Gambling on the Great Game of Gin Rummy
Since its introduction in the 1930s, gin rummy has been a favorite social game. It has increased in popularity among big-money gamblers, and you can also chose it when you play poker online. The Play and End of Play may be explained as follows:
Play
Only two players may participate in a hand. To start the game, each player draws a card to determine the dealer. Generally the loser deals. The players agree after the start what the game-winning total will be. Each player is dealt ten cards. The remainder of the deck is placed on the table to form the stock and the top card is placed face up beside it to begin the discard pile. Some play with eleven cards dealt to the nondealer, who begins the discard pile by discarding one card from his hand.
The object of the game is to reduce ones' point count of unmatched cards by forming "melds" of three-or-four-of-a-kind or three or more cards of the same suit in sequence. To accomplish this, each player in turn draws either the top card of the stock or the face card of the discard pile and then discards one card face up onto the discard pile. If on his first turn the nondealer does not wish to draw the up card, he must give the dealer the option to do so before proceeding. A player may not discard the card he just drew from the discard pile on the same turn. Examination of the discard pile is forbidden.
End of Play
Play continues until one player either "knocks" or "goes gin." A player may knock, after drawing and before discarding, whenever his total of unmatched points is ten or less. (In computing unmatched points, picture cards count ten each; aces count one; all other cards count their index value.)
When a player knocks, he discards face down and each player then lays down his melds face up and his unmelded cards in a separate group. The knocker's opponent may "lay off" any unmelded cards in his hand that match the knocker's melds. The point values of each player's unmatched cards are then totaled and the difference determines the score. The loser generally deals the next hand.
A player need not exercise his option to knock. He may instead continue playing in the hopes of going gin. A player has gin when all ten cards in his hand are arranged in melds. When a player goes gin, play is concluded as explained above except that the loser may not lay off cards against the winning hand.
If no one has knocked or gone gin by the time the stock is down to two cards, the hand is declared a draw. The dealer of the previous hand deals the next.
