deadwood. The hand ends when one player knocks or goes gin, and deadwood decides who scores.

On each turn you draw one card, either the face-down top card of the stock or the face-up top card of the discard pile, then end your turn by discarding one card face up. Taking the discard tells your opponent exactly which card you wanted, so it is usually reserved for cards that complete or clearly strengthen a meld. Play alternates until someone knocks, goes gin, or the stock runs too low, in which case the hand is a draw and is redealt.

Deadwood is counted by card value: aces count 1, number cards count their face value, and jacks, queens, and kings count 10 each. A hand holding an unmatched king and queen carries 20 points of deadwood, while an unmatched ace and 2 carry only 3 — which is why experienced players shed high unmatched cards early.

When your deadwood after discarding would be 10 points or lower, you may knock to end the hand. Both hands are then revealed. The defender may lay off deadwood cards onto your melds — adding a fourth 9 to your set of 9s, or extending your 4-5-6 run with the 3 or 7 — to reduce their own count. If your deadwood is lower than the defender's after lay-offs, you score the difference between the two counts. Knock with 3 against 18 and you score 15. Knocking early protects a lead but invites the undercut described below.

If all ten of your cards form melds after your discard, you have zero deadwood and go gin. Gin scores the opponent's entire deadwood count plus a 25-point bonus, and the opponent may not lay off any cards against a gin hand — a key reason patient players decline a safe knock. There is also big gin: if the card you draw gives you eleven cards that all form melds, you can declare big gin immediately without discarding. Many tables award a larger bonus for it, commonly 31 points instead of 25.

Knocking carries a risk. If the defender's deadwood — after laying off — is equal to or lower than the knocker's, the defender undercuts the knock. The defender scores the difference in deadwood plus a 25-point undercut bonus, turning the knocker's aggression directly into points. The undercut is what makes knock timing the central decision of Gin Rummy: a 9- or 10-point knock late in the hand, when your opponent has had time to thin their deadwood, is often a losing play.

A match is played over several hands, and the first player to reach 100 total points wins the game. On paper, traditional scoring then adds end-of-game bonuses: the winner receives a 100-point game bonus, and each player adds a 25-point line bonus (also called a box bonus) for every hand they won along the way. If the loser failed to win a single hand, the winner's bonuses are commonly doubled — a shutout, sometimes called a blitz or schneid. This online version plays straight to 100 with the standard 25-point gin and undercut bonuses, so you can practice the same scoring decisions that matter in a paper-scored match.