The rulebook
How to play Gin Rummy
Two players, ten cards each, everything kept in your hand. Get your unmatched cards low enough and knock — or match every last one and call gin.
Step 1
The deck and the deal
One standard 52-card deck, two players, ten cards each. One card is turned face up as the opening upcard; the remaining 31 are the stock. Unlike the table rummies, the stock is never turned back over — running it down is how a hand can die.
Step 2
The opening upcard
Before ordinary play starts, the upcard is offered to the non-dealer, then to the dealer. Whoever takes it picks it up and throws a card away, and play begins from there. If both refuse, the player who was offered it first draws from the stock instead. This ritual is fixed — skipping it would hand the non-dealer a free look nobody agreed to.
Step 3
Your turn: draw one, then end it
Draw one card — off the stock, or the face-up top of the discard pile (gin never digs deeper). Then end your turn by discarding one card. Nothing is ever laid on the table: your melds stay concealed in your hand until somebody ends the hand.
Step 4
Melds and deadwood
A set is three or four of a kind; a runis three or more in sequence in one suit. Aces are always low and always worth one; face cards are 10, and every other card its face value. Whatever a card can't be matched into is deadwood, and the total deadwood points in your hand is the number the whole game turns on.
Step 5
Knocking, and gin
Instead of an ordinary discard you may knock— discard, lay your hand out, and end it — provided the deadwood you're left with is at or under the knock threshold (10 by default). Knock with zero deadwood and that's gin: a bonus on top, and your opponent may not lay anything off.
Step 6
The defender's answer
Against an ordinary knock, the defender lays out their own hand and adds any loose cards that fit onto the knocker's melds, shrinking their own deadwood. The knocker then scores the difference between the two deadwood counts. But if the defender ends up at or below the knocker, that's an undercut: the points go the other way, with a bonus, and the hand belongs to the defender. That risk is what makes a thin knock a gamble instead of a free roll.
Step 7
Dead hands
If the stock runs down to two cards with nobody having knocked, the hand is dead: nobody scores, nothing is recorded, and the same hand number is dealt again. It's a normal outcome, not an error — two cards leaves neither player a draw, so the hand simply can't continue.
Step 8
Winning, and what this table fixes
Hands are dealt until someone's cumulative score crosses the target (100 by default, settable at the deal); highest total takes it. Three rules aren't offered as options: ten cards each and exactly two players — gin is a two-handed game by construction, and the three-handed variants deal a spectator rather than a third seat; aces always low, because gin has no ace-high run; and the opening upcard ritual above. What you canset is the knock threshold (0 makes it “straight gin” — you may only go out fully melded), the two bonuses, and the target.