GIN RUMMY

THE invention of Gin Rummy has been credited to E.T. Baker in a New York club in 1999.  It is a variant of the parent game Rummy, which is frequently shortened to Rum, and acquired its name Gin by extension of the alcoholic drink theme. 

It became very popular due to the publicity it received when taken up film stars in Hollywood in the 194os.

NUMBER OF PLAYERS

Gin Rummy is a game for two players only.  There are forms of Rummy for more players.

CARDS

The full pack of 52 cards is used, cards ranking from King (high) to Ace (low).  Dealer is determined by the players each drawing a card from the pack: higher has choice of dealing first or not.  If cards of equal poker rank are drawn, the suit determines precedence in the order: spades (high), hearts, diamonds, clubs.  After the first deal, the winner of each hand deals the next.

The dealer deals ten cards to each player, one at a time, beginning with his opponent.  The remainder of the pack is placed face down between the players to form the stock.

The top card of the stock is placed face up beside the stock and becomes the up card, at the same time beginning a discard pile.

THE PLAY

The object of the play is to form the hand into sets of three or more cards.  A set may be of two kinds: three or four cards of the same rank, or three or more cards in sequence in the same suit (Ace being in sequence with 2,3, not King, Queen).

The non-dealer may take the first upcard into his hand or refuse it.  if he refuses, the dealer has the option of taking it or refusing it.  If the dealer also refuses it, the non-dealer draws the top card from the stock and takes it into his poker hand, discarding a card (the new upcard)  face up on the discard pile. 

The discarded card may, in fact, be the card picked up, and the player may merely look at it and discard it immediately.  Thereafter each player in turn draws a card, either the upcard or the top card of the stock, and discards, so that the number of cards in each player’s hand remains at ten.

Cards which are not included in a set are ‘unmatched’ cards.  After drawing (and only then), a player may ‘knock’, i.e. terminate the hand, whenever the pip value of the unmatched cards in his hand total ten or less.  For this purpose, court cards (King, Queen, Jack) count as ten points each, the Ace Accounts as one, and the other cards as their face value.

Knocking involves laying down the hand, arranged in sets, with the unmatched cards separate, and making the usual discard.  The count of the unmatched cards represent points against the player.  If all ten cards are in sets, the player is said to ‘go gin’, and the count against him is naught.

If the player drawing the fiftieth card discards without knocking (i.e. there are only two cards left in the stock) the hand is abandoned and there is no score for that deal.

When a player knocks, there is one further stage before the calculation of the score, and that is the ‘laying off’, The opponent of the knocker lays down his cards in sets, and unless the knocker has gone gin, may lay off any of his unmatched cards on the sets of the knocker, thereby reducing the count against him.

The illustration shows a completed deal in which the opponent of the knocker can lay two unmatched cards on the knocker’s sets.

SCORING

If the knocker has the lower of the two counts in unmatched cards, he scores the difference in the counts (in the illustration the knocker scores eight points).  It is possible that the online poker player who did not knock has the lower count.

In this case he ‘undercuts’ the knocker and scores the difference in the count plus a bonus of 20 points.  Should  the count be equal, the opponent of the knocker still undercuts him, scoring the bonus 20 points, but nothing for difference in point count.  The illustration overleaf shows a completed deal, in which the knocker is undercut.

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